News stories by Pierre Klochendler, page 14

A traffic light, yet no traffic at all. In fact, a traffic light...for pedestrians only. And even they move little. There are restrictions on walking out of this village (pop. 3,000).

Israel has given guarded approval to the new round of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in the international community's bid to haul back Iran's nuclear programme.

The elemental reason for the outbreak of the seminal June 1967 Arab-Israel war was Israel's self-inflicted doom prophecy that 'the Arabs just want to throw us in the sea'.

What exactly happened on the high seas off the Gaza-Israel coast remains in murky waters.

A new desalination facility has come up here on Israel's Mediterranean seashore, to soothe Israel's chronic fresh water shortage. An elaborate network of pipes beneath the beach reaches westward far into the sea. Eastward, it links up with the national water system.

Suddenly, the Middle East is awash with talk of war this summer. Or, is the talk of war merely meant to keep war at bay?

'What kind of celebration is this,' said Bat-El, 22, engulfed in a sea of blue- and-white Israeli flags in a huge procession marking Israel's self-celebrated Jerusalem Day, the anniversary by the Hebrew calendar of Israel's conquest of East Jerusalem 43 years ago during the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

There's a Jerusalem saying that the city wears too many hats -- Jewish hats, Muslim hats, Christian hats -- so it's difficult to get at its brain.

'Mine forever more, Will you still need me, Will you still feed me, When I'm sixty- four.' Israelis weren't explicitly intoning the Beatles when they gathered around their Bar-B-Q get-togethers or followed the live broadcasts of official state ceremonies.

He is among the most respected international jurists. But in Israel today, and in much of the Jewish world, he is among the most reviled.