Joshua Mitnick

SDEROT, Israel -- As Barack Obama's plane took off from Ben Gurion Airport for Germany early Thursday, Israelis were opening up the morning newspaper to a center spread's worth of photos and quotes tailored to the local political palate.

In Jerusalem strolling arm and arm with Shimon Peres at his presidential villa. In a yarmulke next to the Western Wall. In southern Israel, looking up in awe at a smiling 10-year-old leg amputee from a Qassam rocket.

Just a few weeks ago, many Israelis fretted about the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency because he was a foreign policy unknown with Muslim lineage.  read more »

TEL AVIV—As if staring at each other across the front page of the newspaper, the 10-year-old boy bleeding from a Gaza rocket attack looked up into the controversial photo of the Illinois senator wrapped in a white turban.

“A Hillary Clinton Production,’’ proclaimed the headline in the tabloid Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s top-selling daily paper. “Obama, the Muslim.’’

The next day, however, Obama was back on the front page of Yediot, this time declaring, “I’m a friend of Israel,’’ in an exclusive interview.  read more »

JERUSALEM–As if cribbed from a page in a Passover Haggadah, the real estate pitch sketches a "Next Year in Jerusalem'' vision for the well-heeled: a gated community nestled in a bucolic hillside terrace overlooking a panorama of the Old City walls, the Dome of the Rock, and the Mount of Olives.

Nof Zion, a neighborhood of high-end condos geared to American Jewish buyers, promises a synagogue, a hotel, public gardens, a country club and a "harmonious residential neighborhood."

What the promotional material doesn’t mention is that Nof Zion – which translates to "Zion View" in English -- is located in the bosom of Jabel Muqaber, an Arab neighborhood in a section of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians as the capital of their state-to-be.

Shortly after President Bush visits Jerusalem next week to prod the newly revived peace process, the newest Jewish neighborhood in the Palestinian half of the city is slated to begin filling up as developers distribute keys in the completed 91-unit Phase I of the Jews-only project.  read more »

In West Bank, exiled Fatah members plot their revenge.  read more »

Israel’s elder statesman makes a bid for last relevance.  read more »