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A banner proclaiming a verse from the Koran that denies God has a son hangs in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth (Photo: Julie Stahl)

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Iran on Monday rejected President-elect Barack Obama’s comments that he would offer Iran the choice of carrot or stick to halt its uranium enrichment program.   Obama said in a media interview broadcast on Sunday that the U.S. should “ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy” with Iran, offering the carrot of “economic incentives” or the “stick” of tougher sanctions to get Iran to change its behavior.  

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – A planned Museum of Tolerance in western Jerusalem is creating another rift between Jews and Muslims. An American Muslim group says the museum is going up on the site of a Muslim cemetery and it wants construction stopped. Israel’s supreme court, however, ruled that the museum is being built on land that’s been used for decades as a parking lot without complaint from Muslims.  

Smoke rises from a Palestinian area after a fire was allegedly set by Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, Wednesday Dec. 3, 2008. Tensions have been high in the divided West Bank city around a house where Jewish settlers have holed up in defiance of an Israeli Supreme Court eviction order. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Libyan workers load supplies onto the Al Marwa a day before it sailed from a port west of Tripoli, Libya, to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Navy on Monday Dec. 1, 2008, turned the ship away. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - At conference in London on Wednesday, scholars were debating the “promise and perils” of universal jurisdiction, a concept that allows foreign nationals to be prosecuted for crimes committed elsewhere.   The doctrine holds that some crimes – such as war crimes or genocide – are so horrible, that “universal” justice must apply.   A Palestinian civil rights group has used the doctrine to demand that a British court investigate an Israeli soldier for war crimes.  

A Jewish settler prays on the roof of a disputed building in the West Bank town of Hebron on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – Concerned that a United Nations conference against racism will become an anti-Semitic, Israel-bashing affair, Israel on Wednesday announced its intention to boycott the meeting, saying it does not want to “legitimize” the forum by participating in it.   The Durban Review Conference, set to convene in Geneva in 2009, is intended to review the progress made in implementing the final declaration of the U.N. World Conference on Racism (WCAR) that took place in Durban, South Africa in 2001.  

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged to free hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners as a goodwill gesture in honor of the upcoming Islamic holiday. In other news, the Palestinian Authority has asked the European Union to boycott Israeli goods made in the West Bank.