The 35-member Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board is discussing the latest report from its director Mohammed ElBaradei which asserts that Iran is hiding work with possible military nuclear dimensions - “a matter of serious concern” which should be explained without delay. 

The meeting started in Vienna Monday, June 2, amid deep concern over intelligence gathered by 10 different countries that Iran may have been looking into high explosives of the sort used in implosion-type nuclear bombs, and exploring modifications to missiles consistent with making them capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. This is in defiance of three rounds of UN sanctions.

DEBKAfile reports that US intelligence presented 18 documents confirming this finding, drawing on materials contained in a laptop stolen from one of the heads of Iran’s nuclear program in Tehran in late 2006 by Iranian dissidents.

Citing the new IAEA report, the Financial Times quoted scientists and analysts as predicting that during next year, Iran is likely to build up a stockpile of enriched uranium that could be turned into enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months. Iran is twice as effective in enriching uranium as before.

Yet, according to DEBKAfile’s political sources, the Israeli government – in disarray over corruption disclosures against prime minister Ehud Olmert - is in no condition for clear action in the face of Iran’s progress towards a nuclear bomb capability. By the time Israel sorts out its political crisis, whether by an early election or the formation of a new government, several months will have elapsed , time for Iran to have moved beyond the point of no-return on nuclear weaponization.

An official connected to the watchdog disclosed that since December, the Iranians have processed close to 150 kilograms, double the amount produced in the same period 18 months ago.

The ElBaradei report describes Iran’s installation of new IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges for enriching uranium at the Natanz site as “significant” - yet not communicated to his agency. IAEA inspectors on a visit in April were denied access to the sites where the centrifuges are manufactured and the scientists involved.

Some of the production, the report states, comes under Iran’s “military” (a reference to the Revolutionary Guards corps which is in charge of Iran’s nuclear weapons industry).

The board is to spend between three and five days on this report and expected to reach tough conclusions. Nonetheless, the European Union’s senior diplomat Javier Solana is trying to hand over an incentives package developed by France, Germany, Britain, the US, Russia and China that is supposed to entice Tehran to give up its nuclear program.

Our Washington sources report that president George W. Bush is closer than ever before to ordering a limited missile-air bombardment of the IRGC-al Qods Brigade’s installations in Iran. It is planned to target training camps and the munitions factories pumping fighters, missiles and roadside bombs to the Iraqi insurgency, Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza.

Iran is geared up for counteraction.

US intelligence estimates that Tehran’s counteraction will likewise be on a limited scale and therefore any US-Iranian military encounter will not be allowed to explode into a major confrontation. Because this US assault is not planned to extend to Iran’s nuclear installations, Tehran is not expected to hit back at distant American targets in the Persian Gulf or at Israel.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report, however, that Iran’s military preparations for countering an American attack are far broader than envisaged in Washington. Tehran would view a US attack on the IRGC bases as a casus belli and might react in ways and on a scale unanticipated in Washington.

Two days ago, Iran’s defense minister Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar warned: “Iran’s Armed Forces are fully prepared to counter any military attack with any intensity and to make the enemy regret initiating any such incursions.”

According to DEBKAfile’s Iranian and military sources, the IRGC had by mid-May completed their preparations for a US missile, air or commando assault on their command centers and bases in reprisal for Iranian intervention in Iraq.

These preparations encompass al Qods’ arms, most of them undercover, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan. At home, the Revolutionary Guards have evacuated their key bases together with manpower and equipment to regular army sites or temporary quarters in villages located in remote corners of eastern and northern Iran. Their main headquarters and central training center at the Imam Ali University in northern Tehran are deserted except for sentries on the gates.

Indoctrination seminaries and dormitories hosting fighting strength in the holy town of Qom are empty, as is the Manzariyah training center east of the capital.

Deserted too is the main training camp near Isfahan for insurgents and terrorists from Iraq, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is here that they take courses from friendly al Qods training staff on how to sabotage strategic targets such as routes, bridges and military installations, and the activation of the extra-powerful roadside bombs (EFPs) which have had such a deadly effect on American troops in Iraq.

One of the biggest problems with the Iraq War is that politics has frequently triumphed over truth. For instance, we went into Iraq with shoddy intelligence (at best), no reconstruction plan, and perhaps half as many troops as were required. We refused to admit that an insurgency was growing, until the country collapsed into anarchy and civil war. Now the truth is that Iraq is showing real progress on many fronts: Al Qaeda is being defeated and violence is down and continuing to decrease. As a result, the militias have lost their reason for existence and are getting beaten back or co-opted. Shia, Sunni and Kurds are coming together -- although with various stresses -- under the national government. If progress continues at this rate, it is very possible that before 2008 is out, we can finally say "the war has ended." Yes, likely there still will be some American casualties, but if the violence continues to drop and the Iraqi government consolidates its gains, we will be able, in good conscience, to begin bringing more of our people home. I will be paying very close attention to the words of Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, who is replacing General Petraeus as the overall commander in Iraq.

Whatever we do in Iraq from here forward, we must strive to make better decisions than those made between 2003 and 2006.

 

[...]

 

I would be honored to visit Iraq with Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator McCain or any of their Senate colleagues.

I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican. I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well. Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish. Touring Iraq with me, as well as briefings by U.S. officers and meetings with Iraqis, would provide an accurate and nuanced account of the progress and challenges ahead, so that the Senators might have a highly informed perspective on this most critical issue.

 

JERUSALEM – Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims, declared the chief of staff for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," said Abbas' chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini.

 

The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site.

Husseini was referring to Israeli plans to construct a new bridge from the Western Wall area to the Temple Mount.

The old bridge was damaged two years ago. When Israeli workers tried to repair it, Palestinian leaders claimed the work was threatening the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the mosque is located hundreds of feet away, the work did not tunnel under any Mount foundation or touch any structure connected to the mosque, and the repair work – which had been pre-approved by Jordan and the Mount's Muslim custodians – was conducted under the scrutiny of an accessible 24/7 webcam.

"Any hurting of Jerusalem will explode the whole negotiations between us and the Israelis ... we must work to strengthen Palestinian ties to Jerusalem," al-Husseini said.

Israel has been negotiating with Abbas in line with talks started at last November's U.S.-backed Annapolis Summit, which seeks to create a Palestinian state before the end of the year. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is widely expected to offer the Palestinians most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is located in eastern Jerusalem.

Mainstream Palestinian leaders claim the Temple Mount is Muslim in spite of overwhelming archaeological evidence documenting the first and second Jewish temples.

In a WND exclusive interview last year, Taysir Tamimi, chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most influential Muslim leaders in Israel, argued the Jewish Temples never existed, the Western Wall really was a tying post for Muhammad's horse, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built by angels, and Abraham, Moses and Jesus were prophets for Islam.

Tamimi is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the [Temple Mount]," Tamimi said during a sit-down interview in his eastern Jerusalem office.

The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples throughout Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount itself; excavations revealing Jewish homes and a synagogue in a site in Jerusalem called the City of David; or even the recent discovery of a Second Temple Jewish city in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Tamimi said descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged, and that the Torah was falsified to claim biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when indeed they were prophets for Islam.

[...]

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Temple was the center of religious worship for ancient Israelites. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's presence dwelt. All biblical holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Temples served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place for Israelites.

According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. It's believed to be the biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.

The Temple Mount has remained a focal point for Jewish services for thousands of years. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition.

The good news is that some politicians apparently do keep their promises. Immediately after being appointed Pakistan's prime minister earlier this year, Yousaf Raza Gilani promised negotiations with the Taliban, saying that his government was "ready to talk to all those who give up arms and adopt the path of peace." Regional officials echoed his sentiment. He has delivered. The bad news is that such negotiations are eroding Pakistan's security and creating an increasingly dangerous situation for Americans.

The trouncing of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's PML-Q party in the country's February elections signaled a repudiation of his internal policies and his alliance with the United States. Musharraf's approach to Pakistan's largely lawless tribal regions--havens for the Taliban and al Qaeda--swung clumsily erratically between mobilizing his forces and entering into unenforceable agreements that eroded his military credibility. Neither tactic did much good, but negotiating with terrorists was the more popular of the two failed policies.

It is not surprising then that Pakistan's new government launched a round of negotiations with the country's Islamic extremists. What was unexpected, though, was the scale of the negotiations. Talks have been opened and agreements entered with virtually every militant outfit in the country. But the government has done nothing to answer the problem of the past accords and is again accepting promises that it has no means of enforcing.

The Taliban violated each of the conditions of the now-infamous September 2006 Waziristan accords. It used the ceasefire as an opportunity to erect a parallel system of government complete with sharia courts, taxation, recruiting offices, and its own police force. Al Qaeda in turn benefited from the Taliban's expansion, building what U.S. intelligence estimates as 29 training camps in North and South Waziristan alone. And, while even the Waziristan accords paid lip service to stopping cross-border attacks against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, the new negotiations often leave this consideration aside. As North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) governor Owari Ghani recently told the New York Times, "Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side."

In the typical modus operandi of liberalism, an avalanche of recognition and awards were conferred upon Gore and his movie, from the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to an Oscar for "Best Documentary" to effusive accolades from every aspiring Tinseltown movie critic. The film, along with all of his efforts to foment a global warming panic, have since been predictably declared as universal truth, a judgment based not on the availability of evidence, but on the profusion of like-minded liberal ideologues who are willing to accept and advance his hysterical claims.

Not surprising was the immediate branding of any who are dubious of Gore's outlandish assertions as "heretics."

[...]

All is not yet lost however. A steadily growing number of brave souls are rising up to challenge the legitimacy of Gore's assertions, despite the certainty that they will be derided and castigated throughout the media, and in virtually all major "educational" institutions. Among the most notable of these challengers is Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

In stark contrast to the pampered elitists of Western Academia, or their Hollywood and D.C. minions, Klaus has endured decades of deprivation in Soviet dominated Czechoslovakia. Thus he has seen, first hand the hardship and suffering possible under the iron fist of unrestrained governing institutions that have no regard for the common citizen except as a mere "resource" to be exploited for the good of the state.

During that time, he personally witnessed the denial of basic freedoms and sustenance to the people, while those in key positions of government enjoyed relative plenty. In many ways, what he saw was a sorry likeness of the hypocrisy among "climate change" movement leaders, as they regularly fly around the world in their private jets while issuing calls for more meager lifestyles among lesser people.

Recognizing the potential menace of the current situation and how liberals are exploiting it, Klaus has boldly challenged Gore to an open debate on the entire topic of "climate change." Knowing that the tenets of his "green religion" cannot withstand intense scrutiny, it is a challenge that Gore cannot afford to accept.

As the title of Klaus's book (Blue Planet in Green Shackles) underscores, the question is not one of dangers to the climate, but of threats to the freedoms and well-being of average citizens. And though the theories of "global warming" are merely open-ended speculation, with time tables continually rolled back since the looming atmospheric upheavals never seem to keep pace with those dire forecasts, the encroachment on basic freedom and liberty is indeed progressing on schedule.

With unassailable insight, Klaus properly characterizes the moral arrogance of the global warming advocacy, again likening it to the ravages of communism with which he was so painfully familiar. At a National Press Club gathering last week, he compared the two sinister ideologies, sternly warning that "Like their predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality. In the past it was in the name of the Marxists or the proletariat. This time, in the name of the planet."

In a mathematical equation, 1+1 always = 2.

In an ideological equation, 1+1 can sometimes = 6+10

When it comes to the lives of their soldiers, Israel does not think mathematically, Israel thinks ideologically. And that makes the equation much more difficult to analyze, much more difficult to work out and much more emotionally laden. Ideological equations are not computed in our brains, they are wrenched from our hearts.

And that is the how and the why explaining Israel's decision to engage in talks with Hezbollah over the exchange of one famous Hezbollah terrorist, four live Lebanese prisoners, one Israeli Druze who spied for Hezbollah and ten dead Lebanese for two Israeli soldiers taken captive over the Lebanese border by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. For Israel, it's 16 for 2 when the two are Ehud Goldwasser, affectionately known by the entire country as Udi, and Eldad Regev.

The faces of Udi and Eldad, along with the face of a third Israeli soldier taken captive by Hamas, Gilad Shalit, are known to every Israeli and almost every Jew worldwide. Their birthdays are noted. Their family members are recognized on streets and in airports. Their capture is mourned, but they have not been turned into martyrs. That is not the Israeli way.

That is the Hezbollah way. And that is why it is so important for Hezbollah to include the famous Hezbollah terrorist Samir Kuntar in this prisoner exchange.
Samir Kuntar is a symbol more than a man for Hezbollah, he is a part of Hezbollah lore.

Samir Kuntar represents the ideal terrorist, he is the man every Hezbollah member hopes their child will become. On April 22, 1979 Kuntar arrived on Israeli shores in a rubber speedboat and terrorized the Haran family in their home in the port city of Nahariya, Israel's northernmost city. Within one hour he had shot and then drowned Danny the father in front of his four year old daughter and then turned around and bludgeoned and bashed four year old Anat. He bashed, he brutalized, he butted. He shot, he drowned, he bludgeoned.

Fearing for their lives, twenty four month old Yael was hiding in a crawl space with her mother Smadar and a neighbor. Cradled in the loving embrace of her mother, fearing Yael's cries would alert the murderers, the helpless baby was smothered.

In every negotiation between Israel and Hezbollah, Samir Kuntar is on the table. He has been Hezbollah's most often repeated request from the time of his capture, conviction and sentencing. Hezbollah has not yet secured his release and Kuntar is in an Israeli prison, sentenced to four life terms. This time, only thirty years into his sentence, Hezbollah might just get their man.

These deals are never simple. This one is even more complex. When the sides refuse to negotiate directly, when they will not talk to each other, when conversations are conducted through third parties, the risk of miscommunication is obvious. In this type of sensitive negotiation the possibility for misunderstanding and the probability of misinterpretation is great.

Israel and the Arab world have engaged in, negotiated and successfully arranged several swaps over the past several years. Many more have fallen apart. For the most part Israel has received dead Israeli soldiers and returned live prisoners - and that was OK, because every Israeli is deserving of burial at home. One notable exception is the recent swap Israel conducted with Lebanon which resulted in the return of Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli criminal/businessman and former IDF colonel was captured by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The question is not whether Israel should do everything to free Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. According to a poll published by the Israeli daily Haaretz, 63% of Israelis think that releasing Kuntar for Goldwasser and Regev is a good idea. 21% do not agree and the remaining 16% are unsure.

The question is what happens when Israel exchanges live terrorist symbols for Udi and Eldad. Does a bargain of this magnitude increase the possibility of more captured soldiers? Hezbollah has already proclaimed that capturing Israelis is one of their most sought after goals. And one of the reasons capturing Israeli soldiers is so enticing to Hezbollah is, without doubt, because it is an effective way to bring Israel down on her knees.

The question is what is the obligation of a country to the families of the victims? What is the obligation of a country to the justice system that tries and sentences terrorists? When the exchange centers on the dead bodies of terrorists, decisions are easier. When the exchange centers live terrorists, the decision is more complex.

The question is - is Israel like every country?

When Samir Kuntar entered Israel, he came with three other terrorists. Two of the four were killed. Ahmad Al Abrass, the fourth member of Kuntar's terror unit, was freed from Israeli prison in May of 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange of 1150 Lebanese prisoners for three Israelis POW's held by Lebanon. Because of the success of that exchange the terrorists were emboldened to act again. Within months the same Palestinian group from Lebanon hijacked the Achille Lauro. They killed a disabled American Jew named Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the ship. And then they pushed his dead, drooping body, still in his wheelchair, overboard. They did it because they were emboldened, they did it also because they were angry, they did it because Kuntar had not been included in the original prisoner exchange. And then, once again, they demanded the release of Samir Kuntar, their star terrorist.

It is essential to recall these events and their brutality. It is essential because it provides perspective. Israel must do whatever Israel can do to negotiate the release of prisoners held by the enemy. But at what price? What about the victims of terror, what about those families? It's a very hard call. It's a question of justice.

These are stories that did not make the news.
But should have.

During the 7 day period from May 22nd thru May 29th - 97 rockets fell on Israel.
The rockets were all shot from Gaza.
17 were Qassam rockets, crude yet very effective weapons.
79 were mortars.
1 was a Grad.

97 rockets were launched by Gaza onto Israel - and Israel held back and did not retaliate. Israel did conduct a few operations against the terrorist infrastructure, and guessed what Israel uncovered. A grenade launcher and an anti tank missile deliberately placed in a schoolyard - yes, in a schoolyard. And that same week a few Palestinian terrorists were shot as they tried to infiltrate into Israel.

Why did these stories not make the news?
Because they are expected and commonplace.
It is acceptable for Israel to be the target of almost 100 rocket attacks per week.
It is acceptable that Palestinian terrorists hide their weapons among children.

That is the kind of a world in which we live.
That saddens me.

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps have created a separate missile command, in which Syria’s missile force is to be integrated. The joint command was formalized in a new mutual defense treaty signed by the Syrian defense minister, Gen. Hassan Turkmani in Tehran last week.

Israeli military sources judge the operational merger of Iranian and Syrian missile corps to be a major strategic hazard to the Jewish state.

Western and Israeli military experts connect it with other indications that Iran’s program for developing missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads has gone into high gear and reached an advanced stage. They believe the Iranians have beaten most of the technical difficulties holding it up.

On May 26, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which often goes easy on Iran, released a harsh report confirming Iran’s progress in “missile warhead design.”

The new missile command was cautiously announced last week by the IRGC commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari. He said: “An independent command might be created in Sepah (IRGC) in order to fortify the structure and activities of the missile section.”

DEBKAfile’s Iranians sources explain Jafar’s cautious language on three grounds:

1. He was preparing Iran’s population and the Arab world for a pretty portentous development.

2. He was at pains not to put off figures in the West who argue strongly in favor of unconditional talks with Tehran over its nuclear misdeeds. He counted on those advocates shouting down the Western strategists who would appreciate the startling significance of the separate command.

3. Tehran also views Syria’s co-option and the new mutual defense treaty as a sort of guarantee that Assad’s “peace talks” with Israel will in no way detract from his military and other commitments to Iran.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose that the details of the combined command were worked out ahead of the Syrian defense minister’s talks in Tehran: It was agreed that Syria’s missile units would come under the new independent Iranian missile section and their operations would be fully coordinated with Tehran. Iranian officers are to be attached to Syrian units and Syrian officers posted to the Iranian command.

In the interim, Hizballah’s rise to power in Beirut has brought Lebanon into the shared Syrian-Iranian orbit. This development has enabled Tehran to line up a row of missiles deployments of varying strengths from Iran, Syria and Lebanon and up to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip – a missile array never before seen in the Middle East and a strategic menace most of Israel’s security leaders rate unacceptable.

Military experts comment that Tehran’s centralized control of four hostile missile fronts will virtually neutralize the American and Israeli anti-missile defense systems in the region; the Arrow and the Patriot missile interceptors could handle incoming missiles from one or maybe two directions – but not four.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel’s armed forces have been working overtime, against repeated holdups, to get the third Arrow battery installed. It is to be deployed in northern Israel as a shield against Syrian ballistic missiles and Iranian missiles stationed in Syria.

The formation of the joint Iranian-Syrian missile command has slowed the project down. It calls for modifications in the Arrow’s deployment to meet the fresh challenge and a time-consuming study by US and Israeli intelligence specialists of how the new command structure functions. Western military sources doubt the Arrow system will be up and running by this summer, a period considered critical by military observers.

They discount as over-optimistic recent claims by Israeli officials that the new Iron Dome will be ready for operational testing against short-range missiles in the next year or two.

In a related development, DEBKAfile’s Gulf sources report that next week, Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Syrian president Bashar Assad launch a major campaign to further isolate American influence and bludgeon moderate Arab governments into alignment with their extreme anti-US, anti-Israel line.

Assad sets out Sunday, June 1, for the United Arab Emirates for talks with Sheikh KHalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan in Abu Dhabi. Tuesday, he spends two days in Kuwait. The visits were set up by the Qatar ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who spent Friday, May 30, in Assad’s palace, gathering compliments for the Doha accord he mediated which solved Lebanon’s political crisis by installing a national unity government in Beirut dominated by Hizballah.

The Qatari ruler, Assad and Khamenei have joined forces to use the Lebanon accord as an object lesson to teach Arab governments that they do not need the United States or Saudi Arabia to help them manage their problems.

This message was relayed in Iran foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki’s arrogant statement in Stockholm Friday. He said: “The United States of America needs a serious review of its foreign policy towards the Middle East. These policies in… Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and generally speaking in the Middle East are mistaken policies.”

DEBKAfile’s political sources point out that these reverses are piling up against the United States and Israel at the worst time possible: both governments are hobbled - Washington in the dying days of the Bush administration, and Israel, by the grave corruption allegations against prime minister Ehud Olmert which have placed him and the other two senior policy-makers, the defense and foreign ministers, at loggerheads.

Hizballah’s Al Manar television reported the handover of the remains of soldiers who fell in the 2006 war across the border to Israel on Sunday June 1, after the Israeli citizen Nasim Nisr convicted of spying for the Lebanese Shiite terrorists was deported to Lebanon at the end of his 6-year sentence. The Israeli prime minister’s office said the government was not prepared to receive those remains. The IDF said the handover was an unsolicited, unilateral act by Hizballah and there is no agreement on a prisoner swap. The military chaplain said all Israeli armed forces’ war dead are accounted for and have been laid to rest. The remains will be examined to establish their identity.

Nisr was born in Lebanon to a Jewish mother and Shiite Muslim father. He left Lebanon in 1982 and became an Israeli citizen, which has been revoked.


DEBKAfile’s political sources report that the box of remains Hizballah sent to Israel on June 1 was a gesture made to impress the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who was visiting Beirut before leaving for Jerusalem.

Listed by the US and European Union as a terrorist organization, Hizballah is anxious for European recognition of its new standing as the pre-eminent force in the new Lebanese government.

Berlin is the key - especially since German troops participate on land and sea in the peacekeeping force which has been mandated to impede arms smuggling to the Shiite terrorists.

The unsolicited handover of the remains during Steinmeier’s Beirut visit is intended to impress him enough with Hizballah’s “humanity” to open a new page in German-Hizballah relations. Eventually, the Shiite leaders hope Berlin would extend those ties to their Palestinian ally, Hamas.

Before an Israeli forensic examination, the remains cannot be proved to belong to fallen Israeli soldiers in the 2006 Lebanon war. If they are, it would be the first time any Arab power has made this kind of gesture to Israel out of the blue and without extorting an exorbitant return.

Hizballah may even be signaling that Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose abduction in July 2006 sparked the Lebanon War, might also turn up on the Israeli border in another unilateral gesture. Israel has already agreed to turn over for the two soldiers the Lebanese prisoners it is holding, including Samir Kuntar, the convicted murderer of Haran family members in 1979.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources stress that Hizballah has not changed its spots, only its tactics: For the moment, it is after bigger game than haggling with Israel over prisoners, namely, consolidating its supremacy over the Beirut government on the international arena, before going full tilt against US Middle East holdings and America’s ally, Israel, in conjunction with Damascus and Tehran.

 

 

June 1, 2008 -- Lugging an enormous new lab, shuttle Discovery was in fast pursuit of the International Space Station on Sunday following a spectacular launch that one astronaut called "the greatest show on Earth."

Discovery and its crew of seven thundered into orbit late Saturday afternoon, carrying up Japan's $1 billion lab as well as a spare pump for the space station's malfunctioning toilet.

The shuttle will reach its destination Monday.

"Obviously a huge day," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, for all of the space station partners "and really for all the people who hope to see space station come to fruition and do what it was designed to do."

The school-bus-size lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope, will be the biggest room by far at the space station and bring the orbiting outpost to three-quarters of completion.

It's 37 feet long and more than 32,000 pounds, and fills Discovery's entire payload bay. The first part of the lab flew up in March, and the third and final section will be launched next year.

Nearly 400 Japanese journalists, space program officials and other guests jammed NASA's launch site, their excitement growing as the hours, then minutes counted down.

Just before liftoff, commander Mark Kelly noted that Kibo was the "hope for the space station," then radioed: "Now stand by for the greatest show on Earth!"

"It's great to be in space," he later said.

His new wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., cheered and held on to her mother and mother-in-law as Discovery rose into a brilliantly blue sky dotted with a few clouds. A few dozen political friends attended the launch at the couple's invitation.

"It was just fantastic. It was really amazing," Giffords said.

Although it was a relatively smooth launch -- the only problem was the apparent failure of a backup set of electronics for swiveling engines -- Giffords said she wouldn't relax until the shuttle is back from its 14-day mission.

About five pieces of debris -- what appeared to be thin pieces of insulating foam -- broke off the fuel tank during liftoff, but the losses did not occur during the crucial first two minutes and should be of no concern, said NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier. This was the first tank to have all safety changes prompted by the 2003 Columbia disaster built in from the start.

Discovery's rendezvous with the space station on Monday will provide a good look at the shuttle's thermal skin, Gerstenmaier said. The astronauts cannot conduct a full inspection until near the end of the flight, much later than usual, because their inspection boom is at the space station. There wasn't room for it aboard Discovery, given Kibo's size, and so the last shuttle visitors left behind their boom.

Kelly and his U.S.-Japanese crew plan three spacewalks to install Kibo, replace an empty nitrogen-gas tank and try out various cleaning methods on a clogged solar-wing rotating joint.

The space station's two Russian residents, meanwhile, will put in the new toilet pump, which was rushed to Florida from Moscow just last week. For days, the three occupants have had to manually flush the toilet with extra water several times a day, a time-consuming, water-wasting job.

ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) — Barack Obama says he has resigned his 20-year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and more recent fiery remarks at the church by a visiting priest.

"This is not a decision I come to lightly ... and it is one I make with some sadness," Obama said Saturday at a news conference after campaign officials released a letter of resignation he sent to the church the day before.

"I'm not denouncing the church and I'm not interested in people who want me to denounce the church," he said, adding that the new pastor at Trinity and "the church have been suffering from the attention my campaign has focused on them."

Obama said he and his wife have been discussing the issue since Wright's appearance at the National Press Club in Washington last month, which reignited the furor over remarks Wright had made in various sermons at the church.

"This was one I didn't see coming," Obama said Saturday when he asked if he had anticipated the firestorm that would erupt over his relationship with Wright.

"I suspect we'll find another church home for our family," Obama said.

"It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles," he said.

"I have no idea how it will impact my presidential campaign but I know it was the right thing to do for me and my family," he said.

"This was a pretty personal decision and I was not trying to make political theater out of it," he added.

Trinity released a statement Saturday night saying: "Though we are saddened by the news, we understand that it is a personal decision. We will continue to lift them in prayer and wish them the best as former members of our Trinity community."

For months, Obama has been hamstrung by the rhetoric of Wright, whose sermons blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and calls of "God damn America" for its racism became fixtures on the Internet and cable news networks.

Initially, Obama said he disagreed with Wright but portrayed him as a family member he couldn't disown. The preacher had officiated at Obama's wedding, baptized his two daughters and been his spiritual mentor for some 20 years.

But six weeks after Obama's well-received speech on race, Wright claimed at the Press Club appearance that the U.S. government was capable of planting AIDS in the black community, praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and suggested that Obama was acting like a politician by putting his pastor at arm's length while privately agreeing with him.

The next day, Obama denounced Wright's comments as "divisive and destructive."

Remarks by Wright inflamed racial tensions and posed an unwanted problem for Obama, front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, as he sought to wrap up the party's nod.

More recently, racially charged remarks from the same pulpit by another pastor, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, kept the controversy alive and proved the latest thorn in Obama's side. As a guest speaker at Obama's church, Pfleger mocked Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Although Obama condemned comments by both Wright and Pfleger, the controversy persisted.

Obama made clear he wasn't happy with Pfleger's comments — in which the Catholic priest pretended he was Clinton crying over "a black man stealing my show" — and said he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."

Pfleger issued an apology, saying he was sorry if his comments offended Clinton or anyone else.

The timing of Obama's decision broke late Saturday, while most of the political attention was focused on the Democratic National Committee's struggle to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned here in earnest Sunday for more electoral votes, in a presidential nominating contest that has mostly slipped from her once-formidable grasp.

There are 55 delegates at stake in Puerto Rico, where the island's residents — all U.S. citizens — cannot vote in the November general election.

Clinton, who spent the weekend campaigning here, has strong support in pre-election polls. A win here would demonstrate her strength among Hispanic voters, who have supported her over rival Barack Obama in contests aleady held in states such as California, Arizona and Texas.

On Saturday, the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee agreed to give disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan a half vote each at the party's nominating convention in Denver. The decision angered Clinton and did little to help her close the lead Obama has on delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

With the panel's decision, Obama has 2,052 delegates — just 66 away from the 2,118 needed to clinch. Clinton has 1,877 delegates.

The Clinton campaign accepted the Florida decision, but objected to the terms of the Michigan settlement.

"This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our party," Clinton's campaign said in a statement by Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy, two of her advisers. Ickes said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that Clinton had reserved the right to take the fight to the party's credentials committee or even to the convention in Denver in August.

A spokesman for the Obama campaign said the Illinois senator could secure the nomination this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday, after the Montana and South Dakota contests.

"If not Tuesday, I think it will be fairly soon," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

The biggest remaining bloc of votes is made up of party leaders known as superdelegates who are free to choose regardless of results in primaries. Many had been reluctant to declare a preference until after completion of all the primaries and caucuses.

Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said Clinton is trying to persuade superdelegates that she would be stronger against presumptive Republican nominee john McCain.

"We're making our case to them every day," he said. "She is focused on winning the nomination, we believe there is a path to winning the nomination, and while Senator Obama has a lot of advantages right now, not everyone has had their say in this race and she is out there working harder than anyone to make the case."

Clinton stopped into the Kastela Bakery on Sunday morning to shake hands and pick up a cafe con leche and a pastry. Polls close at 3 p.m.. Turnout is not expected to be particularly high.

She had a supporter in Virginia Guevara, who was having her regular Sunday breakfast. "She's the one that's been taking care of Puerto Ricans since Clinton's presidency," Guevara said. "She was with us when the hurricane hit. She considers herself one of us."

As for Obama, Guevara said, "we don't know him." 

WASHINGTON — Democratic party officials voted Saturday night to seat Florida and Michigan delegates at half strength — moving to end the long battle over the states' disputed primaries but preserving Democrat Barack Obama's sizeable delegate advantage over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The decision by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, after a day-long meeting filled with rancorous outbursts from the candidates' supporters, was a setback to Clinton's efforts to slice into Obama's edge as their long and hotly contested nomination battle draws to a close.

Clinton's supporters immediately raised the specter of an August showdown at the Democratic National Convention in Denver over the rules and bylaws panel's vote to award Michigan delegates to Obama, although he did not appear on the ballot in that state's Jan. 15 primary.

Harold Ickes, a member of the committee and a top adviser to Clinton, said the panel had "hijacked" delegates belonging to Clinton.

"I am stunned that we have the gall and chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000" people who voted in Michigan, he said. "Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee."

 

That committee determines who receives credentials at the party's national convention, and its decisions must be approved by all convention delegates.

In an interview, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe called the committee vote "a fair result that should help the interests of party unity."

The committee voted unanimously to split Florida's delegates according to the results of its Jan. 29 primary, which was handily won by Clinton. She netted 19 delegates in that state.

But in a more controversial move, the committee voted 19-8 to give 34.5 Michigan delegates to Clinton and 29.5 to Obama. Clinton, the only major candidate on Michigan ballot, prevailed in that contest over "uncommitted."

Obama started Saturday 42 delegates shy of the 2,026 needed to win the nomination. The committee's action now raises the number needed to secure the nomination to 2,118, and he is 66 votes shy of the new threshold.

Clinton needs slightly more than 240 delegates in her increasingly difficult path to the nomination. Each is heavily courting the roughly 200 party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates who will pick the party's standard-bearer.

Before the vote on Florida's delegates, Alice Huffman, a Clinton supporter on the panel, said seating half the delegation was a good compromise. "The world is not perfect, but it's good," she said, urging supporters to leave the meeting unified.

But Clinton supporters, the observing the meeting in the ballroom of a Washington hotel, broke out with cries of "Denver. Denver. Denver."

One onlooker shouted, "This isn't unity."

Earlier Saturday, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, speaking for Obama, called on the panel to seat the state's 211 delegates — but with only half their voting strength. That would give Clinton 19 more delegates than Obama from the state. Those are equal to the number that Clinton earned through victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Wexler said.

"Senator Obama should be commended for his willingness to offer this extraordinary concession," Wexler said to applause and hisses from the raucus crowd of supporters crowded into a meeting room of a Washington hotel to witness the meeting. "Senator Obama offers the concession in order to offer reconciliation with Florida voters."

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Clinton supporter speaking on behalf of the state party, also backed a plan to provide half the delegate votes but full voting power for the state's 26 party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates.

Clinton's campaign remained steadfast in its push to seat the full delegation. "I want it all," said Arthenia Joyner, a state senator from the Tampa area who spoke on Clinton's behalf. She urged the panel to "give voices back to the 1.75 million voters in Florida" so Democrats can "leave the room today, hand-in-hand, joining together and focused on victory in November."

Mark Brewer, Michigan's state party chairman, urged the panel to grant 69 of the state's 128 pledged delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama.

Former Michigan congressman David Bonior, speaking for Obama, said the delegates should be split evenly, calling it the "only apprioriate and fair way" to resolve the dispute. Under that scenario, each candidate would get 64 delegates.

The Clinton campaign was pushing for a 73-55 split with Obama, in accordance the state's primary results.

"You've got to honor the 600,000 voters in Michigan," former Michigan Gov, James Blanchard, a Clinton supporter, told the panel. "If you turn your back on the voters of Michigan and Florida, you will be flirting with a McCain victory."

Blanchard said the primary was not flawed, but that other Democrats "had a flawed strategy" because "neither the DNC rules nor Michigan law … required them to take their names off the ballot."

With gasoline prices exceeding $4 a gallon in some states, politicians are responding as usual: Blame Big Oil First. Several prominent senators have once again summoned industry leaders to Capitol Hill, subjecting them to yet another barrage of rhetorical questions, interruptions, accusations, and sermons. The lawmakers' goal, claims Sen. Patrick Leahy, is to identify "causes of the rising price of oil on which Congress can act." But the foregone conclusion is that "price gouging," "collusion," and "market manipulation" by Big Oil, or speculation by financiers, is responsible.

The simple fact that such Congressional investigations obscure is that the prices of oil and gasoline are determined by supply and demand--which neither private oil companies nor speculators have any power to dictate in their favor. If they had such market mastery, then why didn't they use it in the 1990s, when gasoline was selling at a barely profitable $1 a gallon? To be sure, speculators can bid up prices--but they only do so when they believe that oil will become even more expensive in the future, and only make money when they are right.

The question Congress should really be asking, then, is: What non-market factors are distorting supply and demand? If they sought an honest answer, they would discover that much of the blame lies with Congress itself.

No one disputes that environmentalist laws passed by Congress have cut off some of our most promising and plentiful sources of oil. In the name of safeguarding a tiny portion of caribou habitat in the Alaskan wilderness, drilling is prohibited in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge--a potential source of 1 million barrels a day, 5 percent of America's daily oil consumption. Also off-limits is 85 percent of America's coastline, which Shell estimates contains some 100 billion recoverable barrels--13 times America's annual oil consumption--and the vast majority of oil shale in Colorado, which Shell estimates at 1.5 trillion barrels.

Congress should publicize these facts, prepare an inventory of how many oil-rich areas they have blocked off, and bring in economists to estimate how much all of this raises gas prices.