Times report.

Israel has delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

In a message, sent earlier this month, Israel made it clear that it now regards Hezbollah as a division of the Syrian army and that reprisals against Syria will be fast and devastating.

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

As we have pointed out, it is simply not possible any more--if it were ever possible at some point in the past--to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes the Islamic Republic and its regional allies. Rather, today, the link between Iran and Palestine runs in the opposite direction: the United States needs a better and more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, in part, because it will be impossible to achieve Arab-Israeli peace absent U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

Friday Lunch Club quoting the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy.

These contacts, which included the State Department's approval of a debate between a senior U.S. diplomat and a Hamas representative, have been interpreted by Hamas -- and Fatah, its rival -- as a softening of the U.S. stance against the party.

Independent report.

An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.

Guardian article.

Aipac has persuaded more than three-quarters of the members of the US House of Representatives to sign a letter calling for an end to public criticism of Israel and urging the US to "reinforce" its relationship with the Jewish state.

[...]

A source, who is consulted by administration officials on Israel policy but did not wish to be named, said that having chosen to take Netanyahu on, Obama cannot afford to back away. "The administration's credibility is at stake -- in Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu thought he had the better of it last year after he humiliated the president by rejecting his demand for a settlement freeze. If the administration does not follow through on this, or reaches some compromise that takes the heat off the Israelis, I suspect it will be almost impossible for us to get anything off the ground," he said.

Andrew Sullivan on the Atlantic.

So an official in the US administration is claiming that Ross is more concerned with Israel's side of the story than with America's. This is not that surprising given that his position on Israel's holding Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital is well-documented.

IMEMC report.

Nasser Al Siraj, assistant-director of the National Economy Ministry in Gaza, stated that Israel approved the entry of shoes and clothes and decided to increase the number of trucks carrying the two products from 6 to 10.

[...]

Shoes and clothes were not allowed into Gaza since two years due to the siege that prevented the entry of basic supplies, food stuffs and even medications and medical equipment.

Bloomberg report.

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel will "sooner or later" have to destroy the Islamic Hamas regime that controls the Gaza Strip, after two Israeli soldiers were killed in the coastal enclave.

Guardian report.

David Miliband said today that there was "compelling evidence" that Israel was responsible for misuse of British passports as part of a plot to kill a prominent member of Hamas.

Rupert Cornwell in the Independent.

And there we have it. The settlements in East Jerusalem will go ahead whatever the US thinks. The proximity talks, even if they do proceed, are doomed in advance. And next week AIPAC holds here what it bills as the largest policy conference in its history. The Israeli Prime Minister will be in town to address it, so will Ms Clinton.

President Obama however will be about as far away as possible, on a long-planned visit to Indonesia and Australia. And probably just as well. Grovels, even the most elegant grovels, are not an edifying spectacle.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Ask Rabbi Sam White what he thinks of the global political row over plans to expand the community in which he lives, prays and studies, and he answers bluntly: "I don't see the problem. God gave us the land of Israel." The notion that the location of Ramat Shlomo, on land occupied after the 1967 Six Day War and officially expropriated six years later, might belong to another people is wholly alien to the 32-year-old Salford-born rabbi. "There's no question. It's in the Torah, which says that God gave the land to the Jewish people."

Rupert Cornwell in the Independent.

The words have flown fast and furious in Washington since Israel, by accident or design, delivered this blow to the "peace process" with the Palestinians that the US is working so hard to revive -- at the very moment vice-President Joe Biden was visiting the country. But there is no sign that the Obama administration, however genuine its anger, is about to take specific action to punish its ally.

Guardian report.

Israel's relations with the US are at their worst for 35 years amid a continuing row over Jewish settlement plans in East Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to Washington admitted today.

Reuters story.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Monday any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel's deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

"For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem," he said in a speech in parliament, citing areas in the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city.

Independent report.

Israel's government was yesterday facing the worst chill in relations with the US since taking office after a top White House official said the announcement of plans to expand an East Jerusalem settlement seemed "calculated to undermine" the negotiating process.

[...]

Israeli officials also denied reports -- in both The New York Times and The Washington Post -- that last week's announcement violated an informal understanding that if the US got talks going there would be no announcements of settlement building in East Jerusalem that might trigger a walkout by the Palestinians.

Mark Perry in Foreign Policy.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.