Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Netanyahu's perilous statecraft

Netanyahu has allowed Defense Minister Ehud Barak to unravel national unity still further by picking fights with yeshiva heads who oppose the wholly theoretical possibility that IDF soldiers will be ordered to expel Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria in the framework of a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Reconsidering the Suez Campaign

Olmert, whose primary goal as prime minister is to reenact the failed withdrawal from Gaza twenty-fold in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem cannot enable the Israeli public to see proof on its television screens night after night that the withdrawal was an abysmal failure.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Olmert��s response to Palestinian violence

In Caesarea, as seen in a dedicated video space, Herod built from scratch a harbor and a city that became Judea's maritime gateway and commercial heartbeat.

WSJ: Shards of a Reputation | Herod the Great | Israel Museum | By Amotz Asa-El

Olmert's offer, which Abbas rejected, involved a "land swap, " in which in the framework of a comprehensive peace deal, Israel would give the Palestinians land from within its 1949 boundaries in exchange for land in Judea and Samaria that Israel would permanently retain.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Fool me twice

At one point, the Spice Route stretched from India to Rome, passing through Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Ethiopia and what was then Judea.

BBC: Israel's mysterious ��Grand Canyon��