Back in December North Korea condemned the Israeli raid on what we now know to be a Syrian nuclear reactor.

North Korea lashed out Tuesday at Israel for invading Syrian airspace last Thursday, its official news agency said.”This is a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security,” a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea strongly denounces the above-said intrusion and extends full support and solidarity to the Syrian people in their just cause to defend the national security and the regional peace,” he added.

Last week it was revealed that perhaps there was an even bigger reason for North Korea to condemn Israel.

Ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Syria in September, NHK reported on its Web site, citing unidentified South Korean intelligence officials.The 10 people, whose remains were cremated and returned to North Korea in October, had been helping with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria, Japan’s public broadcaster said. Some North Koreans probably survived the air attack, NHK said.

Now, President Bush is making the connection explicitly. The New York Times reports:

Making the first remarks in public about the Israeli attack by any American official, Mr. Bush said that his administration maintained a cloak of secrecy to avoid the risk of further military conflict in the region, including possible Syrian retaliation against Israel. He said that risk of conflict “was reduced” now.Mr. Bush did not explain why exactly the administration disclosed the information at this point, but the timing coincided with renewed efforts to persuade North Korea to abide by last year’s agreement to acknowledge all of its nuclear activities. The North Korean activities include what administration officials assert are a still undisclosed program to enrich uranium and the sale of nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

“We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we, we may know more about you than you think,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference.

Senior officials have signaled that the administration may accept a less-than-full disclosure, allowing North Korea, for example, not to explain its nuclear cooperation with Syria in the kind of detail that American officials have now done.

In his remarks on Tuesday and at Camp David on April 19, the president appeared to back off such a compromise. He restated his demand that North Korea make “a complete disclosure” about its proliferation and enrichment activities.

More than that President Bush emphasized:

Mr. Bush said that the disclosure of a covert Syrian reactor, which Syria has denied, should persuade other countries to support United Nations Security Council resolutions intended to keep Iran and other countries from developing nuclear arms.“We have an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world for that matter about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East,” he said.

In addition to his comments about the North Korean aid to Syria, the President also added (according to the Washington Post):

Bush avoided criticism of former president Jimmy Carter’s recent talks with Hamas, the radical Palestinian group classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. The United States refuses to engage with Hamas, which Bush said is “undermining peace.”"They’re the ones whose foreign policy objective is the destruction of Israel,” he said. “They’re the ones who are trying to create enough violence to stop the advance of the two-party state solution.”

The President implicitly gives too much credit to Fatah, but it’s correct for him to acknowledge this.

Left unsaid, is that this episode suggests that the “axis of evil” was quite possibly more than just a rhetorical flourish.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Anti-Semitic attacks are up worldwide, and “major” anti-Semitic attacks—ones classifed as severely violent—tripled in the past year. And this time, the world doesn’t have the Lebanon war to blame for their attacks on Jews. It’s just plain old vanilla Jew-hatred, aided and abetted by the media portrayal of Jews and Zionism, with a lot of help from the anti-Semitic United Nations.

A 6.6% rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks has been registered across the world in 2007, a report published on Wednesday by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at the Tel Aviv University revealed.

Furthermore, the number of severe violent attacks rose threefold in 2007.

According to the study, 632 incidents of racially-motivated violence against Jews have been reported in 2007, compared to 593 in 2006. Fifty-seven percent of the attacks in 2007 have been classified as “major attacks” – three times higher than in 2006, when the number of major attacks stood at 19.

The report’s authors noted that the trend of growth in anti-Semitics violence continued last year, despite the absence of a direct “external catalyst” – such as the Second Lebanon war the year before.

Islamophobia is mentioned. I’ll have to read the full report, because this sounds like excuse-making to me:

They further suggested that the rise in major attacks could be linked to internal social and economic tensions in various countries and the consequent rise in Islamophobia.

The vast majority of violent assaults were registered in western and central Europe, where the growing presence of millions of immigrants, including some 20 million Muslims, is a source for constant friction, the report maintained.

And the three countries with the biggest rise in anti-Semitic attacks?

Meanwhile, in Germany, Canada and Britain the number of anti-Semitics assaults in both categories grew in 2007.

The good news: Attacks grew only 6.6%. The bad news: Attacks in 2006 doubled over 2005. I suppose we should be grateful that the growth industry is seeing a severe slowdown. But let’s face it: Attacks on Jews never go out of style. And now, they rarely go reported, except by Jewish organizations.

Condoleeza Rice told U.S. Jews that Palestinian propaganda is working—they’re raising a generation of Palestinians who don’t want peace with Israel. But I don’t think that’s quite the message she was trying to get across.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an American Jewish audience Tuesday that young Palestinians are losing hope for an agreement with Israel.

“Increasingly, the Palestinians who talk about a two-state solution are my age,” Rice, 53, said in a somber speech to The American Jewish Committee at its 102nd annual meeting.

Insisting that the Bush administration will never yield to dealing with Hamas militants, Rice said, “What you don’t want is that the hopelessness and the vision of the extremists have no counter.”

So it looks like the Palestinan refusal to stop “incitement”—which is another word for raising their children on a steady diet of Jew-hatred in the schools, on TV, and in the homes—is paying big dividends. For the Palestinians, who never truly agreed to live with Israel in the first place.

Qureia said in response that Barak “can say whatever he wants, but the determining factor will be the negotiations and the outcome of the talks.

“On principle, we know what our rights are and will fight for them using all means and ways. We reject any demand, any position, or any Israeli statement regarding territory outside the 1967 borders.”

And that’s just a jumping-off point to the next phase, which is still, in their minds, the elimination of Israel. It’s just that Fatah is a little more subtle about it than Hamas.

And, the administration would have no dealings with Hamas or other Palestinian extremists that war with Israel and refuse to recognize the Jewish state.

“Either you are a political party or a terrorist group,” Rice said. “You cannot be both.”

Yeah, tell that to Fatah. The ones who are boycotting any dignitary that celebrates Israel’s 60th birthday.

Presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries who attend Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations next month will be shunned by Palestinian leaders if they visit the West Bank.

However, one positive thing came out from Condi: She dissed Jimmah again.

Once again, Rice criticized former President Jimmy Carter for holding talks with Hamas leaders. “I don’t see the point of trying to negotiate with people who are determined to destroy the foundation of peace,” she said.

Look for him to respond petulantly.