Israel knows that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya is in the more compromising wing of Hamas. Khaled Meshal, now in Syria and the figure who allegedly authorized the recent incursion inside Israel that led to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, seems to be more of an ideological hard-liner.

Ryutaro Hashimoto, aged 68, was one of Japan’s political titans who grew up under the tutelage of Japan’s master kingpin politician, Kakuei Tanaka. I knew Hashimoto and met him first in January 1985 at a time when other of the key lieutenants of the Tanaka faction were running Japan.

Not too long ago, i reported some aspects of a terrorism conference I attended as the guest of the NYU Center on Law & Security. One of the points that my friend and colleague Nir Rosen made was that the U.S. military had just become one militia among many in the eyes of many Iraqis….

I’ve had quite a number of emails about the “steely exchange” between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Condi Rice. Since the words exchanged were tense, some have wrongly jumped to the conclusion that this was another “undiplomatic” moment to file away with the Bush administration’s foreign policy files.

The Bush administration is asking both sides in the Israel-Palestine standoff to “bend”. It seems like the administration is whispering its advice rather than pushing hard, but the tone is right. But in a comment today, Tony Snow said that he thought that the UN should not issue a resolution condemning Israel’s incursion into Gaza….

A group of armed Palestinians, some connected to the militant wing of Hamas, did penetrate Israel’s border security and did kidnap a young soldier, Gilad Shalit. Those who defend the action say that it was in response to Israel’s killing 7 members of an innocent Palestinian family.

A small win for the good side. I wrote last week about Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s personal views on gay people being at odds with an outrageous practice in the Pentagon that still classified homosexuals as “mentally disordered.

Well, if the home page is visible to you — post away. Steps are now being taken to move my site to a new host and servers, and the problems the site has been having should be resolved shortly.

I have had hundreds of emails asking what was wrong with The Washington Note website. It hasn’t been loading properly. Some people get blank pages, partial pages, or notes that the site has been suspended and referring to “accounts payable.

David Kaplan of US News & World Report has an insightful short piece out on the bureaucracy of U.S. public diplomacy and Karen Hughes’ efforts to “win the war of ideas”: U.S. effort on war of ideas draws skepticism.