News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week promised weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which a PA security force member said will be used against Israel. Abu Yusef, a member of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Force 17 that was promised the weapons, told WorldNetDaily they will be used to "fight Israeli occupation." Rice met Abbas last week in Jericho and pledged 6,000 new assault rifles.

--Education Minister Yuli Tamir has instructed the publishers of Israel’s schoolbooks to reintroduce the pre-1967 borders into future editions. Tamir said Israel could not expect the Arabs to cap their demands at a return to the 1967 borders if Israeli children were not made aware of their existence.

--Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a group of high school students this week that it was better to have left IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in the hands of Hizbullah terrorists than to have risked more soldiers in an extended war in Lebanon. The Prime Minister, addressing a group of 11th graders at the Amal High School in Nahariya, also said that he decided during the second Lebanon War this summer to agree to a ceasefire and avoid risking the lives of more soldiers, rather than reject the United Nations-brokered agreement and continue the battles.