* Israeli foreign minister: peace is impossible Israel’s foreign minister said a peace deal with the Palestinians is impossible under current conditions.

* UN Maps Out Afghan Security Internal United Nations maps show a marked deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan during this year’s fighting season.

* US Arms Reach Hizbullah, US Official Admits Some of the American-funded weapons that are being supplied to Lebanon fall into the hands of Hizbullah.

* UK considers recognizing PA diplomats London looking into possibility of upgrading Palestinian delegation to status of diplomatic mission.

* The verdict that may shake Russia The most important court trial in modern Russian history has drawn to an end.

* Violence fears grow in Ivory Coast as Gbagbo stays Fears of renewed fighting in this country once divided by civil war grew Monday following a threat from West African neighbors.

* South Korea must unite to survive, says President Lee South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has told his nation it must unite in the face of military aggression from the North.

* Ashkenazi: We will not accept rocket fire from Gaza IDF chief-of-staff meets with Italian counterpart in Tel Aviv; says IDF is “preparing for any scenario” in the Strip.

* Jerusalem mayor holds off eviction of settlers from East Jerusalem home Compromise achieved after settlers agree not to press for eviction of a Palestinian family living in a nearby Jewish-owned building.

* Thousands greet Turkish protest ship; chant “death to Israel” Pro-Palestinian activists gather at Istanbul port to greet ship raided by Israeli commandos on its way to Gaza in late May. Crowds wave Palestinian, Turkish flags; chant “Allah is great”.

* Christmas celebrations across the Middle East Secret Celebrations held throughout the region, from Bethlehem to Afghanistan to Lebanon, but the celebratory atmosphere covered up difficult circumstances for some in the largely Muslim region. of the production of a new type of explosively formed penetrator, or EFP in military jargon, is being produced by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.

* Hamas: We are ready to answer any Israeli aggression Speaking in Gaza, Hamas spokesman says group will abide by truce, but will “respond strongly” to Israeli attacks.

* Abbas: No room for Israelis in Palestinian state During tour of Ramallah, PA president expresses opposition to settlers, stationing of Israeli soldiers at borders of new state.

* Turkish FM: We want to make peace with Israel Speaking on the eve of the return of the ‘Mavi Marmara’ to Istanbul, Davutoglu says Ankara intends to reconcile with Israel, but accuses Jerusalem gov’t. of not reciprocating Turkish overtures.

* Ecuador formally recognizes Palestinian state President Rafael Correa follows other S. American countries and signs official recognition of Palestine as independent state with 1967 borders.

* Iraqi Christians mark a muted Christmas (Roundup) Iraqi Christians celebrated Christmas under tight security on Saturday as concerns over sectarian attacks led to a muted holiday, while the Vatican offered a message of comfort and a special prayer for their plight.

* Hamas commander: Israel will disappear Day after Mahmoud al-Zahar says Islamist group committed to unofficial truce, head of its armed wing says Israel will ‘cease to exist and we will have Palestine.

* Abbas in Bethlehem: We hope for year of peace PA leader says Palestinians seek peace ‘in path of Jesus,’ expresses hope for state next year.

* Suspect in Plot to Murder Jews, Christians Released in Turkey A Turkish court has released a man accused of planning to murder Jewish and Christian leaders, according to Turkey’s Anatolia news agency.

* “Start” of Good Things for Obama? Barack Obama and the Democratic Party exulted in the Senate ratification of the New Start Treaty reducing the number of nuclear warheads held by the United States and Russia.

What is the most popular religion in the US?

Is it one of the Protestant denominations, brought over from the Old Country with the pilgrims and pioneers? Catholicism, whose ranks in the US grow daily by the steady stream of devout believers coming from Latin America? Or is it perhaps Mormonism, the country’s truly unique religion born in America?

If you said yes to one of the above, try again. According to a study featured in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, a new book co-written by sociologists Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, which asked a cross sample of 3,000 ordinary Americans to rank religions, the most popular faith in the US is Judaism.

“We asked everyone in the survey to say how they felt about Catholics and Evangelicals and Jews and Mormons and Muslims, and so we were able to calculate a popularity ranking, so to speak, of different religions,” Putnam told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “Most surprisingly, the most popular religion in America are Jews among non-Jews, followed closely by Catholics. Fifty years ago, or 100 years ago, that almost certainly would not have been true.”

For the book, which was released in October, the authors set out to find how American religiosity affected democracy and inter-communal relations.

According to Putnam, a renowned Harvard University sociologist who in 2001 published the influential Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which presented his theory that America was losing its social capital, the new study confirmed that Americans were a deeply religious people – more so on average than in Iran, he said.

For instance, most Americans, around 90 percent, believe there is a heaven.

“Although somehow puzzlingly more Americans say they believe in heaven and not in life after death, so I’m not quite sure what they believe in,” Putnam said.

It also showed that while religion can be harmful in many instances to democracy, as evidenced in Belfast and Beirut and elsewhere, in America, rather uniquely, it has had some positive effects.

Back to the surprising findings regarding Jews. What has brought about the surprising popularity of this historically persecuted people who, even in America, had it rough when they began arriving en masse in the late 19th century?

Putnam, who converted to Judaism when he married his wife, a Jew from Chicago, said the American public may have learned the lessons of the injustices wrought upon the Chosen People in the past.

“There was a lot of anti-Semitism in America during the 1930s and 1940s,” he explained. “We know this from surveys from the time. It was not as high as Europe but a high level of anti-Semitism in America. If you look at the trend data year by year by the same measure that the Gallop poll has been doing, for 70 years now there was a very, very sharp drop in expressed anti-Semitism in 1946.

“Now, of course, you know why that happened. That was the revelation of the Holocaust, and the revelation of the Holocaust had the effect of completely delegitimizing anti-Semitism in America. It became much, much harder to say anti-Semitic things in public. I don’t mean to say people’s private beliefs changed instantly. But you can see in the data that younger Americans who came of age after that point in time were much less exposed to the virus of anti-Semitism because it was being suppressed, initially by political correctness, but it became hard to transmit that disease of anti-Semitism when you couldn’t talk about it publicly.

“So the next generation were less anti-Semitic and the process continued. So all the anti-Semitic stereotypes in America, the Shylocks and Christ-killers, all that kind of stuff disappeared from public culture and then private culture,” he said.

Putnam offers a piece of anecdotal evidence to illustrate just how positively Jews are allegedly viewed in the US at the moment. According to the professor, people signing up for dating websites who say they are Jewish are more sought after than others.

“If you say you are Jewish, you get more date offers than less,” he said. “Why is that?”

Could this trend be reversed? Could Jews somehow once again become the scapegoats of a governmental, economic or military debacle of some sort?

Putnam doesn’t think so. Despite the US recession of the past two years, when it was feared some might turn against Jews, with many senior bankers considered pivotal to the downturn being Jews, most Americans still have a benign opinion of Jews.

So can American Jews finally let out a collective sigh of relief and take pride in what they’ve accomplished? Asked if he felt proud of his findings, being a member of the tribe, Putnam gave a nuanced response.

“Not pride so much as satisfaction,” he said, “because I think that despite our problems, they are different than those our predecessors had 50 or 60 years ago, and I worry a little bit that if we continue to think that our worst problem is how non-Jews feel about us, that detracts from serious problems we as a community have.”

As President Obama lit the National Christmas tree this year, he said the story of the birth of Jesus is “dear to Michelle and me as Christians.” Mr. Obama addressed his Christian faith on the heels of a controversy of his own making. He has been deliberately downplaying the nation’s Christian roots for most of his tenure in office and is now bearing the brunt of a backlash.

On Dec. 6 the bipartisan Congressional Prayer Caucus sent the president a letter, chastising him for a speech he delivered Nov. 10 at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta in which he stated incorrectly that America’s national motto is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust.” The letter asked the president to correct his statement and to more accurately reflect the nation’s religious heritage abroad.

In addition, the 42 members of Congress who signed the letter asked the president to stop omitting the words “endowed by our Creator” when referencing the inalienable rights of each American, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. On seven occasions in public speeches, Mr. Obama has omitted the words “our Creator” in addressing the origins of our equal rights as citizens, reported World Net Daily on Dec. 8. He has done so even after being made aware of the omission. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has told the press not to make a big deal of it. Yet, forgetting God is a big deal.

This is not just an oversight or an abbreviation by the president: It is part of a pattern of being embarrassed by America’s Christian roots and deliberately attempting to eradicate public references to God. This is being done in official correspondence also, as occurred in the Universal Periodic Review submitted by the State Department to the United Nations in August.

It is little wonder then that an Aug. 19 Pew Research poll found that one in five Americans still erroneously believes the president is a Muslim. Even ABC host Barbara Walters was compelled to ask the president to address the persistent Muslim rumors in a Nov. 27 interview. And 59 percent of American Protestant pastors view Mr. Obama as something other than a Christian, according to a Life Way Research poll, published in December. It is unprecedented for a sitting president to have his faith so frequently questioned and scrutinized.

Mr. Obama has added fuel to this fire. For the first nine months of his presidency, he and his family attended church only once, leading to an outburst of reporting on this. He had campaigned as a Christian, had used much Christian rhetoric and had often referred to his faith as underpinning his character and political convictions. But shortly after he was elected the Christian candidate morphed into the slick and secular politico.

Mr. Obama left his previous church of 20 years, Trinity United in Chicago, during the presidential campaign as he disavowed the anti-American rants of its pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Subsequently, he claimed that his attendance in a church in the nation’s capital would present a security risk and would cause disruption. His explanation for not attending mass frequently since assuming office remains unconvincing, even to the many black Christians who have been his stalwart supporters. His actions are “shaking his good standing with spiritual leaders within the black community,” wrote Eric Hogue in a Sept. 23, 2009 article in BCNN1.com, a black Christian news site. The writer pointed out that, at the very least, the president’s daughters need regular church attendance and this is a basic fatherly duty — let alone the president’s responsibility to embody Christian leadership to the nation at large.

Since he was elected, Mr. Obama has attended church a handful of times. This fall, he and the family went to Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. This paltry record reveals that Mr. Obama is not the devoted Christian he claimed to be on the campaign trail. He is not anchored in a Christian community. While he is the president of a historically Christian nation, he really prefers to lead as a rootless secularist. He belongs in a suburban coffee shop sipping a latte and reading The New York Times rather than leading this “city upon a hill.”

It has been noted too, that by contrast to his lukewarm Christian pronouncements, Mr. Obama glows when he discusses the Muslim faith. Then, he is poet Obama, waxing graceful and eloquent. In February 2007, he stated to The New York Times that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” As president, he has also supported the building of the Ground Zero mosque, amid much public anger and controversy.

In the very same speech that Mr. Obama fumbled the national motto, he nonetheless referred to Islam in the most sympathetic manner. For example, he said that “al Qaeda and its affiliates… have no claim to be leaders of any religion” and “certainly not a great world religion like Islam.” Hence, for our president, America’s Christian God is to be buried in the catacombs of public discourse. Yet, the religion of Allah can be glorified and called “great” at the drop of a hat. When did he last refer to Christianity as “a great world religion?”

Mr. Obama also has an affinity for the beauty of mosques that he apparently does not have for Christian churches. In the speech in Indonesia, poet-laureate Obama used stirring language regarding a mosque, the Istiqlal, built by a Christian architect: “Earlier today, I visited the Istiqlal mosque — a place of worship that was still under construction when I lived in Jakarta. I admired its soaring minaret, imposing dome, and welcoming space.” When has he spoken so sweetly about the allure of a Christian church, regarded universally as among the most glorious monuments on earth?

Mr. Obama has been keen to repair the relationship among Christians and Muslims, at home and abroad. But he ought to make more of an effort to repair the damage to Christianity by secularists here in America. In short, Mr. Obama appears to be proud of Muslims and ashamed of Christians.

This is not as our Founding Fathers intended future presidents to behave. They had God on their lips — and enshrined in our core documents — because they were men of deep faith. They repeatedly warned that the nation must remain wedded to organized religion, even as they championed the separation of church and state. They opposed an establishment religion, while they regarded religion itself as the wellspring of liberty and civic virtue. They made a distinction between an official religion, which they rejected, and a nation’s common religion, which they valued highly.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address of 1796, beseeched the nation to remain wedded to organized religion. “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion,” he said. “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

John Adams expressed a similar point: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In other words, our Founding Fathers were not ashamed of the Christian God, but embraced Him as the fountain of every individual and social grace. Why is our current president so far removed from all the principles that have made this nation both formidable and good?

The next time Mr. Obama lights the National Christmas tree, let him speak of Jesus not because the polls indicate it might be politically expedient for him to do so. Let him speak of God, in his public pronouncements, as our Founding Fathers did — with gratitude for the great and good God who has blessed America in abundance as in turn, America has historically exalted Him at every opportunity.

* Obama signs ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ repeal President Barack Obama signed a landmark law Wednesday repealing the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military, fulfilling one of his major campaign pledges and casting the issue as a matter of civil rights long denied.

* The Net Neutrality Coup The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who’s who of left-liberal foundations.

* Don’t believe the media: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ has not been repealed The headlines said that the Pentagon’s homosexual exclusion policy had been repealed.

* Is Obama ashamed of America’s ties with God? As President Obama lit the National Christmas tree this year, he said the story of the birth of Jesus is “dear to Michelle and me as Christians.”

* After Freeze, Settlement Building Booms in Israel In the three months since Israel ended its settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, causing the Palestinians to withdraw from peace talks, a settlement building boom has begun, especially in more remote communities that are least likely to be part of Israel after any two-state peace deal.

* South Korea Begins New Round of Military Drills Despite previous warnings of retaliation from North Korea, the South Korean military continued to defy the North on Wednesday by launching a three-day naval drill in the Sea of Japan and scheduling an exercise by the army and air force about 30 miles from the North-South demilitarized zone.

* PA: Hamas Plans ‘Civil War’ in Judea, Samaria Seventeen rockets and two rocket launchers were recently seized from the hands of Hamas men in Ramallah, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority security forces said Wednesday.

* Censoring of Temple Mount Report Causes Anger The State Comptroller has prepared a report on the wanton destruction caused by the Waqf on the Temple Mount, and on Israel’s response.

* Turkey and Syria Tighten Ties, Say They’ll “Fight Terrorism” Turkey and Syria have announced a joint initiative to fight “terrorism,” but it is not clear which enemies are targeted.

* Saudi pro-democracy group’s protest banned No reasons given for ban on sit-in protest seeking end to royal family privileges