Israeli

When prolific Israeli burglar Na'aman Diller discovered he was dying of cancer in 2003, he decided to leave his widow a collection of some 100 artifacts of decidedly questionable origin. They included rare clocks, manuscripts, paintings and an item billed as "the world's most expensive watch": a gold and rock crystal pocket watch made for Marie Antoinette in the 18th century. All the items had allegedly been stolen during a storied heist at Jerusalem's L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in 1983.

Nearly all the considerable attention generated by Peter Beinart's "The Crisis of Zionism" has focused on its final 81/2 pages. There, warning that the "hour is late," he calls for liberal supporters of Israeli democracy to engage in "direct action" against Israeli occupation of the territories occupied after the June 1967 war. To save Israel from what he sees as the corrosive effects of settlement in the West Bank, he says, American Jews should boycott...

Amos Kenan, a novelist, newspaper columnist and sculptor who as a member of Israel's founding generation helped define modern Israeli culture, died in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. He was 82. He struggled with Alzheimer's disease for years, said Uri Avnery, a prominent Israeli peace activist and journalist who was a longtime friend. Born in Tel Aviv in 1927, Kenan fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Soon after, he became a peace activist and wrote satirical articles about organized religion and the newly created state of Israel.

JERUSALEM — Historian Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the father of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the man said to have had the most profound influence on the conservative Israeli leader, died early Monday in his Jerusalem home. He was 102. The elder Netanyahu served as the personal secretary of Zionism's prominent Revisionist leader, Zeev Jabotinsky, in the United States during World War II, lobbying for the creation of a Jewish state. He also pursued his academic work, specializing in medieval Spanish Jewry and the roots of the Spanish Inquisition.

Barry Rubin accuses the State Department of doing PR for the PLO's "terrorism" ("How Low Will We stoop for Arafat?" Op-Ed Page, March 22). He needs a lesson in semantics. On the same date, I heard Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) address the 19th anniversary convention of the America-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Washington. He stated that "Israeli bombs from the air" are also a form of "terrorism." These retaliatory raids have snuffed out many thousands of innocent lives over the decades.

The chief of Lebanon's domestic security forces had a warning for the Hezbollah commander: "You've been infiltrated." With that, Achraf Rifi, head of the U.S.-backed Internal Security Forces, handed over evidence showing that two trusted, mid-ranking Hezbollah commanders were working as informants for Israeli military intelligence, said a high-ranking Lebanese security official with knowledge of the April 2009 meeting. Wafiq Safa, the security chief for the powerful Shiite Muslim militia and political organization, was silent.

In a limited thaw of a frosty relationship, Israeli and Palestinian officials held their first high-level meeting in months today and discussed ways to bolster a promising economic recovery in the West Bank. The encounter was part of a shift by the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership, which had previously shunned contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. That position was out of step with the Obama administration, which is seeking a compromise formula for bringing the sides together for a new effort to end decades of conflict.

Calls for an international probe into Israel's deadly raid of a Gaza-bound protest flotilla have put the nation's military on the defense amid allegations of excessive use of force. Hebrew University Professor Yehezkel Dror, who served on the Israeli government-appointed panel that investigated the military's performance in the 2006 Lebanon war, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Wednesday that Monday's raid, in which nine people were killed, could have been avoided with faster implementation of changes that had been recommended in 2008 by the panel, known as the Winograd Commission.

President Chaim Herzog will pay the first visit to Canada by an Israeli head of state in late June, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Re the Israeli spy caper, two things become painfully evident: 1--That even Israel is capable of utter stupidity. For a small nation surrounded by a sea of enemies whose only commonality is Israel's demise, stupidity is the worst weakness. 2--Israel's intelligence-gathering apparatus is superior to ours. Evidently, on at least five occasions our intelligence gatherers were caught red-handed by the Israelis in the act of gathering classified information and had their red hands slapped.

UMM AL FAHM, Israel — He's an Israeli-born Islamist whom the government considers so dangerous he's been banned from stepping foot in Jerusalem. Yet his prison stints over the last decade for allegedly funding terrorist groups, inciting violence and spitting on an Israeli security officer — all of which he denies — have only served to make Sheik Raed Saleh, 53, extremely popular and influential among Arab Israelis. After returning this month from London, where he successfully fought deportation by British immigration officials who cited his controversial views, Saleh received a hero's welcome.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. The Israeli Parliament's move to ban skinny models from appearing in that nation's media may be less momentous than its efforts to thwart Iran's bid to build nuclear weapons. But to the Israeli politicians who sponsored the measure, which won approval in Tel Aviv on Monday, and to American experts on eating disorders, the measure is a clear step toward a key goal: promoting more realistic body images among girls and women.

Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Facebook Inc. as a vehicle for social change during a visit to the social networking company's Menlo Park, Calif., campus. Peres, 88, came to Facebook on Tuesday to launch his official personal page on the site that he hopes will open a dialogue with Arabs throughout the world and to meet with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. "The matter of peace is no longer the business of governments but the business of people," Peres told Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in an interview streamed live on Facebook.

Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Facebook as a vehicle for social change during a visit to the social networking company's Menlo Park, Calif., campus. Peres, 88, came to Facebook on Tuesday to launch his official personal page on the site that he hopes will open a dialogue with Arabs throughout the world and to meet with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. "The matter of peace is no longer the business of governments but the business of people,” Peres told Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in an interview streamed live on Facebook . "Today the people are governing the governments.

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday sought to offer a united front against Iran's growing nuclear program but appeared to differ on whether a diplomatic solution remains possible or if military action is needed to prevent Tehran from gaining a nuclear bomb. At a White House meeting, Netanyahu said he reserved the option to launch a unilateral attack on Iran despite Obama's position that more time is needed for stiff economic sanctions and international diplomacy to work.

  At a previous high-profile summit between a U.S. president and an Israeli prime minister, an exasperated Bill Clinton marveled at what he viewed as his counterpart's arrogance in schooling him about the Mideast conflict. According to one aide, Clinton asked after the meeting: Just who is the superpower? The Israeli leader at the time was - and again is - Benjamin Netanyahu. At home, Netanyahu is seen as politically cautious, risk-averse and "squeezable" when it comes to his positions.

Left, right or center, there's two things nearly everybody in Hollywood agrees on: There's no disease that can't be cured by raising enough money and the state of Israel deserves unabashed support. These days, sympathy for Israel puts the American entertainment industry at odds with much of the European film and academic communities. In those circles, vehement criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and boycotts of Israeli scholars and artists have become almost fashionable.

An Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip today killed at least one militant and wounded two others, Hamas and medical officials said. An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed the strike and said the missiles had hit militants who operated in the area. Earlier, Hamas officials said two of its militants stationed near the border were killed in a separate airstrike. Two others were wounded. The Israeli army confirmed that strike as well.

The technique had a familiar ring. A motorcyclist speeds toward a government vehicle, attaches a magnetic bomb and buzzes away moments before a fiery explosion. Last month, that's how an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran. And on Monday, Indian officials said such an attack injured an Israeli diplomat's wife and three others in a well-guarded neighborhood of New Delhi near the Israeli Embassy. Israel and Iran are accusing each other of perpetrating the plots.

Yaffa Yarkoni, a singer who entertained Israeli soldiers on the front lines for half a century and later reaped public censure for her outspoken criticism of the military's treatment of Palestinians, died Sundayof Alzheimer's disease in Tel Aviv. She was 86. Called "the singer of wars," Yarkoni began singing for troops at army bases and on the front line before the 1948 war that led to Israel's founding. She was known to call a soldier's mother to assure her that her son was safe.