There was great attention during the works of the United Nations General Assembly towards Iran’s new President. However the debate of the last week was not characterized just by the Middle East question.

Iran and Middle East

In contrast to Ahmadinejad, Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani doesn’t deny the Holocaust or predicts that Israel has to disappear from the Map. He has clearly made a break from his ultraconservative predecessor, and from his politics of confrontation and provocation.

His Iran will be an anchor of stability in a volatile region and he highlighted his commitment to resolve regional conflicts with diplomacy.

On the sides of the General Assembly in New York he called on Israel to acknowledge its nuclear arsenal and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He also criticized the country for being the only Middle East state to not sign onto the pact.

“Almost four decades of international efforts to establish a nuclear-​weapon-​free zone in the Middle East have regrettably failed. He added that all nuclear activities in the region should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and nuclear safeguards.

“No nation should possess nuclear weapons, since there are no right hands for these wrong weapons,” he said. “As long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, threat of use and proliferation persist. The only absolute guarantee is their total elimination.”

Latin America

The latin american countries drew the attention to the global network of electronic espionage, seeking more respect for their rights and their sovereignty. It was also proposed a reform of the United Nations Security Council.

Dilma Youssef highlighted that citizens’ personal data, corporate information and diplomatic information had been intercepted, as well as communications of the Office of the President.  “Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and an affront to the principles that must guide relations among them, especially among friendly nations.”

“The right to safety of citizens of one country”, she said, “could never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another”. As many other Latin Americans, she had fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and she could not be defend the right to privacy — of individuals and the nation itself. In the absence of privacy, there could be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore, no effective democracy. In the absence of respect for sovereignty, there was no basis for the relationship among nations. She demanded from the United States’ Government explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures would never be repeated.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales said that much had been heard about democracy, respect and social justice during the debate. But, he asked, “What justice are they talking about? What democracy were they talking about when countries like the United States could spy even on their democratic allies? What peace could be discussed when there were so many unemployed in that country and yet billions of dollars went to military expenditure every year?”

He said terrorism was not to be fought with more military spending but with more democracy, more social justice and more education.

The West can maybe be happy for the the detente of its relations with a part of Middle East, but it has certainly to reconsider its behavior towards that part of the world who decided to get through several years of misery and oppression.

US President Barack Obama used his speech at the UN General Assembly to demand the world take action on the crisis in Syria. Syria and renewed talks on Iran’s nuclear program are set to dominate the annual meeting.

President Obama defended his threat of force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime at the annual UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, saying Damascus must face consequences after the use of chemical weapons.

"There must be a strong Security Council resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments, and there must be consequences if they fail to do so," Obama said to the world leaders.

His remarks come as the US and Russia negotiate a UN Security Council resolution in connection with an agreement by Damascus to give up its chemical weapons.

The US-Russia brokered deal was struck following a push by Obama for a military strike on Syria.

Obama denounced critics who questioned whether Assad carried out the August 21 chemical attack outside Damascus, which the US says killed more than 1,400 people.

"It is an insult to human reason - and to the legitimacy of this institution - to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack," he said.

"Nevertheless, a leader who slaughtered his citizens and gassed children to death cannot regain the legitimacy to lead a badly fractured country," he said of Assad.

Obama cautioned, however, that military action would not achieve lasting peace and that any nation, including the US, should not determine who will lead Syria.

Renewed talks on Iran

Obama also used his time in front of the Assembly to welcome the new Iranian government's pursuit of what he called a "more moderate course," in relation to stalled negotiations over its nuclear program.

"The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested," Obama said.

On Monday, the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, announced that Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, would join talks with six key nations due to "energy and determination" shown by Tehran for fresh talks.

The foreign ministers of the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are set to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

The meeting between the six powers and Iran will be the first since April, when discussions on how to reduce fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to create weapons stalled at a meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The UN Security Council has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and sanctions from the US and its allies have had a crippling effect on Iran's economy.

Obama did not say whether he will meet with Iran's new moderate conservative President Hasan Rouhani. Even a handshake would mark the first such encounter between US and Iranian leaders in over 30 years.

Obama faces criticism over NSA

Despite the focus on Syria and Iran, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used her opening speech at the General Assembly to criticize Obama and the US National Security Agency (NSA) over reports it had spied on Brazilian government communications.

She announced Brazil would adopt legislation and technology to protect it from illegal interception of communications.

Last week, Rousseff called off a high-profile state visit to Washington scheduled for October over the reports.

"Meddling in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations," Rousseff said to the gathering of world leaders.

President Obama was en route to the UN during her speech and therefore not present.

hc/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Iran was getting closer to the "red line" he set for its nuclear program and warned the international community not to be distracted by the crises in Syria and Egypt.

Tehran was continuing enrichment activities and building inter-continental ballistic missiles, which could give it a military nuclear capability, he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

At the United Nations in September, Netanyahu drew a red line across a cartoon bomb to illustrate the point at which Iran will have amassed enough uranium to fuel one nuclear bomb. He said Iran could reach that threshold by mid-2013.

"They haven't yet reached it but they're getting closer to it and they have to be stopped," Netanyahu told CBS. He said the West's sanctions against Tehran needed to be intensified and backed up with the threat of a credible military option.

Netanyahu also said Iran was building faster centrifuges that could allow it to speed up its enrichment activities.

Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, has issued veiled warnings for years that it might attack Iran if international sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Israel has long insisted on the need for a convincing military threat and setting clear lines beyond which Iran's nuclear activity should not advance.

"I think it's important to note that we (Israel) can't allow it to happen. Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We're closer than the United States, we're more vulnerable, and therefore we'll have to address this question of whether to stop Iran before the United States does," Netanyahu said.

The Israeli prime minister said he was concerned that the military conflict in Syria and the political crisis in Egypt had pushed the Iran nuclear issue lower on the international agenda.

"There are many important issues that we have to deal with and I have a sense that there is no sense of urgency on Iran and yet Iran is the most important and the most urgent matter of all," he said.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Syria's opposition has elected a new president to represent it as the battle on the ground rages. Meanwhile, two members of a German aid group who went missing in Syria are said to be alive, well, and on their way home.

The opposition coalition also elected three vice presidents: Salem al-Muslit, Suhair Atassi and Mohammed Farouk Taifour, a senior official with Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. The coalition voted for Badr Jamous as secretary-general.

The meeting represents the second attempt in recent months to unify the opposition. The SNC counts on little support inside Syria, where civilians primarily concern themselves with trying to survive the third summer of a conflict that has killed more than 93,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes. In late May, the opposition leaders met for more than a week in Istanbul, but failed to elected new leaders or devise a strategy for possible peace talks that the U.S. and Russia have been trying to convene in Geneva.

'Pray for him'

Although the German Foreign Ministry announced the release of two citizens, the fate of a third missing person is unknown. The Grünhelme (Green Helmets) aid organization announced last weekend that three of its members were missing and were believed to have been kidnapped. According to Grünhelme, they were taken by unknown persons on May 14, from the town of Harem in Syria's Idlib district.

Government airstrikes have killed three in Syria’s central city of Homs. Armed forces began launching raids, shelling attacks and a ground offensive on rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs last week.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that warplanes pounded the old quarters of Homs early Sunday, killing one woman and two children.

On the offensive, President Bashar al-Assad's forces reclaimed some of the territory they lost to the rebels since Syria's civil war began as a series of nonviolent protests in March 2011.

The operation prompted the key opposition National Coalition to issue a statement late Saturday urging "battalions of the Free Syrian Army to come to the aid of Homs with all means possible." The group also called on international backers of the uprising to establish a no-fly zone and carry out air strikes against regime military bases.

The recent moves by Assad's troops have alarmed international supporters of the rebels, leading the United States, for example, to announce that it will step up military support. Hopes for a US- and Russian-backed peace conference have dimmed.

‘The worst campaign'

Regime troops have stepped up efforts to regain territory. The Observatory reported that the all-out shelling was hitting the neighborhoods of Khaldiyeh, Bab Hub, Hamidiyeh and Bustan al-Diwan.

"This is the worst campaign against the city since the revolution began," an activist in the rebel-held old quarter of the city told news agencies on Saturday via Skype. "They are using all types of weapons," the man said on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

There was one bright spot for the rebels, however: "The army is continuing its attempt to enter Khaldiyeh, but it hasn't succeeded so far," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the opposition-affiliated Observatory.

Army's march continues

Assad's forces want to gain control over the axis connecting Damascus to the Mediterranean. Syrian state media reported the army was "achieving great progress" in Khaldiyeh.

Saturday's bombardment on Homs follows steady military gains by Assad's forces in recent weeks, gains that have been credited somewhat to Syria being backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militants.

Three weeks ago, for example, Hezbollah assisted Assad's regime by recapturing the border town of Qusair, a former rebel bridgehead for smuggling guns and fighters. The rebels lost another town last week, Tel Kalakh.

A city of about 1 million, Homs has sided with the rebels since the early days of the uprising. Homs is Syria's third largest city and capital of its largest province, which carries the same name and stretches from the Lebanese border to the frontier with Jordan and Iraq.

Meanwhile, the German organization Grünhelme, which helps with reconstruction and health, released a statement on its website Saturday announcing that three men went missing May 15, when they were kidnapped in the town of Harem in the Idlib district near Syria's northern border with Turkey.

mkg/jlw (AFP, AP)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched to Istanbul's Taksim Square on Saturday chanting slogans against the government and police after security forces killed a Kurdish demonstrator in southeastern Turkey.

The protest had been planned as part of larger unrelated anti-government demonstrations that have swept through the country since the end of May, but became a voice of solidarity with the Kurds after Friday's killing.

"Murderer police, get out of Kurdistan!" some protesters chanted. "This is only the beginning, the struggle continues. The murderer state will pay!"

Turkish forces killed the man and wounded 10 others when they fired on a group protesting against the construction of a gendarmerie outpost in the Kurdish-dominated region.

The incident, in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province, appeared to be the most violent in the region since a ceasefire declaration in March by jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan in a decades-old conflict between his fighters and the Turkish state, and it risks derailing the nascent peace process.

Around 10,000 protesters descended on Taksim, which has been the center of weeks of anti-government demonstrations, but were prevented from entering the square by riot police.

Many in the crowd sat in the roads leading to the square after being denied entry. "Long live the brotherhood of the people!" people shouted in both Turkish and Kurdish.

Most of the protesters dispersed after a couple of hours, with a group of around 1,000 remaining near the square. Riot police pushed them away from the square with shields and slow moving water cannon trucks although no water was fired. Announcements were made for protesters to return to their homes.

The Kurdish tensions come at a time of increased vigilance among Turkish security forces after the anti-government protests in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in which four people have died and thousands have been injured.

The protests, which had largely died down over the past week, have emerged as the biggest public challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's 10-year rule. He has dismissed the protesters as pawns of Turkey's enemies and has called supporters to back his party in municipal elections next year.

PROTEST AT FUNERAL

Earlier, hundreds of Kurds chanted anti-government slogans at the funeral of 18-year-old Medeni Yildirim, raising fears of violence at protest marches around the country on Sunday called by Turkey's main pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

The mourners in the city of Diyarbakir warned Erdogan to respect the peace process.

"Behave, Erdogan, don't push us to the mountains!" they chanted - a reference to the camps of Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mountains of northern Iraq from where they used to attack targets within Turkey.

Erdogan tried on Friday to reassure Turkey's Kurds that the anti-government would not harm the peace process.

"The peace process was not affected ... and our brotherhood grew stronger thanks to our people's common sense," he said.

Turkey's Interior Ministry said inspectors would investigate Friday's incident, which it said had involved up to 250 people attacking the construction site. It said the death resulted from warning shots fired to disperse the crowd.

Hours before the killing, the BDP called for marches in three major cities on Sunday to launch a summer of protests to raise pressure on Ankara for reforms under the peace process with the PKK. Leaders said the rallies would be peaceful.

PKK militants began withdrawing from Turkish territory to bases in northern Iraq last month as part of the deal between the state and Ocalan, imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999, to end a conflict that has killed 40,000 people.

There has been little evidence of progress with attention focused on the countrywide protests.

But the BDP has said the withdrawal was continuing successfully and the process had entered a second stage during which Ankara needed to broaden the rights of Kurds, who make up some 20 percent of the 76 million population.

The BDP protests will call for a halt to the construction of military outposts, the release of political prisoners, education in Kurdish, lowering of the threshold of 10 percent electoral support required to enter parliament, and the release of Ocalan.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, took up arms against the state in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state, but subsequently moderated its goal to autonomy.

(Writing by Jonathon Burch and Ece Toksabay; Editing by Alison Williams)

Er war der zweithöchste US-Offizier, nun ermittelt die Regierung gegen ihn: General James Cartwright soll Informationen über die "Stuxnet"-Attacken gegen iranische Atomanlagen an die Presse gegeben haben. Besonders delikat: Er selbst spielte bei dem Angriff eine wichtige Rolle. 

mehr auf:  http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/cyber-attacken-auf-iran-us-general-unter-whistleblowing-verdacht-1.1707816

By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - How deep is the divide separating Russia and the United States on Syria? A photo from the recent G8 summit in Northern Ireland says it all - two grim-faced leaders slouched in their chairs, Barack Obama biting his lip and Vladimir Putin staring at the floor.
The awkward photo opportunity, which went viral on the Internet, highlights the increasingly tense relationship between the former Cold War foes who find it difficult to agree on a series of high-profile issues, including Syria and a fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor whom Putin refuses to extradite.
Washington and Moscow have been trying since May to organize an international peace conference to bring an end to the violence. But hopes that such a conference will take place anytime soon - if at all - are fading quickly.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov originally announced that they would try to hold the conference, which is intended to bring rebels and representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to the negotiating table, by the end of May.
But the date keeps slipping. First it was bumped to June, then July. Earlier this week U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks with senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva, ruled out a peace conference before August.
Diplomats at the United Nations in New York say it is unclear whether the peace conference will take place at all.
"It's not looking too good," a senior Western diplomat said.
The point of the conference was to revive a plan adopted last year in Geneva. At that time, Washington and Moscow agreed on the need for a transitional Syrian government, but left open the question of whether Assad could participate in the process.
The United States, like the Syrian rebels, says Assad and his family should play no role in a transitional government, though Russia says there should be no conditions on the talks.
Kerry and Lavrov will discuss Syria again next week on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference in Brunei, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
ASSAD WON'T HAND OVER POWER
There are other sticking points in discussions on how to make what U.N. diplomats have been calling "Geneva 2" take place at all - who will represent Assad's government and the Syrian opposition at the negotiating table. There is still no agreement on the lineup of potential negotiators. Then there is the issue of whether Assad's other key ally Iran should participate, as Russia wants but Western governments dislike.
Recently, Assad's forces have enjoyed some military successes. They recaptured two towns near the Lebanese border, while rebels complain about insufficient arms and ammunition.
This, diplomats say, makes both Assad's government and the opposition more reluctant to seek a compromise and diplomacy in Geneva - Assad because he thinks he can win the war militarily, and the opposition because it does not want to negotiate from a position of weakness and is holding out for more weapons.
Assad's foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, told a news conference earlier this week that authorities were ready to form a broad-based government of national unity. But he made clear that they were not planning to give up control of Syria.
"We head to Geneva not to hand over power to another side," he said. "Whoever on the other side imagines this, I advise them not to go to Geneva."
Some diplomats say the ebbing hopes for a serious peace conference highlights the impotence of the United Nations and Brahimi, who for months has threatened to quit the post like his predecessor, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Annan quit the job last year out of frustration at the way the dispute between Russia, Assad's main arms supplier, and the United States, which supports the rebels and recently announced it would begin providing them with arms, has left the Security Council in a state of paralysis on the Syrian issue.
Russia and China long ago ruled out sanctioning Syria and have vetoed three Western and Gulf Arab-backed resolutions condemning Assad's government for an increasingly sectarian war that the United Nations says has killed more than 90,000.
GRIM PROSPECTS FOR DIPLOMACY
Richard Gowan of New York University predicted that a collapse of Kerry's peace conference plan will increase pressure on Obama to send more and heavier weapons to the Syrian rebels.
"If the Geneva proposal fails, there will be pressure on the U.S. to move beyond its current offer of light weapons to the rebels, especially if Assad's forces score more victories," Gowan said.
"Kerry's bet on Geneva may backfire by demonstrating that diplomacy is really a lost cause, but perhaps Kerry, who has reportedly argued for air strikes, is fine with that," he said.
Washington's cautious move to begin arming moderate Syrian rebels - not Islamist militants who are increasingly present in the conflict - came after it said Assad's forces had crossed a "red line" by using chemical weapons.
The Syrian government denies the charge and says the rebels have used chemical arms. It also accuses Western and Gulf Arab governments of arming the opposition.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, now in his second and final term, is increasingly worried that he may be remembered as the man who failed in Syria, U.N. diplomats told Reuters. He has even considered stepping in himself to try to broker a peace deal if Brahimi throws in the towel, the envoys added.
Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who will soon take up the post of Obama's national security adviser, said earlier this week that the council's failure to take decisive action on Syria was a "moral and strategic disgrace."
"The repeated failure of the Security Council to unify on the crucial issue of Syria I think is a stain on this body and something that I will forever regret - even though I don't believe that outcome is the product of the action of the United States," Rice said.
British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant echoed Rice's unusually strong words, which were clearly aimed at Russia and China. He also defended the United Nations against suggestions that the organization itself was somehow responsible for the Security Council's failure to act on Syria.
"People talk about it being a stain on the United Nations but you can't blame the United Nations," he said, adding that the responsibility lies with its member states.
"We have tried very hard over the last two years to secure some leverage for the Security Council in this crisis as it's unfolded," he said. "Unfortunately we've had three resolutions vetoed by Russia and China ... Events on the ground might have unfolded very differently had those resolutions been adopted."
A March 2011 council resolution authorized military intervention in Libya and gave a green light for NATO to mount an operation to protect civilians that led to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's ouster and death at the hands of rebel forces.
No Western nations have called for something similar in Syria, and Russia has vowed to prevent a similar move in Syria.
There may be no swift end to the war. And even if the opposition were to prevail, it is unlikely to bring stability.
"The Syrian civil war is likely to go on for years," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"It is not just that it is proving harder and taking longer to oust the Assad regime than many expected," he told Reuters. "It is also that even if the regime were to be removed, what would follow would be a prolonged round of fighting among opposition forces who disagree on just about everything except their opposition to the current regime."

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia regards the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria's civil war as dangerous and believes the rebels must be offered military aid to defend themselves, the kingdom's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Secretary John Kerry in Jeddah, Prince Saud al-Faisal added that Saudi Arabia "cannot be silent" about Iranian intervention and called for a resolution to ban arms flows to the Syrian government.

"The kingdom calls for issuing an unequivocal international resolution to halt the provision of arms to the Syrian regime and states the illegitimacy of the regime," Prince Saud said.

Kerry has returned to the Middle East after a two-day visit to India, and will continue efforts to strengthen the Syrian opposition and revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
In Jeddah, Kerry is holding discussions with Prince Saud and Saudi Arabian intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who coordinates the kingdom's efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The discussions include Washington's plans for providing direct military support to General Salim Idriss of the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of Syria's main civilian opposition group.

Prince Saud said the world's top oil exporter "cannot be silent" at the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict and renewed calls to arm the opposition and bar weapons sales to President Bashar al-Assad.

"The most dangerous development is the foreign participation, represented by Hezbollah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," said.
"There is no logic that allows Russia to publicly arm the Syrian regime and the foreign forces that support it," he added.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will arm the rebels but has not disclosed what type of assistance he will provide. Kerry is trying to ensure that the aid to the rebels is properly coordinated among the allies, in part out of concern that weapons could end up in the hands of extremist groups.

A meeting between Kerry and European and Arab counterparts in Doha last week agreed to increase support for Syria's rebels although there was no consensus among the foreign ministers over providing arms, with Germany and Italy strongly opposed to the move.
More than 93,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which began as a popular protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad but has descended into a civil war with sectarian overtones.
Nearly 1.7 million refugees have fled into neighboring countries, including Lebanon, where clashes between armed groups supporting opposing sides in Syria have fuelled fears of a lapse back into sectarian civil war.
Saudi Arabia has become more actively involved in the Syrian crisis in recent months, expanding the flow of weapons to the rebels to include anti-aircraft missiles.
(Reporting By Mahmoud Habboush and Lesley Wroughton, Editing by Angus McDowall and William Maclean)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to Palestinian militant rocket fire that broke weeks of relative calm along the frontier.
No casualties were reported in the incidents.

Six rockets were fired into Israel overnight, causing no damage, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Two of them were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, the military said.

Israeli aircraft later struck targets in the Gaza Strip, including two weapons storage facilities, the military said, and Israel closed one of its the crossings with the coastal territory, which is controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

No group claimed responsibility for the Palestinian rocket fire. Officials in Gaza said two of six Israeli air strikes struck training camps for the militant group Islamic Jihad.

In a separate incident, tires were slashed on 21 cars in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem in what appeared to be another in a series of "Price Tag" attacks by suspected Jewish militants. Police opened an investigation.
The term refers to the price the militants say they will exact for Palestinian attacks or any Israeli government curbs on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)