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Olmert and Abbas Discuss Core Issues of Contention
by Steven Erlanger and Isabel Kershner
 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, discussed the core issues of contention between their peoples at a meeting here last week, but it was unclear how detailed their talks had been. The core issues are the final borders of the two states, the status of Jerusalem and the Old City and a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees. The meeting took place at Olmert's official residence here, after a previous meeting three weeks ago in the West Bank city of Jericho. (International Herald Tribune)
Rock Stars Hit Jerusalem
by Ben Ehrlich
 Several high-profile musical acts are set to rock the holiest city in the Holy Land. The concert, “Jerusalem Rocks!” will take place September 9 at Teddy Kollek Stadium. Billboard Top 40 powerhouse the Black Eyed Peas will headline the bill, which also features progressive hip-hop collective Arrested Development. The event’s organizers hope to re-establish Jerusalem as an international center of culture. Other performers at “Jerusalem Rocks!” include The Commitments and the Israeli hip-hop group HaDag Nachash. (Forward)
Palestinians Back Caliphate over Politics
by Carolynne Wheeler
 By night, a growing number of supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic fundamentalists who reject modern democracy in favor of a pan-Islamic religious caliphate, gather in the West Bank to recruit the thousands who have grown disillusioned with the vicious stand-off between the secular Fatah and Islamist Hamas. Any talk about a return to the caliphate, any talk about a return to religious values is something that is attractive to people," said Majid Abu Malah, 55, a teacher who attends regularly. He, like many others, says he has given up on both Hamas and Fatah. Inside the West Bank, the rise of the Islamist group is being met with increasing concern from secular Palestinians still hoping for democracy and a two-state solution with Israel, as well as from Hamas which is seeing its support eroded by the group. (Telegraph-UK)
Barak: Hizbullah Rocket Arsenal Bigger Now than before the War
by Shahar Ilan
 Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hizbullah has more rockets today than it did prior to the Second Lebanon War last summer. According to a source who was present at the meeting, Barak was referring to both long-range and short-range rockets, and said that the rockets are situated north of the Litani River, but within striking range of Israel. In regard to the tense relationship between Israel and Syria, Barak said that he can sense that the tension is beginning to dissipate. (Ha'aretz)
See also Human Rights Group Says Hizbullah Trying to Silence it (Reuters)
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Israeli Archaeologists Angered over Holy Site Work
by Martin Asser
 A group of Israeli archaeologists is protesting about fresh excavations at Jerusalem's holiest religious shrine, saying it threatens priceless relics. Muslim authorities at the Temple Mount are digging a 150-meter trench for water pipes and electricity cables. Israeli critics say the work is causing irreparable damage, indiscriminately piling up earth and carved stones. Jewish tradition reveres the area as the remains of King Solomon's temple. The Waqf resumed working last week, using a mechanical digger on a meter-deep trench, cutting through the subsoil. Dr. Gabriel Barkai of Bar-Ilan University, on behalf of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, called it an act of barbarism. "They should be using a toothbrush, not a bulldozer." He accuses the Islamic authorities of wanting to "show who is the boss" by destroying Jewish remains at the site. "The earth here is saturated by history. All we can do is alert the world to what is happening and try to stop the next disaster," he says. (BBC News)
Israel Sees a New Hamas Threat
by Richard Boudreaux
 Hamas has smuggled 40 tons of weapons  into the Gaza Strip this summer, apparently intent on resuming suicide bombings in Israel, according to an Israeli intelligence assessment of the militant Islamic group. A senior officer of Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, told the Cabinet in private testimony last week that Hamas' exiled leadership in Syria was plotting attacks to sabotage peace talks between Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. (Los Angeles Times)
See also IDF Forces Foil Infiltration from Gaza - Hanan Greenberg (Ynet News)
See also Hamas Kindergarten Ceremony (YouTube)
See also Hamas Tunnel Smuggling Video (YouTube)
UN Summit: Boycott Israel
by Yaakov Lappin
 A UN conference, held at the European Parliament in Brussels, heard an array of speakers call for a boycott against Israel and strategize on ways to achieve its international isolation, during the first day of an event billed by organizers as a gathering to promote "Middle East peace." The 'International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace' has been organized by the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and attracted political figures and pro-Palestinian members of non governmental organizations (NGOs). "This is a conference of Israel-haters," Adam Mouchtar, Director of Bnai Brith's European Union Affairs Office, said. Mouchtar attended the conference's first day, and said its members were clearly guided by a single agenda: "To prove that Israel is a racist apartheid state, and therefore Israel should be boycotted internationally, as South Africa was." (Ynet News)
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