October 5, 2010:
The current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, demanded by the United States, are going nowhere. The Palestinians openly describe the talks as just another opportunity to make Israel look bad. The Palestinians make no secret of their goal of destroying Israel, not making peace deals. Officially, most Western nations refuse to recognize this situation, although, off-the-record, they are scrambling to figure out how to deal with the Arab intransigence. The big hope is the Arab Reform Movement, which seeks to cope with the internal Arab problems (pervasive tyranny, illiteracy and xenophobia) that cause so many Arab states to lag behind the rest of the world. The fixation on destroying Israel is another manifestation of the "Arab disease" that the Arabs are not eager to deal with at the moment.
October 3, 2010: A fire broke out in a West Bank mosque, and caused damage. Three other such fires in the past two years were blamed on Israeli settlers, seeking revenge for Palestinian attacks. But it's uncertain who set the latest blaze. Palestinians are blaming the settlers anyway. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, border guards shot and killed a man trying to climb over the security barrier separating Israel from the Palestinian territories. One border guard was questioned by his superiors on suspicion that the dead man was murdered after he had surrendered.
October 2, 2010: Two Israeli NCOs were convicted of using a Palestinian boy to check for booby traps during the 2008-9 operations in Gaza. Israeli soldiers are not allowed to use civilians like that, or as human shields. Hamas, on the other hand, encourages the use of human shields, and describes, in their training manuals, how best to do it.
October 1, 2010: The Israeli counter-terror campaign continues to succeed, but only because of constant effort. Israeli police arrested nearly 500 Arabs in September, most of them for planning terrorist attacks on Israel. Most of those arrested were released after questioning. Egypt is doing its part, shutting down over 20 Gaza smuggling tunnels in September, and another four today (including one large enough to move automobiles through.) With Israel allowing most consumer goods in now, the tunnels are being used mainly for weapons, drugs and other illicit items.
It was ten years ago, in 2000, that Palestinians began their terror campaign against Israel, rather than accept a peace deal that had recently been negotiated.
Norway has forbidden a German submarine shipbuilder (HDW) from using a Norwegian submarine base HDW leased for testing purposes, for testing Israeli subs HDW is building. This is being done because of a Norwegian law forbidding the export of security related items to Israel. This is another example of the growing anti-Israel attitude in Europe. This extends to tolerating more and more anti-Semitic violence and even agreeing with Arabs that Israel must be destroyed. As many Europeans predicted right after World War II, the virulent European anti-Semitism would eventually return, and it has.
September 30, 2010: In Lebanon, Hezbollah has acquired enough military and political clout to block further investigation into the 2005 assassination of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri. Some Hezbollah leaders have openly boasted of Hezbollah playing a part in killing Hariri, but Hezbollah does not want that made a part of the public record.
September 29, 2010: Israel admitted that it had a squadron of electronic warfare aircraft (the "Sky Crows"), and that it had shut down Syrian air defenses during the 2007 bombing of a Syrian nuclear research facility.
September 27, 2010: In Gaza, an Israeli UAV used a missile to kill three terrorists as they were setting up rockets to fire into Israel.
September 25, 2010: There has been three days of riots in East Jerusalem, as Jews and Moslems fought over the construction of homes for Jews in neighborhoods where Arabs consider that activity as forbidden. At least 18 people have been arrested.