The Hebron Massacre refers to the mass murder of 67 Jews on 23 and 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by false rumors that Jews were massacring Arabs in Jerusalem and seizing control of Muslim Holy Places

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The crisis between Russia and the West over Georgia has started to impact on the Middle East. Syrian President Bashar Assad has now offered Russian President Sergey Medvedev to station Russian missiles on his territory, in retaliation to the American plan to station missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. At the UN, there is also speculation that Moscow will now oppose further sanctions against Iran aimed at halting its nuclear weapons program. In an interview with IsraCast, Zalman Shoval a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, assesses the emerging situation.

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Yitzhak Sadeh was the Chief Commander of the Palmach and one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel.

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What should Israel learn from the bloody clash between the big power Russia and its small neighbor of Georgia? Has Russia almost overnight brought about a dramatic power shift in the international system that has been dominated by the U.S., since the breakup of the former Soviet Union? In an interview with IsraCast, Prof. Yehezkel Dror, a widely known expert on international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses these questions and others.

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It's now official - the new Lebanese government has officially sanctioned any new Hezbollah aggression against Israel. What are the implications for the Beirut government that has always tried to dodge responsibility for the attacks by Hezbollah, the radical Islamist movement sponsored by Iran? In an interview with IsraCast, Dr. Dan Schueftan, an Israeli Middle East expert, assesses this new Lebanese situation as well as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement that the U.S. would not veto an Israeli military strike against Iranian nuclear installations.

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Facing a plethora of police investigations, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has finally bowed out. In his ruling Kadima Party, front runners Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and IDF Chief of Staff', are now vying openly for party leadership and the chance to lead a new government coalition without going to an early election. However, IsraCast raises the possibility that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, of the Shas ultra- orthodox Sepharadi party, may eventually determine who will become prime minister.

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Although he is being investigated for political and financial corruption, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not letting that interfere with his current contacts with both the Palestinians and Syrians. He has just briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee on where things stand. However, most of the MKs told IsraCast that Olmert had no business conducting negotiations under the present circumstances and making concessions on his way out of office.

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El Al Flight 402, was an international passenger flight from Vienna, Austria to Tel Aviv, Israel via Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27, 1955, which strayed into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters and crashed near Petrich, Bulgaria. All 7 crew and 51 passengers on board the airliner were killed.

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'Hamas has no intention of ever compromising with Israel' - that's the assessment of Shabak security chief Yuval Diskin. In his view, Hamas sees it as 'either them or us!' and there was no place for the Jews in what was the sanctified Muslim land of all Palestine. (Hamas, like its Iranian ally, also calls for Israel's annihilation.) Diskin, who had recommended against the current cease-fire, contended that Israel had thrown Hamas a life-line after Israeli counter-strikes had severely damaged the fundamentalist regime in the Gaza Strip.

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The second Palestinian tractor attack in Jerusalem within three weeks has sounded alarm bells in Israel's capital city. Shortly before the latest assault, Shabak security chief Yuval Diskin actually predicted more acts of terrorism for Israel's capital. He warned it was 'very important' to start reimposing the sealing-up or demolition of terrorists family homes, otherwise Israel had no means of deterring would-be terrorists who lived inside Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Hamas has co-opted what appeared to be the individual attack by declaring a 'Jerusalem intifada'. Isracast assesses the problem of coping with Jerusalem's enemies within.

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For the second time in a month, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem has carried out a terrorist attack using a speeding bulldozer - the terrorist deliberately plowed into five vehicles and narrowly missed a crowded bus. A number of Israeli civilians were injured before a nearby civilian and a policeman opened fire and shot dead the terrorist.

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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has reacted sternly to Iran's rejection of the latest international offer to halt the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The British leader was speaking in Israel's parliament the Knesset where he also called on the Jewish state to seize the opportunity to make a peace with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. IsraCast reports that Brown made clear that the international community is about to intensify its campaign to isolate Tehran, if it does start negotiating in good faith.

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Israel has gone through two of its most difficult days in recent times. The return of two IDF soldiers in coffins one day and their burial the next , was a time of personal mourning for most Israelis. After Sergeants Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were laid to rest, the full focus of attention turns to Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted in a another cross border raid over two years ago and apparently held captive in the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip. IsraCast reports that the debate over releasing living terrorists for dead IDF soldiers will continue, yet Israel's willingness 'to pay the price' is felt by many Israelis as a source of national strength and unity.

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On July 12th 2006, Hezbollah launched a deadly cross border raid from south Lebanon ambushing an IDF motorized patrol, killing several soldiers and abducting two others, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Simultaneously, Iran's proxy, the Hezbollah forces inside south Lebanon launched a massive rocket attack on towns and villages in northern Israel. It was an attack that triggered the Second Lebanon War. IsraCast analyzes the strategic situation two years later amid the Iranian nuclear threat that may soon face the Jewish state.

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Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe Raid or Operation Thunderbolt, was a counter-terrorism hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Israel Defense Force at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on the early morning of July 4, 1976. In the wake of the hijacking of Air France flight 139 and the hijackers' threats to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met, a plan was drawn up to airlift the hostages to safety.

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