U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will not get an extra inning in his Peace Talks game, Palestinian Authority  Chairman Mahmoud Abbas implied to Romanian President Traian Basescu Tuesday.

Referring to the talks that began last July after a three-year hiatus, Abbas said at a  press conference, “It was stipulated that they run for nine months and there were no talks about extending them.”

Abbas is waiting for the nine-month periods to end this April, when he will return to the United Nations in another attempt to declare the Palestinian Authority an independent country based on his own  political and territorial demands.

If he cannot get the required two-thirds support in the U.N. Security Council for a vote on the Palestinian Authority as full-fledged member of the United Nations, he still has the option of winning representation on United Nations agencies.

A suicide bomb attack on a Hezbollah neighborhood in Beirut and more clashes between anti and pro-Assad forces in Tripoli have left 12 dead and scores wounded as Lebanon continues on the path to the resumption of the 15-year old civil war that ended in 1990 with Syrian domination.

The bomb blast in the Hezbollah neighborhood of Haret Herek killed at least five people and wounded more than 45 others. It was the second attack in almost the same spot in the past week, and one retired Lebanese general told Al Jazeera, “We have to expect more and more operations against the public. Why are the public a target? Because they want to put direct pressure on Hezbollah to withdraw from Lebanon.”

An Al Qaeda linked terrorist group took responsibility for the suicide car bomb blast shortly before noon Tuesday. Witnesses said they saw a man deriving his KIA vehicle, with a stolen license plate, at high speed and “honking his horn like a mad man” seconds before it blew up.

Hezbollah is getting a taste of its own poison, facing suicide attacks that have been one of its favorite methods of terrorizing Lebanon, such as the savage attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harari and 21 others. Syria has been blamed for involvement in the car bomb explosion

In Tripoli, one person died and several others were wounded in gunfire on Tuesday, bring to seven the death since the most recent eruption of violence on Friday. Alawites, who back Syrian President Bassar al-Assad, and anti-Assad Sunni Muslim gangs fired mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in fighting that raged through the early morning hours. At least six have been killed and more than 55 others wounded since Friday.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly, commenting on the suicide bombing in Beirut, said  the explosion presents “a further deeply disturbing act of indiscriminate terror” and that “such acts cannot be justified and are contrary to the interests of all the Lebanese.”

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut, for what it’s worth, denounced the attack and offered its condolences to the victims and their families via Twitter.

It is nice that officials in the Obama administration know how to use social media, but they have been unaware of their failure to understand that the axis of evil has to be fought and not “engaged.”

The result now is the spread of civil war across Israel’s northern border, from the Golan Heights to the east and westward to the Mediterranean Sea.

The instability keeps the locals busy killing each other, which is fine as long as they don’t realize they could simply join forces and take out their anger on Israel.

The United Nations has bowed to pressure from  the United States and Saudi Arabia and has rescinded its unexpected invitation to Iran to attend  the Geneva II  conference for peace in Syria Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon reconsidered the invitation after Iran stated refused to back up a previous promise that it would publicly support the creation of a transitional government for Syria.

“Iran, despite assurances made to the secretary-general, has made a disappointing statement,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said earlier in the day before the decision to rescind.

“The Islamic Republic doesn’t consider the Geneva II conference legitimate if it hinges on accepting the terms of Geneva I,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, senior foreign-policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We don’t accept Geneva I under any circumstances.”

The sudden changes in preparations for the conference could scuttle the lakes, which are given zero chance of succeeding anyway.

Iran now has made it is clear how much it can be trusted, but that does not mean that President Barack Obama and other members of the P5+1 will understand that Tiran will not live up to its commitments under the agreement for supervising its nuclear development.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Likud’s Knesset caucus Monday that the protests by illegal African infiltrators “won’t help them [because] we are determine to deport them and all of those who succeeded to infiltrate.

Without referring directly to the United Nations, which has sharply criticized Israel for not accepting the infiltrators as “refugees,” Netanyahu said that Israel is taking care of those who truly are refugees but in other cases, “We are not talking about refugees. They are illegal infiltrators looking for work.”

With the United Nations and foreign leftists supporting their protests, thousands of African infiltrators took to the streets on the second consecutive day Monday to demonstrate against Israel’s policy to place then in administration detention centers for a year and deport them if they are not proven to be refugees.

One of their claims is that they want to return to their native countries but want their “basic rights” in Israel until they feel they can go back home. They basically are claiming they are “temporary” refugees.”

Although the United Nations, as usual, is targeting Israel, senior Likud Knesset Member Ofir Akunis, who is a deputy minister in the Prime Minister; office, told Channel 2 that the United States and European countries also do not recognize them as refugees.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the “steadfastness” of so-called “Palestinian refugees” in Syria in a televised speech but forget to mention his concern for them did not extend to helping those who are dying of starvation.

“Marking the 49th anniversary of the Palestinian Revolution … Abbas [said], “We negotiate to reach a fair solution to the refugees’ issue based on the UN Resolution 194 as stated in the Arab Peace Initiative,” the official Palestinian Authority WAFA website reported Wednesday.

“Abbas greeted the ‘steadfastness’ of the Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon and the Diaspora,” it continued

The several million “refugees” living outside of Israel serve as the Arab world’s doomsday demographic weapon to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. If their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great grandparents had come from any other country, the United Nations would not have designated them as refugees, the United Nations would have considered them to be ordinary citizens who have to get on in life. The international body reserves the “refugee” status for first-generation people who flee or are forced out of a country.

It makes an exception for Arabs from Israel. The approximately 700,000 Arabs, who left on their own free will, fled or were forced out in previous wars, have grown to more than 5 million.

They are under the jurisdiction of UNRWA (U.N. Relief and Works Agency) and almost without exception are denied citizenship in their host countries.

However, their ranks have dwindled lately. At least 15 died from starvation in war-torn Syria since September, the Beirut Daily Star reported recently. UNRWA spokesman Chris Guneess told the French news agency AFP that approximately 20,000 of them in the village of Yarmouk are suffering from limited medical and good supplies.”

On Saturday, WAFA reported that Abbas finally ordered the dispatch of immediate food supplies to the Yarmouk camp. Well, he least that is what said.

That was on December 28, 2013.

And what did Abbas do exactly a year ago in January 2013?

He turned down an Israeli offer to allow “refugees” fleeing Yarmouk to enter Judea and Samaria. Why? Because Israel insisted they could enter only if they gave up their “right of return” to whatever would be left of Israel if Abbas gets his Palestinian Authority state on his terms.

The same week, five of the “refugees” were killed in the civil war.

Abbas’ great concern for the refugees is that they serve their true purpose in his life – pawns to be moved into Tel Aviv, Tzfat (Safed), Tiberias and anywhere else where the Palestinian Authority would have no legal sovereignty under its ”two-state” solution, which is his interim phase towards a one-state solution to the Jewish problem.

Lebanese media reported that Israeli warplanes carried out surveillance flights over southern Lebanon in Tuesday, as Lebanese, United Nations and Israeli officials try to keep the lid on tensions following Sunday night’s murder of Israel soldier Sgt. Shlomi Cohen by a Lebanese soldier.

The Air Force frequently sends planes into Lebanese air space to monitor Hezbollah terrorist activities.

Lebanese media also reported that its army will prosecute the soldier who “acted on his own” when he opened fire on Sgt. Cohen and killed him.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati described it as “an isolated incident of limited scope,” but a similar “isolated incident” occurred three years ago when Lebanese soldiers shot and killed an Israeli officer and wounded a soldier.

Israel has long been a nation without a home at the United Nations.  The UN member states are divided up into regions, with committee membership and plum assignments being meted out according to those regions.

Israel, located as it is in the Middle East, geographically falls within the Asian group; that is where every one of its neighbors sits.  But the Islamic countries which constitute the majority of the Asian regional group would not abide having Israel as a member of its group.

The UN accepted this refusal.

That is why Israel has sort of been rotating about in a nether universe, not really in one group, and not really in another. In 2000, Israel became a member of the West European and Others Group (WEOG) but only as a limited member – only in New York, but not in Geneva, where much of the UN official work takes place.

But this week it became official. More than 60 years after becoming a member of the United Nations, Israel will officially join a regional group, with all the rights and privileges of such membership.  Israel will be officially in the West European and Others Group (WEOG) – in Geneva as well as in New York – as of January 1, 2014.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated in a press release issued on Dec. 2, that Israeli membership in WEOG in Geneva was “long overdue.” His statement continued:

It goes without saying that at a time when the scourge of global anti-semitism is on the rise, it is more important than ever for Israel to have a strong voice that can be heard everywhere. This is a particularly welcome development as we work to end anti-Israel bias in the UN system. We will continue to speak out for our close ally, Israel, and we will continue to support efforts to normalize Israel’s treatment across the UN system as a full and equal member of the community of nations.

No word on why Islamic member nations of the UN have been permitted to bar Israel, a geographic neighbor, from membership in a regional group, or how that comports with the UN Charter.

Israel may join for the first time a regional group within the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of a deal to improve the U.N. body’s relations with the Jewish state.

The council’s Western European and Others Group (WEOG) is expected to announce that its member states have voted in favor of Israel’s admittance, The Times of Israel reported Friday.

The European states had agreed to welcome Israel into their midst in exchange for the Jewish state’s return to the council and its participation in its Universal Periodic Human Rights Review process.

Israel had left the council a year and a half ago to protest its alleged bias against it.

Since 2006, the council has passed 27 resolutions criticizing Israel and has convened 19 special sessions, six of which were about Israel. Regular sessions feature a permanent agenda item 7, “the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and several Western nations have criticized the council for singling Israel out for criticism.

“Though it’s not yet final, we are hopeful that Israel will very soon be admitted into the Human Rights Council’s Western group, putting an end to a longstanding act of discrimination whereby the Jewish state was the only nation to be excluded from a regional group,” said Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, an NGO that monitors the United Nations.

Admission to the group would allow Israel to participate with all other U.N. member states in receiving regular briefings, and would enable it to have a say in the selection of council investigators, Neuer said. “More than anything, admission for Israel would be a sign of equal treatment, removing what has been an ugly stain of bigotry upon the reputation of the U.N.”

However, he added, “it will not detract from the Arab states’ continued ability to target Israel in resolutions, urgent sessions and a special agenda item.”

Earlier this month, senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany and France sent a letter to the U.N.’s institutions in Geneva and to the ambassador of Spain, who heads the WEOG, telling them to finally admit Israel into their circle.

On Oct. 29, Israel participated in the council’s so-called Universal Periodic Review, during which it was widely criticized for alleged human rights abuses.