News stories by Analysis by Helena Cobban*, page 3

Last month in Prague, President Barack Obama vowed that he would seek a world without nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spelled out that this policy would apply to Israel, as well.

On Wednesday, a judge at the Hague-based 'Special Tribunal for Lebanon' (STL) ordered Lebanon to release four senior Lebanese generals imprisoned since 2005 on suspicion of involvement in killing former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February of that year.

A big confrontation is brewing between the United States and Israel’s new government over the Palestine issue.

Three months after the end of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and nearly four months after former prime minister Ehud Olmert started it, the standoff between Israel and Hamas is as unresolved as ever.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was sworn in Tuesday - just one day later his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, set off a firestorm by saying he judged Israel was no longer bound by agreements reached at the late-2007 peace conference convened by the U.S. in Annapolis, Maryland.

With Benjamin Netanyahu now close to announcing his government line-up in Israel, the issue of whether and how to include Hamas in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking is moving to the top of the Middle East agenda.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak weathered the recent war in neighbouring Gaza much more successfully than many observers had expected, and after the war ended Jan. 18 he emerged as the sole mediator in negotiations over stabilising the ceasefire and other key related issues.

The British government has announced it will hold talks with the political wing of Lebanon’s Hizbullah. The Barack Obama administration sent two envoys to Syria to discuss steps to improve relations. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has invited Iran to take part in a conference on the future of Afghanistan.

As the fires of human misery continue to smolder in Gaza, the situation in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem is emerging as another potentially explosive issue in, and far beyond, the Middle East.

The continuing efforts by Israel’s presumptive next prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to assemble a rightwing-dominated government have sparked serious concern about the effects such a government might have on peace efforts with the Palestinians.