National News

Washington will be filled to overflowing with assorted protesters over the weekend, and some promise to turn their attention to the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
More than 3,000 pro-Israel activists from around the country, a record number, are expected to gather for the AIPAC event, which traditionally sets the tone and establishes the themes for the pro-Israel movement.

Washington — In New York, leaders of the Jewish community made the decision to hold Monday’s massive pro-Israel rally on the Capitol grounds with only five days’ lead-time. And then they told Washington’s small army of Jewish representatives: Make it happen.
And that’s exactly what they did, coordinating everything from the 1,500 buses from up and down the East Coast to the 75 portable toilets and 10,000 bottles of water.

Suddenly, New York — and its large Jewish population — could matter more than ever before for both parties’ presidential primary races.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s poll- and pundit-defying victory over Sen. Barack Obama in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary leaves her party’s nominee to be decided in the mega ballot of 22 states that will go to the polls on Feb. 5, known as Super-Duper Tuesday.

New York, one of the largest states, with 281 delegates, is among the richest prizes of that day.

On the eve of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses this week, strategists in both major political parties now believe Jewish voters could play a critical role in wide-open nomination battles this year — and possibly in a November general election that some experts say could be another squeaker.

A leading pro-Israel lawmaker and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress will retire at the end of his current term.

In a statement on Wednesday Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.),  a 14- term veteran, revealed he is being treated for cancer of the esophagus.

"In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek reelection," said the 79-year-old Lantos.

In the ambiguous aftermath of the Annapolis summit, a blizzard of contradictory Israeli pronouncements on settlement expansion could be an irritant in U.S.-Israel relations — especially the on-again-off-again plan to build new housing in the red flag Har Homa neighborhood of Jerusalem.

But few observers expect an all-out diplomatic blow-up despite the Bush administration’s new urgency about forging a peace agreement by the end of the new year.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at the epicenter of what could be a third-party earthquake in 2008.

Speculation has grown in recent days that the globe-trotting mayor is maneuvering to position himself for a third-party presidential bid. Bloomberg, according to some analysts, could benefit from the high negatives that continue to plague Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, and from widespread unhappiness among many Republicans about all of their party’s prospective nominees.

Jewish community traditionally at the forefront of immigrant rights efforts has gone strangely mute as politicians fan public fury over illegal immigration. This week there were signs that is changing; the Anti-Defamation League issued a warning to the 2008 presidential candidates to cool their white-hot rhetoric on the issue.

But the ADL has been a lone voice; some critics say the timorous Jewish response is not commensurate with an anti-immigrant surge that could ultimately hurt all minorities – Jews included.

American Jews are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for Mideast peace and less willing to support the "painful compromises" that Israeli leaders say will be critical to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A behind-the-scenes struggle among politically active Evangelicals could boost former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s 2008 presidential ambitions.
Some Christian conservative leaders now say the global fight against Islamic extremism trumps the social issues, such as opposition to gay rights and abortion, that pushed the religious right into the political big leagues — a fight they depict as a to-the-death clash of civilizations.