Israeli media are full of optimism: there is a rumor that the Palestinians have agreed to return to peace talks in a couple of weeks.

They have fought us for 150 years, and we have defeated them utterly—and now we are happy that they have agreed to talk to us.

Israel’s Defense Minister went to Washington to push for sanctions against Iran.

The new sanctions, of course, will work no better than the previous sanctions, but Barak is up to something more important: averting an Israeli military operation against Iran.

The European parliament is scheduled to debate the Goldstone report.

One would think that Israel-Palestinian issues have nothing to do with the EU, which in its cultural isolation had refused to admit Turkey. But the parliament’s president said openly that the debate signals the EU’s growing interest in the Middle East.

And Israel is a pawn in European neo-colonialist expansion. Never mind the hypocrisy of ever-warring European nations judging Jews for an insignificant military operation.

Two Arab teenagers and one 30-year-old man were arrested for raping a girl in their car in Jerusalem.

The crime was only made possible by Israeli refusal to expel the Arabs.

Iran forcibly grounded a plane traversing its airspace en route from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, and arrested the leader of Jundallah, a major local terrorist organization heavily supported by Israel and the US.

Decades ago, Israel conducted a similar operation with a Syrian passenger jet to obtain hostages for prisoner exchange, but since then has refrained from such spectacular interceptions.

It would be so easy to shoot down a plane carrying Ahmadinejad on one of his foreign trips.

The government has banned the planned strike by Dimona nuclear facility employees. Never mind that international law precludes them from working there in the first place.

While the Israeli and Palestinian public wonder about the prospects for the peace process, the oligarchs have made their peace with our enemies.

Idan Ofer, one of the oligarchs who profited enormously from under-the-table privatization, welcomed at his house a crowd of top Israeli managers and Palestinian PM Fayad to discuss further business.

Idan Ofer is a frequent donor to ultraleft causes.

Now that the Sudanese government and the rebels have reached peace accord, international donors have pledged $1 billion to the impoverished region—a far cry from $7 billion pledged to Gaza after the Israeli war.

The peace is unlikely to hold because, as was the case with the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords, it relegates the most important power-sharing questions to later negotiations.

The Knesset has adopted a law recognizing Jews who have fled Arab countries as refugees. Nice words, but unfortunately the Palestinians do not care about them. There is no chance that the Palestinians would formally forfeit their right of return to Israel, or their property claims, in exchange for Sephardi Jews doing likewise.

In the wake of the Ratzon affair, MKs are calling for the Israeli ban on polygamy be changed to apply to permanent relations, as well.

Under the proposed law, a man would be allowed to keep any number of girlfriends, but would face criminal prosecution if their relations become long-term.

Of course, polygamy is thriving in Israel: Arabs keep multiple wives but register them as single mothers so that Jewish suckers pay their benefits.