Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have “almost finally” decided on an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities this fall, and a final decision will be taken “soon,” Israel’s main TV news broadcast reported on Friday evening.

Channel 2 News, the country’s leading news program, devoted much of its Friday night broadcast to the issue, detailing the pros and cons that, it said, have taken [Messrs] Netanyahu and Barak to the brink of approving an Israeli military attack despite opposition from the Obama administration and from many Israeli security chiefs.

Critically, the station’s diplomatic correspondent Udi Segal said, Israel does not believe that the US will take military action as Iran closes in on the bomb.

The US, the TV report said, has not provided Israel with details of an attack plan. President Obama has not promised to attack Iran if all else fails. Conditions cited by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for an American attack do not calm Israeli concerns. And [Mr] Obama has a record of seeking UN and Arab League approval before action. All these factors, in Jerusalem’s mind, underline the growing conviction of [Messrs] Netanyahu and Barak that Israel will have to tackle Iran alone, the TV report said. Israel’s leaders have also noted that president George W Bush vowed repeatedly that North Korea would not be allowed to attain a nuclear weapons capability — a vow that proved empty.

[Mr] Obama does not want to intervene militarily before the presidential elections in November, and it is doubtful that he would act afterwards, runs the Israeli assessment, the TV report said. [Mr] Obama may believe that the US can live with a nuclear Iran, but Israel cannot, the report quoted those in “Netanyahu’s circle” as saying.

“It becomes clear time after time that when it comes to the safety of Israeli citizens, Israel must and can rely only on itself. No one can fulfill this role except the IDF and different Israel security forces of Israel, and we will continue to conduct ourselves in this way,” [Mr] Netanyahu said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that countries that refused to set deadlines for Iran to give up its nuclear program have no right to tell Israel to hold back on taking preemptive military action to thwart the regime’s nuclear ambitions.

His comments constituted an explicit and bitter rebuttal of comments made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said on Sunday that the US will currently not set deadlines or give ultimatums regarding Tehran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program.

“The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time. And I ask: Wait for what? Until when? Those in the international community who refuse to set a red line for Iran have no moral right to set one for Israel,” [Mr] Netanyahu said. “If Iran knows that there is no red line or deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it is doing today, ie, continuing to work unhindered toward achieving a nuclear weapon.”

The Israeli leader, who has been pressing President Barack Obama for a tougher line against Iran, again signaled that a sharper US ultimatum for Tehran could deter it from developing nuclear weapons and mitigate the need for a military response. [Mr] Netanyahu's recent calls for world powers to set clear markers that would show they were determined to stop Tehran's nuclear drive has suggested a growing impatience with the United States, Israel's main ally.

Washington, which has resisted the idea of laying down red lines for Iran in the past, has urged the Israeli leader to give diplomacy and sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic more time to work to rein in Iran's nuclear work peacefully. But [Mr] Obama has not ruled out military action if all else fails.

Recent heightened Israeli rhetoric has stoked speculation that Israel might attack Iran before the US elections in November, believing that [Mr] Obama would give it military help and not risk alienating pro-Israeli voters.

After weeks of increasingly belligerent language towards Iran, the Israeli prime minister struck a rare note of temperance amid signs that his efforts to force the United States to show its hand were at last yielding dividends. "We're discussing it right now with the United States," Mr Netanyahu told Canada's CBC television. "I don't think that they (Iran) see a clear red line, and I think the sooner we establish one, the greater the chances that there won't be a need for other types of action."

President Barack Obama has adopted a series of measures against Iran this year, ranging from tougher sanctions to the deployment of additional naval forces in the Persian Gulf, in an attempt to dissuade Israel from launching unilateral military action. He has also promised never to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, repeatedly stating that the United States would be willing to use force to prevent such an eventuality.

We didn’t know Jay, an A-level student from Essex described as “kind and gentle”, whose loving parents were foster carers to many unhappy children. But his story struck a chord: we have two teenage boys, 17 and 19, who regularly attend parties they learn about on Facebook. Suddenly, the danger of a falsely familiar world, where “friends of friends” turn up at sedate gatherings with knives, was brought home to us.

Facebook, as Jay’s tragic killing reminds us, is not a virtual Postman Pat who delivers letters, parcels and bills. No, Facebook is like standing in the street, megaphone in hand, yelling your message to neighbours and passers-by. If it is a bit of gossip, be prepared for everyone to spread it. If it is an invitation, be prepared for a mob to turn up.

In other words, no one really can control the website, which can seem like a foreign land to parents who remain uninitiated to its rules. Mike Butcher, the Europe editor of the online publication TechCrunch and a new media expert, explains: “If you create an event page in Facebook, say for a party, you may think this is a private space, but information can spread far wider than you ever intended. There is no control.”

A public place without boundaries, where everyone is linked: good friends with total strangers, drug dealers connected to vulnerable loners, gangs to innocent school children. No wonder every parent I know is Facebook-wary. Indeed, the parents of Laura Guthercole, who hosted the party that ended so tragically for Jay Whiston, were also cautious and sensible. They stayed in their detached house to supervise proceedings, and Laura had sweetly handwritten notes to neighbours to apologise for any noise – but when 200 people turned up, events spiralled out of their control.

(1) Islam is a patrilineal religion: In Islam, the father passes his faith to the children, and when a Muslim man has children with a non-Muslim woman, Islam considers those children Muslim. Mr Obama’s grandfather and father having been Muslims — the extent of their piety matters not at all — means that in Muslim eyes, Mr Obama was born a Muslim.

(2) Arabic forenames based on the H-S-N trilateral root: All such names (Husayn or Hussein, Hasan, Hassan, Hassanein, Ahsan and others) are exclusively bestowed on Muslim babies. (The same goes for names based on the H-M-D root.) Mr Obama’s middle name, Hussein, explicitly proclaims him born a Muslim.

(3) Registered as Muslim at SD Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi: Mr Obama was registered at a Catholic school in Jakarta as “Barry Soetoro.” A surviving document correctly lists him as born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. In addition, it lists him as having Indonesian nationality and Muslim religion.

(4) Registered as Muslim at SD Besuki: Although Besuki (also known as SDN 1 Menteng) is a public school, Mr Obama curiously refers to it in “The Audacity of Hope” (Page 154) as “the Muslim school” he attended in Jakarta. Its records have not survived, but several journalists (Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star, Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times and David Maraniss of The Washington Post) all have confirmed that there, too, he was registered as a Muslim.

(5) Islamic class at Besuki: Mr Obama mentions (“Audacity,” Page 154) that at Besuki, “the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies.” Only Muslim students attended the weekly two-hour Koran class, Mr Watson reports:

“Two of his teachers, former Vice Principal Tine Hahiyari and third-grade teacher Pak Effendi, said they remember clearly that at this school, too, he was registered as a Muslim, which determined what class he attended during weekly religion lessons. ‘Muslim students were taught by a Muslim teacher, and Christian students were taught by a Christian teacher,’ Mr Effendi said.”

Andrew Higgins of The Washington Post quotes Rully Dasaad, a former classmate, saying that Barack Obama horsed around in class and, during readings of the Koran, got “laughed at because of his funny pronunciation.” Mr Maraniss learned that the class included not only studying “how to pray and how to read the Koran” but also actually praying in the Friday communal service on the school grounds.

(6) Mosque attendance: Maya Soetoro-Ng, Mr Obama’s younger half-sister, said her father (Mr Obama’s stepfather) attended the mosque “for big communal events.” Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune found that “[Mr] Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers.”

The childhood friends say Mr Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. “We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played,” said Zulfin Adi, who described himself as among Mr Obama’s closest childhood friends. Sometimes, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Lolo and Barry would walk to the makeshift mosque together, Mr Adi said. “His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque,” Mr Adi said.

(7) Muslim clothing: Mr Adi recalls about Mr Obama, “I remember him wearing a sarong.” Likewise, Mr Maraniss found not only that “his classmates recalled that Barry wore a sarong,” but written exchanges indicating that he continued to wear this garment in the United States. This fact has religious implications because in Indonesian culture, only Muslims wear sarongs.

(8) Piety: Mr Obama said that in Indonesia, he “didn’t practice” Islam, an assertion that inadvertently acknowledges his Muslim identity by implying he was a nonobservant Muslim. But several of those who knew him contradict this recollection. Rony Amir described Mr Obama as “previously quite religious in Islam.” A former teacher, Tine Hahiyary, quoted in the Kaltim Post, said the future president took part in advanced Islamic religious lessons: “I remember that he had studied mengaji.” In the context of Southeast Asian Islam, mengaji Koran means to recite the Koran in Arabic, a difficult task denoting advanced study.

In summary, the record points to Barack Obama having been born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and having lived for four years in a fully Muslim milieu under the auspices of his Muslim Indonesian stepfather. For these reasons, those who knew Mr Obama in Indonesia considered him a Muslim.

Those are just a few examples of “religious hostility” documented in a survey released by the conservative Family Research Council and the Liberty Institute. The survey found that attacks on Americans’ religious freedoms have dramatically increased, both in frequency and in the types of incidents.

"America today would be unrecognizable to our Founders," said Liberty Institute President and CEO Kelly Shackelford. "Our First Liberty is facing a relentless onslaught from well-funded and aggressive groups and individuals who are using the courts, Congress, and the vast federal bureaucracy to suppress and limit religious freedom. This radicalized minority is driven by an anti-religious ideology that is turning the First Amendment upside down.”

Arye Sharuz Shalicar was looking for a place he could call home. It wasn't an unusual wish. He doesn't wear a kippah and isn't a devout Jew. He grew up in Berlin's Wedding district, surrounded by Turkish and Arab children - a difficult combination. Later he wore the uniform of the German army during his military service. Then he went to college. But at some point Shalicar could no longer stand Germany, where he was subjected to daily harassment, open animosity and anti-Semitism.

In 2001, at the age of 35, Shalicar moved to Israel and started a career there. For the past three years he's been an Israeli army spokesman and isn't surprised about the most recent attacks on Jews in Germany. He says he grew up having to defend himself as a Jew - even with his fists, if necessary. Shalicar has written a book about his experiences, and says he still likes Germany. He visits his parents twice a year in Berlin, where they still live, and he looks back fondly on his childhood. "Germany will always be a part of me. I have a German accent when I speak Hebrew, and I speak to my son in German," he says.

But Germany couldn't offer him the home he desired. Has being Jewish in Germany become harder and more complicated, if not impossible? Is the Germany of 2012 no longer a country in which Jews can feel at home?

According to diplomatic sources in New York, the Iranian issue will be at the top of the agenda of the GA's speakers, although there will be no votes during the 10-day assembly. All Western leaders – including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Holland – are expected to speak. Their presence in New York will pave the way for discussions on the Iranian issue.

US President Barack Obama's address will open the GA on September 25, and the Iranian president's address is expected the next day. [Mr] Obama will not wait in New York to meet with [Mr] Netanyahu, especially in light of his pressing election campaign. The window of opportunities for a meeting between the American and Israeli leaders will thus open on September 28 in Washington.

"A nuclear-armed Iran would not only pose a threat to Israel but to the stability of the entire region. A nuclear-armed Iran is not an option," he said. The so-called P5+1 group, comprising the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany, suspects that Iran may be trying to develop a nuclear weapons breakout capability.

Tehran insists its atomic ambitions are completely peaceful, but Israel - widely suspected to have the region's sole, if undeclared, nuclear arsenal - has warned that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat. It has said it would take all necessary steps to prevent that from happening, not ruling out a pre-emptive military strike.

"We will keep up sanctions and diplomatic pressure on Iran. We still see room for diplomacy," said Westerwelle in remarks relayed by his office. "We urgently call on Iran to enter into substantial negotiations." Sanctions by Western states as well as the UN Security Council aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear activities have had a crippling effect on its economy, with its rial currency on Sunday sliding to a new record low against the dollar.

Meeting with [Mr] Netanyahu later in the day, [Mr] Westerwelle reiterated that Germany will "not accept" a nuclear-armed Iran. Addressing the recent slew of rockets from Gaza that hit southern Israel early on Sunday, [Mr] Westerwelle said Germany condemned "every kind of terrorist attacks against Israel," according to a statement from the Israeli premier's office.