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Footage obtained by the BBC shows four masked Jewish settlers assaulting an elderly Palestinian goat herder and his wife with baseball bats last week. Thamam al-Nawaja, a 58 year-old shepherd, had her arm and cheekbone broken and spent three days in a hospital. The attack was caught on a camera distributed to Palestinians as part of an Israeli human rights group's campaign to allow Palestinians -- many of whom are being pushed off their land by Jewish settlers -- to have video and photographic evidence of such assaults.

Just 10 days ago, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon condemned expanding Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem as a violation of international law. Israel has defended its settlements, arguing that they are not violating any laws or preexisting agreements. But with this disturbing video, the pressure on Israel to change its settlement policies will only increase.

The incident comes as many are wondering if a two-state solution is even possible anymore. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, frustrated by a lack of progress in negotiating with the Israelis, seems to be hedging his bets and has begun discussions with Hamas, a big no-no for Israel and the United States.

On top of this, Bush's time is rapidly running out. We can only hope that the next president will follow the advice of Arab moderates and address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his first term.

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His campaign says no:

Asked for comment, the Obama campaign put a reporter in immediate contact with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla. -- an Orthodox Jew, a strong supporter of Israel and Obama's point man on many of these issues -- who told ABC News, "that is not backtracking."

"His position has been the same for the past 16 months," Wexler said. "He believes Jerusalem should be an undivided city and must be the capital of a Jewish state of Israel. He has also said -- and it's the same position as President Bush, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert -- that Jerusalem is of course a 'final status' issue," meaning it would be one of the key and final points of negotiation for a Palestinian state. "And Sen. Obama as president would not dictate final status issues. He will permit the Palestinians and Israel to negotiate, and he would respect any conclusion they reach."

ABC's Jake Tapper concludes, "The record seems to back Wexler's argument that Obama has said both that Jerusalem should be Israel's undivided capital, and that its status is ultimately up to Israel." (Which is different, I would note, than saying its status should be up to both parties.)

Still, it seems like this is an awfully fine needle to thread. It's like saying to your daughter, "You shouldn't marry that jerk, but it's up to you" -- the kind of thing that creates some real problems in the family down the road.

When a senior Hamas advisor told radio listeners that he liked Barack Obama, the McCain camp had a field day and even used the news as fodder for a fundraising appeal. But after hearing Obama's Wednesday speech to AIPAC (pdf) -- the powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization -- the Palestinian Islamist group said that Obama is just like all the other U.S. politicians:

Obama's comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration's foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.

"The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians," he said.

"Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win," Zuhri said.

Sometimes in politics, having the right enemies is key to winning friends. Mission accomplished?

Last night, seven Palestinians received word that their Fulbright scholarships would not be given away to other students. On Thursday, the students, who call the Gaza Strip home, had been notified that their scholarships were being "redirected." The reason? Since the June 2007 blockade began, Gazans have not been able to secure travel visas from the Israeli government for any reason other than pressing humanitarian concern. And although the Fulbright program is now optimistic because the Israeli government has finally acknowledged the visa applications and agreed to an interview process to take place in Jerusalem, the Israelis still reserve the right to deny the visas.

The very day before the students had their scholarships taken away, the Israeli Knesset's Education Committee had petitioned the Israeli Defense Ministry to reconsider restrictions on visas for students. Michael Melchior, chair of the Committee had this to say:

We are a nation that for years was prevented from studying - how can we do the same thing to another people?"

News of the reversal is good for Palestinians who wish to study in the United States, but there are reportedly around 670 students with similar scholarships for study in Europe and elsewhere whose fate is yet unknown. Today, the Israeli Supreme Court heard the petitions of two such students hoping to travel to Germany and Great Britain, and some of the justices have already made their positions clear:

Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein expressed discomfort with the ban on allowing students from Gaza to study abroad, telling the State Attorney that the ban seems 'no less harmful to the Israeli interest, because we have to live with the Palestinians in the future, too.'

If the Fulbright program weren't one of the crown jewels of American public diplomacy, Israel might never have come under real pressure to reexamine its restrictions on travel in and out of the Gaza Strip. But now that it has, the intellectual potentials of nearly 700 Palestinians hang in the balance.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has a good interview with John McCain about Iran, Barack Obama, Israel, and the Holocaust. Here's an excerpt:

JG: What do you think motivates Iran?

JM: Hatred. I don't try to divine people's motives. I look at their actions and what they say. I don't pretend to be an expert on the state of their emotions. I do know what their nation’s stated purpose is, I do know they continue in the development of nuclear weapons, and I know that they continue to support terrorists who are bent on the destruction of the state of Israel. You'll have to ask someone who engages in this psycho stuff to talk about their emotions.

JG: Senator Obama has calibrated his views on unconditional negotiations. Do you see any circumstance in which you could negotiate with Iran, or do you believe that it’s leadership is impervious to rational dialogue?

JM: I'm amused by Senator Obama’s dramatic change since he’s gone from a candidate in the primary to a candidate in the general election. I've seen him do that on a number of issues that show his naivete and inexperience on national security issues. I believe that the history of the successful conduct of national security policy is that, one, you don't sit down face-to-face with people who are behave the way they do, who are state sponsors of terrorism.

Senator Obama likes to refer to President Kennedy going to Vienna. Most historians see that as a serious mistake, which encouraged Khrushchev to build the Berlin Wall and to send missiles to Cuba. Another example is Richard Nixon going to China. I've forgotten how many visits Henry Kissinger made to China, and how every single word was dictated beforehand. More importantly, he went to China because China was then a counterweight to a greater threat, the Soviet Union. What is a greater threat in the Middle East than Iran today?

Senator Obama is totally lacking in experience, so therefore he makes judgments such as saying he would sit down with someone like Ahmadinejad without comprehending the impact of such a meeting. I know that his naivete and lack of experience is on display when he talks about sitting down opposite Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro or Ahmadinejad.

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More than a year ago, FP predicted Ehud Olmert's ouster and drew up a list of possible successors. It turns out the Israeli prime minister was able to hang on by the skin of his teeth, but the list still holds up pretty well. Among the top contenders? Tzipi Livni, the current foreign minister and the No.2 official in Olmert's Kadima Party.

Last year, Livni made a premature bid for Olmert's job when she excoriated his conduct of the Lebanon war. But today, Livni gave the embattled prime minister a shove that could finally break him by calling for internal elections for a new party leader. It so happens she's the odds-on favorite to win the job, which would make her the new prime minister as long as there are no new national elections.

That would suit Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak just fine, since he and many other center-left Israelis fear that Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party would win. That's why Barak is unlikely to simply withdraw from Olmert's governing coalition and collapse the government.

For now, though, Olmert seems determined to fight on. And judging by how he's been able to persevere thus far despite truly dismal public approval ratings, it would be foolish to count him out altogether.

Poor Rachel Ray. The Food Network hostess unwittingly unleashed the fury of blogger Michelle Malkin last Friday when she wore a black-and-white, paisley scarf in an ad for Dunkin Donuts. Upon learning of the ad, Malkin called Ray "clueless" and upbraided her for wearing "jihadi chic":

Charles Johnson notes, and many readers have e-mailed about, Dunkin Donuts' spokeswoman Rachel Ray's clueless sporting of a jihadi chic keffiyeh in a recent DD ad campaign. I'm hoping her hate couture choice was spurred more by ignorance than ideology.

Feeling the blogospheric heat, Dunkin Donuts decided to pull the ad even though, as you can clearly see, the scarf is not a checked keffiyeh at all:

Malkin, however, remains unhumbled by her mistake and still demands to know where Ray got her paisley scarf.

(For what it's worth, the keffiyeh is a secular symbol of Palestinian nationalism, though the Palestinian movement has obviously become more Islamist in recent decades. Just because you wear it doesn't mean you espouse violence, only that you take the Palestinian side in the conflict.)

Apparently, Tony Blair was very nearly killed by Israeli fighter jets on Monday . Blair's pilots initially failed to respond to radio requests for identification when they entered Israeli airspace and the air force believed the private plane might have been part of a terrorist attack. Luckily the pilots did eventually respond and Blair was unaware that the event took place until later. A malfunction in the air force's early alert system is being blamed for the mix-up.

Israel should probably get the kinks worked out before the next time a former head of state flies through. Blowing up the international community's envoy to the Middle East might make negotiations a little awkward.

It seems worth pointing out that three major negotiation stories broke in the Middle East and South Asia today. Israel and Syria, technically at war since 1967, are holding historic peace talks in Turkey that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described as a "national obligation." The Lebanese government negotiated a compromise with Hezbollah, ending 18 months of violence and political deadlock. And Pakistan's government defied the U.S. by agreeing to withdraw from Taliban-controlled territory in exchange for security guarantees.

Of course, whether these agreements will hold up is another question. They also raise troubling questions about the increasing ability of terrorist groups to win concessions from governments. However, it's interesting to note that while American politicians debate the idea of negotiating with hostile regimes and religious extremists as if it were some abstract concept in an international relations seminar, the U.S.'s allies in the region are already doing it on their own.

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Speaking in Jerusalem today, George Bush was uncharacteristically modest about his expectations for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process during the rest of his term:

"I'm not running for the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along," Bush said.

Being that guy may force a president desperate for a foreign policy victory to back away from one of his administration's central stated principles: the refusal to negotiate with regimes hostile to the U.S. and Israel. In a new web-exclusive argument for FP, journalist Laura Rozen explores the possibility of Bush overhauling his diplomatic posture in the Middle East this late in the game:

Though the Bush administration seems unlikely to do a “Nixon goes to China” with Iran at this late date, in some isolated cases it does appear to be at least flirting with a different approach. Recent weeks have seen numerous reports of indirect proximity talks and back-channel diplomacy between Israel and Syria, on the one hand, and between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, on the other. In both cases, Washington’s role is curious, officially condemning calls for any sort of dialogue with Hamas while at the same time, seemingly tacitly endorsing Egypt’s role as a cease-fire broker between Israel and Hamas.

 Read the full piece here.

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After last night's party, Israeli political leaders are back to the grim reality of the ongoing corruption investigation that threatens to bring down Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  A police gag order on  the investigation will be lifted this evening, allowing the the Israeli media to finally report on the full details of the case.

The New York Post revealed last week that Olmert is being investigated for money he may have received as mayor of Jerusalem during the 1990s from a Long Island businessman named Morris Talansky. Israeli media outlets are still barred from publishing Talansky's name or any other details of the case, though the easy availability of foreign news sources in Israel has made the blackout somewhat ridiculous. The ongoing confusion over Olmert's legal status has also made further peace negotiations next to impossible.

Watch this space as more details are revealed.

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KIBBUTZ BE'ERI, ISRAEL - APRIL 30: Seen from the cab of a combine harvester, an Israeli army armored personnel carrier (APC) secures the border with the Gaza Strip as Israeli farmers bring in the wheat crop near Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel. As grain prices reach record levels, Israeli farmers are expanding the area under wheat cultivation, right up to the border fence with the Hamas-controlled territory.

Dog bites man. A Commentary magazine blogger slams Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders.

But there's more. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) says it turned down a meeting request from Carter, whom the terrorist group accused of "carrying an American-Israeli agenda." (Funny, most of Carter's critics would say he's carrying water for the Palestinians.) Commentary's Eric Trager says the incident "should finally shatter Carter's credibility as a peacemaker." He explains:

While PIJ shares many of Hamas' militant features–including its coordination of terrorist activities, calls for Israel's destruction, and theocratic aims–PIJ lacks Hamas' social and political significance. It does not have the social welfare network on which Hamas has built its popularity, while PIJ's refusal to participate in the 2006 parliamentary elections points to its minimal public authority among Palestinians.

There are many valid reasons to meet with Hamas, most notably because no peace process can possibly succeed if the Islamist movement is outside the tent trying to blow it up. Carter is right about that, and many Israelis know it. But if it's true that the former U.S. president wanted to meet with the odious PIJ as well, then it shows he hasn't learned a whole lot about politics in his 83 years. To say the least.

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For the first time ever, a female Muslim Arab soldier has joined an elite Israeli Air Force unit. Upon completing a medic training course with top honors, she became part of the Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669, a premier unit that extricates wounded soldiers from combat zones in sensitive and highly classified operations.

Unlike Jewish young adults, most Arab Israelis are not required to serve in the military, but this soldier, from an Arab village in northern Israel, volunteered to serve. But Muslims and Arabs are prevented from serving in the elite Unit 669, which requires an extremely high security clearance, due to fears about conflicting loyalties should they have to serve in Palestinian areas or fight Muslim countries. So how did she get in? An investigation revealed that an error was made, although news reports have not described the nature of the error or who made it. (My hunch is that those details are confidential.)

Nonetheless, the unit's commander has been so impressed with the woman's exceptional ability that he is allowing her to stay. Although some on the Internet say she may end up betraying her unit, it may be that in this case an error ended up yielding the correct outcome -- letting in a talented, loyal soldier.