17 juillet 2008

        Following two years of uncertainty and a day after a long and multi-staged prisoner swap at the Rosh Hanikra border crossing, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser will finally be laid to rest in military cemeteries on Thursday. Goldwasser will be buried in Nahariya at 10 a.m. and Regev will be laid to rest at 2 p.m. in Haifa. Military rabbis at the Shraga Base, south of Nahariya, recited psalms next to the coffins throughout the night and will continue to do so until the bodies are taken for burial. The... [Lire la suite]

           Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader among the Arab public, a survey released Wednesday showed. Twenty-six percent of respondents in six countries selected Nasrallah as their most admired leader, compared to 16% who chose Syrian President Bashar Assad and 10% who picked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the survey published by the the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The poll was published the same day Israel completed a... [Lire la suite]

      Turkey's foreign minister encouraged dialogue to resolve the standoff over Teheran's disputed nuclear program after meeting with US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Thursday. Hadley's visit to Turkey came two days before talks in Geneva in which a senior US diplomat will for the first time join colleagues from other world powers at a meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. William Burns, the No. 3 US diplomat, will attend talks with Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili in Switzerland on Saturday aimed... [Lire la suite]

     While Hizbullah on Wednesday went to great lengths in its attempts to paint the prisoner swap with Israel as a victory, emphasizing the fact that the group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had kept to his word and managed to release murderer Samir Kuntar, a leading Arab paper ridiculed the perceived "victory." The Radwan deal," the headline of Ashark Alawsat on Thursday cynically ran, "cost Hizbullah over $7 billion, more than 1,200 dead and 4,500 wounded Lebanese citizens." The paper... [Lire la suite]

     Five Lebanese terrorists set free as part of a prisoner swap with Israel prayed Thursday at the grave of a slain Hizbullah military commander, pledging to follow in his footsteps and continue fighting Israel. Wearing military fatigues, the five walked down a red carpet laid out for them outside Imad Mughniyeh's burial spot at a cemetery south of Beirut. They laid wreaths and gave a military salute at the grave as supporters showered them with rice. Mughniyeh, a shadowy figure Israel and the West accuse of... [Lire la suite]