Unity Coalition for Israel

Defense Secretary Concerned Israel May Attack Iran

(FOX News) - US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expressing new concerns about Iran's underground nuclear program, this time telling Washington Post columnist David Ignatius he's worried Israel may decide to attack it as early as this spring.

Traveling with the defense secretary in Brussels to cover his meeting with NATO defense ministers, Ignatius writes, "Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June."

It is the first time such a specific timeframe has been mentioned. FOXNews.com has previously reported concerns from former members of President Barack Obama's national security team that a unilateral strike from Israel could occur sometime in 2012 and that Central Command has been planning for the possibility the US could be drawn in....

Israel Vice PM: Military strike can hit all of Iran's nuclear facilities

All of Iran's nuclear faculties are vulnerable to a military strike, Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Thursday, calling the potential of a nuclear Iran a "nightmare to the free world."

At the closing day of the Herzliya Conference, Ya’alon referred to the many tools at the international community's disposal that could serve to slow down or stop Iran's advancement toward nuclear weapons capability: international pressure, economic sanctions, support of Iranian opposition, and military actions.

Speaking of the possibility of a military strike of Iran's nuclear facilities, the vice PM said that "the West has the ability to strike, but as long as Iran isn't convinced that there's a determination to follow through with it, they'll continue with their manipulations."...

Consult Jerusalem's Palestinians Before Rushing to Divide the City

Here, in one sentence, is the gist of Frank Jacob’s 1,500-word op-ed in the New York Times this week: Divided cities are bad, and we should strive to reunite them – except for Jerusalem, which we should instead strive to redivide, even though it will likely mean building a wall through its heart. “In a place where there’s no middle ground,where you’re either from one side or the other, it’s hard to see how a case can be made that both parts of the city belong together, and should grow together,” he pontificated. “Even [former West Berlin Mayor and German Chancellor] Willy Brandt would agree.”

I have no doubt Brandt would agree if he were still alive; most Europeans do. But here’s who wouldn’t agree: a sizable minority, and quite possibly a majority, of those East Jerusalem Palestinians whom Jacobs and his fellow pundits so blithely advocate tearing away from Israel.

In a November 2010 poll which 1,039 East Jerusalem Palestinians conducted via face-to-face interviews, fully 35 percent said they would prefer remaining Israeli if a two-state solution emerged, compared to only 30 percent who preferred Palestinian citizenship. The remainder declined to answer or said they didn’t know....

'Israel needs to engage EU, not call it irrelevant'

Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg, considered one of Israel’s strongest supporters inside the EU, told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Israel needs to engage more intensively with Europe, and is not doing itself any favors by declaring that the European Union is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the Middle East.

Schwarzenberg, attending the 12th annual Herzliya Conference at the IDC, was referring to a statement put out by the Foreign Ministry last month following a communique very critical of Israel issued by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal.

The Czech Republic is considered, along with the Netherlands and Italy, among Israel’s strongest supporters inside the EU, and those countries – along with Romania, Bulgaria, and at times, Germany – form a bloc inside the EU that often tones down or stops critical statements and policies coming out of Brussels.

Jerusalem, Schwarzenberg said, could do more to win over other EU nations by engaging more actively both with the individual countries, and with the EU institutions in Brussels.

Israel has not, he added, won over friends by essentially telling the EU over the last few decades that its ally is the United States, and that “we want them to be active in the Middle East, we don’t want you to be active. Keep out.”...

Artifcial Blood Vessels Created To Cure Diseases

For the first time in the world researchers at the Technion Institute of Technology and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in Israel created new blood vessels using embryonic stem cells that were programmed in advance.

The team, headed by Prof. Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, head of women and maternity department at the Rambam Medical Center and Dr. Ayelet Dar-vaknin, produced new cells named Pericytes, that have a crucial role in building blood vessels and ensuring their functioning.

The experiment simulated the treatment for damaged muscles or tissues, as a result of disruption in the blood supply. The research was conducted in the laboratory for stem cells research at the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion Institute. Over the course of the study, the researchers cultured the Pericytes in the lab in large quantities....