JERUSALEM -- Yehiel and I met Elliott at the appliance repairmans shed on a side street in South Jerusalem. Elliott Horowitz, a historian at Bar-Ilan University, had already paid for the almost-new washing machine, with cash that friends have pledged to repay. We wrestled the heavy white hunk of metal into the back of Yehiels undersized station wagon, and set off – three guys with skullcaps and greying beards driving to Hebron with a washing machine for a Palestinian stonecutter.

The U.S. print and electronic media are facing serious and damaging criticism in the wake of self-inflicted blunders in the midst of a heated fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as the misguided pontificating on U.S. foreign policy issues, especially relating to the Middle East.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- An Israeli court has ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to prove that The Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron, the largest charity in the Palestinian territories, has ties to Hamas, before it rules if the charity and its affiliate organizations should be permanently shut down.

Gaza as a Testing Ground

Israels war on Hizbullah has now entered phase III, or what could be called the final phase: to cause maximum damage before the UN Security Council resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities is passed.

Every newly elected Israeli prime minister, for as long as we can remember, has immediately boarded a plane and made a bee line to Washington. Ehud Olmert is no different.