Accent Your Garden

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Who is Feisel Abdul Rauf? Initially, the controversy over building a $100-million Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero was about location, location, location.

WASHINGTON - Struggling to break decades of hostility, President Barack Obama hosted an ambitious new round of Mideast peace talks Wednesday and told Israeli and Palestinian leaders they faced a fleeting chance to settle deep differences.

Throughout the 35 plus years Tom and I have called Tarr Farm home, we’ve always loved to grill outside. Thirty-five years is a long time and I guess you could say the first two decades were experimental grilling adventures.

Ahead of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that he was “hopeful — cautiously hopeful” that the talks could achieve a two-state solution to the long running Mideast conflict.

Now it’s his turn. After the elder George Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush the younger, Barack Obama has became the fourth consecutive American president to seek international diplomacy’s hitherto impossible prize: Israeli-Palestinian peace.