Holy city goes secular

In what was a referendum on religious vs. secular this mayoral election, the holy city went secular. According to exit polls, businessman and lifelong Jerusalem resident Nir Barkat took 50 percent of the vote, while Meir Porush, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, received 42 percent.

Of course it wasn't without a hitch. A policeman was injured by a stone. Several haredi protestors apparently harassed voters at a city polling station and tried to stop people from voting. More tomorrow.

Yes he did!

Fueling suspicions of anti-Israel leanings, Prez-elect Barack Hussein Obama reportedly had his people meet with Hamas' people in the Gaza Strip during the campaign. At least that's what Hamas claims. 

Ismail Haniyeh's political advisor said the Islamist group met with Obama aides after an email exchange, but was told to keep the meeting a secret. Well, no longer a secret. Ahmed Yousef, Haniyeh's political advisor, said: "We were in contact with a number of Obama's aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama)." Source: the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat

Contact with Obama's advisors is ongoing, Yousef said.  The Obama camp has not yet commented on this report.

Because Hamas is on the US State Department terrorist list, America hasn't negotiated with the organization yet. Yet.

Haniyeh & Olmert: Perfect Peace Partners

Who knew? Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the ousted prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, and outgoing (not in the extrovert sense) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert look ready to strike a perfect peace deal.

In separate reports, both Haniyeh and Olmert said they are ready for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. Imagine that? Well, sign the paper then. Of course, everyone in the Israeli government is scrambling to distance themselves from Olmert since that would be the most fanatical concession of any Israeli administration.

But this is a major concession for Haniyeh as well. According to Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, Haniyeh said the "Hamas government had previously made it clear that it was willing to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians' national rights."

Of course this falls short of recognizing Israel as a state, but it is still scaled back from "pushing Israel into the sea."

Olmert, for his part, used the auspicious occasion of a memorial day for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to make this astonishing statement: "If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland, of which we dreamt and for which we yearned and prayed for generations, and we must relinquish Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and return to that territory which comprised the State of Israel until 1967. ... We must return to our familiar places, in the Galilee and the Negev, build them and realize the tremendous potential embodied in the unbounded energies of our people; we must reignite the flame of ingenuity and creation, and nurture a new kind of Zionism – realistic, sober, responsible and bold."

Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, running for prime minister in February's elections, said she is "not committed to the outgoing prime minister's comments."

Surely all this talk only helps Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu who has positioned himself as the right-wing alternative and the only other viable candidate at this point.

In some countries, its a good time for a mortgage

Interest rates here took another dramatic dive thanks to Bank of Israel Gov. Stanley Fischer. Fischer unexpectedly lowered the rates to 3 percent, the lowest level ever.

Yisrael Hayom wrote in an editorial that Fischer is "a rare breed that does not exist in our country of jacks-of-all-trades – someone of proven talent who actually works and operates in the field in which he is an expert. Amazing." That compared to what the paper called "insane people," who are demanding Fischer's resignation.

It will be interesting to see how Israel weathers the economic crisis compared to other countries, including Fischer's native USA. Fischer was the college adviser to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Fischer slashed rates before the opening of he Prime Minister's Conference for Export and International Cooperation, earning a line up of praise at the conference.

"Israel has one economic leader, and his name is Stanley Fischer. The Governor of the Bank of Israel understood long before everyone else here where we were headed, and he knew how to prepare the Israeli economy. Regrettably, we haven’t yet seen action on the fiscal policy side," said Manufacturers Association of Israel president Shraga Brosh, in a swipe at Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On.