Panetta says Israel could strike Iran in spring

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a "strong possibility" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said Thursday in an editorial.
When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Panetta brushed it aside.
"I'm not going to comment on that. David Ignatius can write what he will but with regards with what I think and what I view, I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody else," he said.
"Israel indicated they're considering this (a strike), we've indicated our concerns," he added.
The Post columnist said Panetta "believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June before Iran enters what Israelis described as a 'zone of immunity' to commence building a nuclear bomb."
President Barack Obama and Panetta are "said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program and other non-military efforts to stop Iran from crossing the threshold," he said...
More from Yahoo News. February 3, 2012.

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Table Talk
by Steve Coll, February 6, 2012

In the State of the Union address of 1954, which Dwight Eisenhower delivered less than a year after he had secretly ordered the C.I.A. to overthrow Tehran’s left-leaning government, he celebrated “the forces of stability and freedom” at work in Iran. In 1980, Jimmy Carter delivered his annual address amid the whirlwind of Iran’s Islamic and anti-American revolution, which was inflamed in part by Iranians’ memories of Eisenhower’s coup. “We will face these challenges,” Carter declared. “And we will not fail.” Three decades on, Iran’s theocrats have built a police state, spread violence across the Middle East, and acquired nuclear reactors. Iran remains a perennially grim subject of Presidential oratory, and last week Barack Obama, while delivering his third State of the Union, added another entry: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”
Leaving options on the table is a not-so-oblique way of threatening war. On the same day, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the Knesset, “Only a combination of crippling sanctions and putting all the options on the table can make Iran stop” its nuclear drive. Meanwhile, three of the remaining candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination—Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich—have been speaking approvingly about bombing Iran’s atomic sites or assassinating its scientists...
More from the New Yorker Site

Holocaust memorial desecrated in Kosovo

Source: AP, Tanjug
PRIŠTINA -- Kosovo police are investigating who sprayed swastikas on dozens of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Priština.

“Jews out” was spray-painted on a memorial for Jewish families who perished during World War II.
Police Spokesman Brahim Sadrija said Thursday that police had sealed off the cemetery in Priština and were looking for clues. The vandalism is believed to have happened Tuesday, AP has reported.
”Kosovo police went to the scene and have taken the necessary steps. An expert from Priština’s Monument Directorate has also been contacted. The investigators are conducting an investigation in order to find out who the perpetrator of this act is,” Sadrija told Radio Free Europe...
More from B92.net ( Dec 2, 2011)

Serbia becomes member of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education

Ambassador Sladjana Prica on opening of exhibion about the Righteous from Serbia. From left to right: A. Nećak, M. Fogel, M. Ristović, M. Koljanin, Ambassador S. Prica, N. Fogel and H.E. Yossef Levy

Belgrade, 2 Dec 2011 – The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy stated today that at the plenary session of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, which was held yesterday in The Hague, Serbia was unanimously accepted into membership of this international organisation.
During the last two years, a special team composed of representatives of the Serbian government, the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Serbia, experts and civil society initiated and implemented numerous projects and activities that resulted in today’s unanimous decision of thirty states that our country meets all the requirements for the status of full member.
Paying honours to Serbia, the chairman of this international organisation, Dutch diplomat Karel de Beer, as well as heads of national delegations pointed to a number of results achieved in our country in previous years in education, research and remembrance of the Holocaust.
The delegation of the Republic of Serbia at the plenary session was led by Ambassador Sladjana Prica.
A special recognition to our state was paid by representatives of many institutions like the Memorial Centre "Yad Vashem" (Jerusalem), the Holocaust Museum (Washington), the State Museum "Auschwitz-Birkenau" (Auschwitz, Poland), the Anne Frank Foundation (Amsterdam), Holocaust Memorial (Paris, France) and others.
The member states of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research are Israel, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Greece, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Argentina, Canada and Croatia.

(From the Serbian Government WEB Site)

Obama to meet Palestinian leader amid U.N. crisis

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday to urge him to drop plans to ask the U.N. Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state despite U.S. and Israeli objections.
The White House said Obama will meet Abbas at 6 p.m. ET on the sidelines of this week's U.N. General Assembly session in New York. Obama is also due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Wednesday.
"With both the Israelis and the Palestinians the president will be able to say very directly why we believe action at the United Nations is not the way ... to achieve a (Palestinian) state," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters.
Abbas has promised to present U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with a membership application on Friday, setting the stage for a Security Council vote that the United States, one of five veto-wielding permanent members, says it will block...
Whole article from Yahoo site . (Sept 21st, 2011)