http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23brooks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13greengulf.html?_r=1&hp
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009154531941584.html
And I dont care how many Israelis or Arabs get killed in the process.
Police found unexploded petrol bombs inside the second car, which did not catch fire [AFP]
Arsonists have rammed a synagogue with two cars packed with petrol bombs in the southern French city of Toulouse, local officials said.
One car was set on fire and pushed by the other until it hit the door of the synagogue, at a time when about a dozen people were attending a class with a rabbi.
The building caught fire but all those inside escaped unharmed.
Police found unexploded petrol bombs inside the second car, which did not catch fire.
They said they were investigating the attack, which took place on Monday night, and had not made any arrests.
Gaza connection
Michele Alliot-Marie, France's interior minister, branded the attack "stupid and revolting" and admitted she was concerned that Israel's current offensive in the Gaza Strip could increase communal tensions in France, home to Europe's largest Arab and Jewish populations.
"I am, in fact, worried by the international situation," she told French radio. "My concern is that the situation should not degenerate in our country, that the violence not be imported."
Luc Chatel, a government spokesman, said that the country's security forces were now in a state of increased vigilance.
Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to the European Union, said she had no doubt that the attack was linked to rising anger among France's five million Muslims at news coming from the conflict.
"Look at the awful incident yesterday in Toulouse with this car rammed into a place of worship, which is unacceptable, but a result of images from Gaza," she told the same radio station.
Dominique Sopo, the head of SOS Racisme, France's main anti-racist movement, also condemned the arson ttack in Toulouse.
He said: "It's most likely that this crime is linked to the situation in the Gaza Strip.
"Those who want to import the Middle East conflict over here aren't helping the Israelis or the Palestinians, unless they can explain why hitting a Jew here improves the situation in Gaza, or how Arab-bashing helps protect Israel
Richard Prasquier, the head of an umbrella body of Jewish groups, said in an interview with France's Le Figaro newspaper that aggressive behaviour by some protesters at pro-Palestinian marches had worried him.
"We must really not import the conflict here. It must not, it cannot happen," he said.
Several attacks
The Union of Jewish Students in France has recorded two attacks on kosher stores in Bordeaux, one on a Jewish apartment in Paris and another on a synagogue in Toulon since New Year's Eve.
"We must not allow the Middle East conflict to shatter our lives together," the group warned in a statement.
France's National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism also raised the alarm over an attack on a rabbi's car near Paris last week, as well as a spike in "menacing" anti-Jewish posts in French internet chatrooms.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is currently visiting the Middle East in a bid to encourage a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
But despite his condemnation of Israel's land offensive in Gaza, he remains deeply unpopular with many young people of Arab origin for his perceived hardline stance as interior minister before he became president.
In Britain, Jewish community groups have also said that the crisis in Gaza had provoked a surge of anti-Semitic intimidation and violence.
On Saturday, three youths tried to set fire to a synagogue in northwest London.
Police said that officers were liaising closely with Jewish groups and that "reassurance patrols" had been increased in areas with substantial Jewish populations.
Obama will losse my vote if he picks a side. let them fight once and for all till the last man standing.
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 30th 2008, 4:56 PM
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's official news agency says dozens of hardline students have broken into the British Embassy residence in Tehran.
The IRNA agency says the students accuse Britain of supporting Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip.
According to the agency, the students stormed the compound Tuesday evening and pulled down the British flag.
IRNA says the students then hoisted a Palestinian flag at compound's entrance before police forced them to leave.
The news agency says the break-in lasted about an hour and that the area is now calm. No injuries were reported.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called for an immediate cease-fire by both Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza.
At least 51 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Israeli air raids, the UN says [Reuters]
Israel's military is in an "all-out war" with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ehud Barak, the country's defence minister, has said.Palestinian medical sources say at least 345 Gazans have been killed and another 1,450 wounded in three consecutive days of Israeli bombardment in the heavily-populated territory.
"We have nothing against Gaza residents, but we are engaged in an all-out war against Hamas and its proxies," Barak said on Monday.There were also growing fears that a ground offensive was being planned after Israel declared a "closed military zone" around the Gaza Strip.
Israel says the creation of a buffer zone along the border will help protect it from rocket attacks. Civilians, including journalists, could be banned from an area between 2km and 4km deep under the policy. On previous occasions, such a move has sometimes been followed by military operations. "This operation will expand and deepen as much as needed," Barak said. "We went to war to deal a heavy blow to Hamas, to change the situation in the south."
Both military leaders hailed the successful launch of the direct phone link.
Chen said the launch of the direct phone link between the two countries' chiefs of general staff is another important measure for deepening pragmatic cooperation between Chinese and Russian militaries and another showcase of the tow countries' mutual political trust and strategic cooperation.
The direct phone link will help the two sides maintain timely communication on significant issues such as the exchange and cooperation between the armies and exchange views and collaborate stances in time on international and regional affairs, so as to promote the exchange and cooperation between the two militaries, Chen added.
For his part, Makarov said the launch of the direct phone link once more showcased the high-level of the China-Russia strategic partnership and the two countries' military ties.
He expressed his willingness to work with the Chinese side to keep frequent exchanges on the two armies' cooperation and other important issues in order to push forward their military ties.
The two leaders also exchanged views on international and regional situation, bilateral relations, and other issues of common concern.
Palestinian rescue workers helped a wounded prisoner on Sunday in Gaza City after an Israeli missile attack at the main security compound and prison, the Saraya. More Photos >
A Palestinian girl cries at the scene of one of the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
Khaled Meshaal called for Palestinians to wage a new intifada - or uprising - against Israel.
In an interview on Al Jazeera television, he said: "We have called for a military intifada against the enemy. Resistance will continue through suicide missions."
Dozens of people were killled when Israeli jets fired about 30 missiles into densely populated areas.
Palestinian medics put the death toll at 225, many of them civilians, with hundreds more injured.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert defended the action, saying the airstrikes came in response to repeated rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians, and warned that military operations in Gaza would "take time".
Mr Olmert said: "It may take time, and each and every one of us must be patient so we can complete the mission.
"Israeli citizens ... it is possible that in the short term, the number of rockets will rise and they will reach farther than they have been accustomed."
Smoke billows over the southern town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip Saturday, following Israeli airstrikes.
GOP donor Robert Toussie - whose scammer son Isaac was pardoned and then unpardoned by Bush - poses with the president earlier this year.
By Toby Harnden in Washington Last Updated: 8:06PM GMT 26 Dec 2008
Mr Obama has broken new ground by becoming the first US leader to face questioning by federal agents between election day and inauguration.
"Here the guy hasn't even gotten his tuxedo for the ball yet and already there's a prosecutor who wants to talk him," Robert Bennett, one of Washington's top lawyers, told The New York Times. "It's the era that we live in."
Mr Obama was interviewed last Thursday at his Chicago transition office by two assistant United States attorneys and two FBI agents. He was accompanied by his personal lawyer Robert Bauer and an associate.
The president-elect willingly agreed to the interview and no objections were raised to any of the questions, his campaign staff said. He is not a target of the corruption investigation that threatens to engulf some of Chicago's most prominent politicians.
But the interviews underlined the dangers of the Blagojevich scandal dogging the early months or years of Mr Obama's presidency, just as Bill Clinton, who was interviewed by investigators at least 10 times, was distracted by the Whitewater land deal inquiry.
It came as Ed Genson, Mr Blagojevich's lawyer, asked the Illinois House of Representatives panel deliberating on whether to impeach the governor to subpoena Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama's chief of staff, Mr Obama's close friend Valerie Jarrett and Representative Jesse Jackson Jnr, an Obama ally.
Mr Emanuel spoke to Mr Blagojevich once or twice and his chief of staff John Harris, also facing corruption charges, at least four times about the vacant Senate seat, which the governor has the sole authority to fill.
Mrs Jarrett, due to be a White House adviser to Mr Obama, was initially named by Mr Emanuel as the president-elect's preferred candidate.
Transcripts of wiretaps indicate that Mr Blagojevich believed Mr Jackson was willing to pay up to a million dollars to become a senator.
All three have also been interviewed by federal investigators. Patrick Fitzgerald, leading the Blagojevich investigation and who quizzed Mr Bush for 70 minutes about the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal, did not interview Mr Obama.
Thus far, however, Mr Obama has not been tainted by the Blagojevich scandal, the major distraction for his staff during an unusually smooth transition in which his cabinet and senior advisers have been named in record time.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released on Christmas Eve found that an impressive 82 per cent of Americans approve of the way the Obama is handling his presidential transition, three points from early December. Just 15 per cent said they disapproved.
In 2000, President-elect George W. Bush had an approval rating of 65 per cent, two points lower than President-elect Bill Clinton in 1992.
"Barack Obama is having a better honeymoon with the American public than any incoming president in the past three decades," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.
"He's putting up better numbers, usually by double digits, than Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, or either George Bush on every item traditionally measured in transition polls."
In a CNN/USA Today poll, Americans chose Barack Obama as the man they admire most in the world, the first time a president-elect had been top in the annual survey since President-elect Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
President George W Bush, top for the past seven years, was a distant second.
Hillary Clinton, due to be Mr Obama's Secretary of State, was the most-admired woman, just as she has been in 13 of the past 16 years.
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was a close runner-up.
