Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the UN Fact Finding Mission that produced what is widely called the Goldstone Report. The Mission investigated Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. Travers joined the Irish Defense Forces in 1961 and retired after forty years. As the only former officer who belonged to Justice Richard Goldstone's team, he was the senior figure responsible for the military analysis that provided the basis for condemning Israel for war crimes.

A former senior Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, made the main foreign policy speech to the Liberal Party convention there. He voiced the most common myth about the contemporary Middle East. In fact, it is a myth now returning to favor in the United States after many years in the shadows. (The last thing that killed it was the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait which indicated there were a few other problems in the region.)

Regarding Fowler, let me quote from the Ottawa Citizen editorial about the speech:

A Paradox of Peacemaking: How Fayyad's Unilateral Statehood Plan
Undermines the Legal Foundations of Israeli-Palestinian Diplomacy

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad published a plan in August 2009 to unilaterally declare statehood after a two-year state-building process. The Fayyad plan involves numerous governance components that already exist within the various frameworks composing the Oslo Accords, which already enable the Palestinians to develop their state-building capabilities within the peace process, and not necessarily as a unilateral initiative outside the process.

The Obama Administration doesn't understand this but it is signaling the Palestinian Authority (PA) that it can get away with anything, thus further dooming any hope for serious negotiations and perhaps leading to a restart of large-scale violence.

Decades ago, when Middle East experts held views closer to the region's realities rather than to its propaganda, it was well-known that one of the best ways to mobilize a big demonstration or riot in Arabic-speaking countries was to tell people: The government is with you.

The two Arab journalists I most respect have written of the fear in Arabic-speaking countries about Iran’s having nuclear weapons. They explain persuasively why a U.S. containment policy of reassuring Arab states and Israel against direct nuclear attack is totally inadequate.

Listen to what they’re saying as it is much more accurate in warning about the coming strategic shift in the region than what’s being written in the West.

With their unerring skill at erring, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders are throwing away still another opportunity President Barack Obama is giving them. If Obama is the most pro-Palestinian president in history, his counterparts don't seem to appreciate it very much. It is the Palestinian leadership, not Israel, that will ultimately make Obama look like and be a failure in all of his peace process efforts.

Brief history:

U.S. Engages Syria; Syria Escalates Weapons' Supply to Hizballah

Recent stories have reported serious consideration by the Obama Administration in a National Security Council meeting of trying to impose the terms of an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement. In his press conference following the nuclear summit, President Barack Obama backed off this possibility, returning to standard U.S. positions on the issue.

He stated:

The U.S. Congress is back as a factor in U.S. foreign policy. Partly because the Obama Administration has pushed it too far to do unpopular things; partly because members are no longer in awe of the president’s alleged invincibility and much-declined popularity. Many Democratic members see their whole careers flashing before their eyes. And, of course, there’s the administration’s decision to pick a quarrel with Israel.

For the first time since Barack Obama took power, we’re seeing a bit of a congressional revolt even from his own side of the aisle. The two issues are Israel and Iran.

Israel experienced no more than a mild recession as a result of the global financial crisis that began in 2007, a testament to policies adopted by the government over the previous decade. These policies emphasized fiscal restraint, as well as liberalization and increased competition across most of the economy while strengthening regulatory restrictions on the banking sector. Indeed, the only case of market failure in Israel came in the relatively unregulated non-bank credit sector.

Each year, the Palestinians mark Nakba Day, the catastrophe that befell them with the establishment of the State of Israel. But the Jews in Arab countries also suffered catastrophe and it was many times worse.

They say that she was stunningly beautiful. Sol (Suleika) Hatuel was 17 years old when she was beheaded. A Muslim friend claimed that she had succeeded in converting her. When Sol denied the claim, she was accused of renouncing Islam and was condemned to death. Her case reached the sultan.

Something very interesting is happening very quietly. The Obama Administration appears to have forgotten about its quarrel with Israel, even though it is being reported with increasing reliability that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to suspend all construction in eastern or northern Jerusalem outside the 1967 lines. Maybe he has given an assurance to slow things down and avoid anything the U.S. government considers provocative.

The summoning by the United States of Syrian Deputy Chief of Mission Zouheir Jabbour for a review of Syrian arms transfers to Hizbullah is the latest evidence of the serious basis to the recent tensions in the north.

Syria has continued to deny recent reports suggesting that it permitted the transfer of Scud-D ballistic missiles to Hizbullah.

A small strange group of Israeli academicians is intentionally harming all academic institutions and researchers' public status in Israel. Thanks to them, the word professor gained a negative connotation within the Israeli public – this process started at the beginning of the 1980's.