Israeli Military Invades Gaza

Israeli tanks rolled into northern Gaza on Thursday night and naval gunboats pounded targets in the south as Israel began a ground invasion of Gaza. Israel said its actions were taken after Hamas militants continued showering Israeli cities with rockets. Hamas said the rocket attacks were in retaliation of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which has left more than 230 Gazans dead, including many women and children.

Israel said the incursion was a limited one focused on tunnels into Israeli territory, and was not intended to topple the Hamas government in Gaza.

Photo credit: Israli tank in Gaza, 17 July 2014. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters/NYTimes)

Obama to Up Iran Heat in Return for Peace Talks - Report

Netanyahu's aides will visit U.S. in an attempt to link Iranian, Palestinian issues, the Jerusalem Post reported today, citing a report that will be published by the Sunday Times.

“US President Barack Obama is willing to up pressure against the Iranian nuclear program if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will open talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on borders and security issues,” the report says. (JP, 10 February)

According to the report, “the US promised to raise the heat on the Iran issue in return for more open talks with the Palestinian leader even if core issues such as Jerusalem and the issues of Palestinian refugees is not raised.”

To read the Jerusalem Post report, please click here.

File Photo: Netanyahu and Obama at the White House. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/JP)

India Replaces China as Iran’s Biggest Oil Customer

India has replaced China as Iran’s biggest oil importer, the Hindustan Times reported today. According to data compiled by Geneva's Petrologistics Oil exports to India from Iran were 433,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2012, compared with 256,000 bpd to China.

Iran traditionally sells most of its 2.2 million barrels per day of oil exports in Asia, where China, India, Japan and South Korea are the four biggest buyers. Iran's crude oil exports fell by around 300,000 bpd to 1.9 million bpd in March, with customers in Europe making deep cuts ahead of an EU embargo due to be implemented on 1 July.

Ahmadinejad Warns of Arab-Iranian & Sunni-Shia Conflict

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday warned of a possible Iranian-Arab and Sunni-Shia conflict in the region.

"The U.S. and Western countries are trying to unleash an Iranian-Arab and Sunni-Shiite war," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad also linked the looming conflict to US attempts to resolve Palestinian-Israeli conflict through creating an independent Palestinian state

"They are trying to prevent the overthrow of the Zionist regime (Israel) by creating differences among the regional peoples," Ahmadinejad said. “They say one Zionist government and one Palestinian government and this slogan is aimed at saving the defeated Zionist government,” he added [IRNA, 7 April].

Although the current US policy of recognizing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is rather old, but Ahmadinejad saw it as a new and “very sophisticated plot” to sow discord and portray a different US face among regional countries.

The Arab Summit

Syrian President Assad greeting Qatar’s Sheikha Hind bint Hamad

Arab Summit . Damascus . 29-30 March 2008

(Photo: Gulf Times)

The Arab Summit subdued in the absence of the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan today ended two days of meeting in Damascus by warning Israel that Arabs would “review” their peace initiative unless Israel changed its behavior.

The Arab peace initiative of 2002 offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries in return for withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 war.

On Lebanese crisis, the summit declaration broke no new ground, saying the Arab leaders stand by an Arab initiative which endorses army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as a consensus president.

Iran, represented at the summit by its foreign minister as an observer, objected to the summit's support for the UAE claim to three islands in the Persian Gulf. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said the claim was “vain and baseless” as the islands were an inseparable part of Iranian territory.