The United States will continue taking part in negotiations with Iran over the Iranian nuclear program, despite a recent Israeli seizure of an Iranian ship carrying weapons to Gaza.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged Wednesday that Iran’s state sponsorship of terror has continued during the talks. He also said that the U.S. “will continue to stand up to Iran’s support for destabilizing activities in the region, in coordination with our partners and allies, and [make] clear that these illicit actions are unacceptable to the international community and in gross violation of Iran’s [United Nations] Security Council obligations,” according to the Times of Israel.

But Carney said that despite Iran’s terror sponsorship, “it’s entirely appropriate to continue to pursue the possibility of reaching a resolution on the nuclear program,” in negotiations between Iran and Western powers.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces intercepted an Iranian ship laden with weaponry and bound for terrorist organizations in Gaza. Carney confirmed that U.S. intelligence had cooperated with the IDF on the operation.

The past week or so has witnessed a spate of “Remembering Baruch Goldstein” articles and videos in the international media. That’s because the past week marked the 20th anniversary of his attack at Ma’arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron.

First, to be clear, I do not agree with, or justify what Baruch Goldstein did twenty years ago. I believe I can say, as I have stated many times before, that the Jewish Community of Hebron also rejects such violence and bloodshed as a means to deal with the issues plaguing us. The reason I am so sure is simply because our people do not do it. Our people do not go out and randomly shoot at other people who are not endangering their lives.

People here are armed. We are licensed, either by the Ministry of the Interior or by the IDF, to carry small arms and rifles for reasons of self-defense, and self-defense only. Once a pistol or a rifle is in the possession of any given person, they can, theoretically, do with it whatever they want. If a person wants to go outside and start shooting people, there is nothing to stop him. The fact is that Jews don’t randomly attack and shoot people, not in Hebron, and not anywhere else. This is not the way to achieve whatever aims we might have. It is not right legally, morally or ethically. It is wrong.

As a result there are very few people who have illegitimately used weapons against Arabs for reasons other than self-defense. And those who have are imprisoned for very lengthy periods of time.

When journalists ask me about our reaction to Baruch Goldstein, after replying, I inquire as to whether they ask my Arab neighbors what they think about Yahya Ayyash. About 99% of them don’t know who I’m talking about. Ayyash was nicknamed ‘the engineer.’ Bombs he assembled killed more than 70 Israelis in numerous terror attacks in the 1990s. He trained his successors to follow in his footsteps after his death at the hands of Israeli intelligence. At his funeral, attended by well over 100,000 people, Arafat called him a saint. (Two days after Goldstein’s attack, Yitzhak Rabin, in the Knesset, said, “I am ashamed to be a Jew.”)

How many Jews have committed such acts? Five, six, maybe seven. How many Arabs? Between 1989 and 2008, more than 800 Arab suicide-homicide killers have murdered Jews. Who is the only one remembered? Baruch Goldstein.

I asked former MK Mossi Raz, demonstrating in Hebron this week, if he would also demonstrate to mark the 18th anniversary of Israel’s killing of Ayyash. Of course, the answer was a stark No.

I knew Goldstein. He was my friend. He was also a doctor. A very good one. He treated both Arabs and Jews. His trauma treatment was legendary in Israeli medical circles. His on-the-spot diagnoses were, after weeks of hospital tests, found to be 100% on the mark.

He was also the only on-duty doctor in Kiryat Arba, just about 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During the first intifada, following drive-by shootings and terror attacks, he was frequently the first medical person at the scene. As such, he witnessed horrible sights. It is said that he would sleep at night with earphones in his ears, allowing him to hear reports of attacks, without disturbing his wife’s’ sleep.

Why did he do what he did? This is a question to which, as far as I know, nobody really knows the full answer. To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t leave behind any notes or messages. However, only two months earlier, I was present at the scene of the murder of his close friend, Mordechai Lapid and his son Shalom, just outside the gates of Kiryat Arba. He tried to save Mordechai’s life, in vain.

According to a MDA spokesperson, a baby was injured after being hit in the head with a glass marble that was shot at a group of tourists near the Kotel, in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The group of French tourists had just exited the Kotel Tunnels when Arabs fired at least one glass marble at the group. The marble hit a year and a half old baby girl in the head.

The baby, who was lightly injured, was was treated by MDA, and then transferred to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital.

Arab gas stations in Judea and Samaria have refused to fill tanks of Palestinian Authority security vehicles because of six months of unpaid bills, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency.

The accumulated bill for unpaid fuel now stands at nearly $16 million, according to an official of the union of gas station owners,

The union said the Palestinian Authority Finance Ministry has ignored a warning of two weeks ago that gas stations would stop pumping gas for security vehicles as of this past Saturday.

However, the regime in Ramallah continues to pay terrorists their monthly “salaries” for being arrested for terror and serving time in Israelis jails.

And the European Union, some of whose member countries are suffering bloated debts and near-bankrupt economies, continues to pay the Palestinian Authority, despites its priorities.

Gaza’s first personal security business has opened up, but its owner says terrorists will not be accepted as customers.

“Secure Land” director Abdul Qader al-Arbid told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that clients will; include banks, hotels, celebrities and banks but not terrorists looking for protection from rival gangs.

“We only work with the private sector,” Arbid said. “This is how security companies work across the world.”

The company’s bodyguards’ first assignment last week was to protect Mohammed Assaf, the winner of the Arab Idol singing competition. Hamas has allowed the company’s 32 security officers to use light weapons, when necessary,

Secure Land also will not provide bodyguards for international aid organizations, meaning that UNRWA, which has increasingly been confronted by Hamas, will have to find its own solution to keep its workers alive.

“We have no problems to have such companies here. We are ready to support and help them in their job,” said Islam Shawan, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Hamas.

At just after 11:00 pm on Monday evening, a pipe-bomb was again thrown into the Rachel’s Tomb compound at the edge of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem.

This pipe-bomb, thrown over the security wall, landed in the upper parking lot, exploded, and wounded a 25 year old man.

The injured man was treated and then evacuated by a medical crew.

Firemen were called to the site to make sure a fire didn’t break out from the explosion.

IDF forces searched for the terrorists.

Rachel’s Tomb (Kever Rachel) is one of the most ancient and important Jewish sites in Israel, and was not handed over to the Palestinian Authority during the Oslo Accords.

To protect the area from repeated attacks by Palestinian Authority terrorists, a large wall was built up around the tomb, parking lot, and road leading to the site.

For those who remember the macabre slogan from the Oslo years, 1994-5, “Sacrifices for Peace,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s latest remarks don’t sound very different, following yesterday’s bus bombing attempt, and the escalation in terror attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria.

“Sacrifices for Peace” was a phrase coined at the time by the Left to describe what they thought of the thousands of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror. and, despite their denial, the terror attacks were guided by the same exact people Israel was negotiating with at the time.

The Israeli officials involved in the Oslo negotiations at the time insisted that Arafat and his crew were not involved in the terror attacks, and for good measure added that the terror attacks Israel suffered were the “price of peace” (another macabre slogan coined at the time) that Israel had to pay in order to reach a lasting agreement with the Palestinians.

It was only years later when irrefutable evidence was exposed, showing the direct connection between the Arabs Israel had been negotiating with and the terrorists they were sending out to kill Jews. Except, perhaps, for Shimon Peres, most of the “peace” supporters could no longer support this lie.

Livni is enthusiastically leading the current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Following yesterday’s attack, at a conference on Quality in Government, Livni said:

“We [Israel] are not negotiating with those trying to hurt us.

Against [the bad Arabs] we need to act decisively. They won’t tell us what to do.

We will continue to negotiate with those that want to reach an agreement with us, and aren’t using violence.

Israel will continue to provide security for its residents.”

Like the French House of Bourbon, Tzipi Livni has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Overthrown Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi will be standing trial again.

This time Morsi is being accused of “collaborating with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts in Egypt, revealing defense secrets to a foreign country, funding terrorists and military training to achieve the purposes of the international organisation of the Brotherhood,” according to a report in the Egyptian online news site Al-Ahram.

Morsi, along with thirty-five co-defendants are being accused of working with Hezbollah, Hamas and other terror groups inside and outside of Egypt to commit terror attacks in Egypt, smuggle weapons, and target army and police in the Sinai.

Morsi is also on trial for killing protesters in 2012.