Barack Obama should not miss this golden opportunity come Jan. 20 when he takes over as the nations 44th president. Three other U.S. presidents who preceded him have tried their hand, often half-heartedly, but could not seriously strive for a reasonable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, brewing since 1948.

In a farewell interview he gave to the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dropped a bombshell. "What Im telling you now," he said to his interviewers, "no Israeli leader ever said before me: We have to pull out from almost all the territories [in the West Bank], including in East Jerusalem, including in the Golan Heights."

What do Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former U.S. President Bill Clinton have in common? Not much one might guess, and this is generally true. But when one examines their careers closely one would be surprised that the two lame-duck leaders attempted in the few weeks before they left office to resolve once and for all the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

As election time in the United States and Israel draws nearer, the public discourse regarding the "Iranian nuclear threat" is intensifying. Both candidates vying for the U.S. presidency, and a few who would like to win the Israeli prime ministership, have been portraying Iran as a live bomb and an immediate threat to world peace. Indeed, Iran is not a paragon of virtue. Its aspirations exceed by far those that were described in the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which turned around a previous assessment from 2005.

GAZA CITY, Gaza -- A dramatic confrontation in the Mediterranean Sea could break out within hours between the Israeli navy and two vessels sailing toward the Gaza coastline – the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty – in an endeavor to break through the Israeli blockade of the poverty-stricken Palestinian Strip.

The recent Iranian missile tests demonstrate the need to deploy a missile defense capable of mid-flight interception of Iranian warheads, which in a few years may be able to reach Europe and the United States.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama has positioned himself as an independent thinker unafraid to break the Washington mould. He says that, as president, he would pursue "direct diplomacy" and talk to Iran and to Cuba. There was no such challenge to Washington norms in Obamas recent speeches to the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and to a synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida. In both, he reduced the status of the Palestinians from that of a people with rights to servants of Israels security.

Once Barack Obama shockingly unveiled his true and one-sided views regarding a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement at last weeks meeting in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, it became obviously clear that he has unwittingly disqualified himself as the much-promised instrument of "change" or that "we can" help bring about an honorable end to the decades-old conflict.