By Dan Senor and Paul Singer, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Dan Senor is an author, adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and an investor in Israeli companies. Saul Singer is an author and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. They are co-authors of the new book, "Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" (Twelve Books).

New York (CNN) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns to Washington, D.C., Monday to address a conference of the American Jewish Federations at a time of concern in Israel that the U.S.-Israel relationship is adrift.

Dan Senor, left, and Saul Singer

Although Netanyahu has used each of his recent U.S. visits to make the case for confronting Iran and its nuclear ambitions, he might consider broadening the subject.

Israel's leader should speak to Americans not just about what threatens Israel, or what Israel's critics say, but also on what is unique about his nation's economy at a time of great economic uncertainty for Americans, when the unemployment rate here has just crossed the 10 percent threshold.

Israel has stood out among advanced economies as a place where the crisis hit softer, and may have passed quicker, than almost anywhere else. Israel's economic growth has not been based on easy credit or a real estate boom, but on the technology-driven productivity gains that economists believe is the key to sustained economic growth.

So what are the lessons for the U.S. economy? Read full article

By Paula Hancocks
CNN

(CNN) - Salwa Salah was 16 years old when she was arrested by Israeli forces and jailed for seven months.

Israeli court minutes said Salwa Salah, 16, had been involved in 'planning military operations'

To this day she says she does not know her crime and is struggling to get her life back on track.

She was released shortly before her final school exams but was unable to catch up and now has to re-sit before she can go to university.

Salah was held under administrative detention – detention without charge or trial. It is legal under international law which permits its use only in exceptional cases to protect the security of a state.

But human rights groups say Israel abuses this right. Read full article

Watch Paula's report:

The story

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that he believes within weeks Israel and the Palestinian Authority will begin talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their decades-long conflict.

"I think that's what will happen, actually, over the next few weeks," Blair told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.

"In the end, the issue really is this: What is the context within which this negotiation is being launched?" he said.

"The worry for the Palestinians is that, if you don't lay down some conditions ... the negotiation won't be credible. What the Israelis say is, 'Look, we'll negotiate without precondition. We're not prepared until we start negotiating to yield this or yield that,'" he said on CNN's new show "Amanpour."

"Now, personally, I think ... what will happen and should happen is that we try and put together the best possible context of the launch of the negotiation. It may not be everything that everyone wants, but get the thing under way." Read full article

Paula Hancocks
CNN

From Connect the World with Becky Anderson

JERUSALEM - Logging onto Facebook as a resident in the Golan Heights, should you enter Syria or Israel as your home country?

Facebook now has 300 million users - almost as many as the population of the United States.

Decades of war and occupation have not provided an answer to that question - but the social networking Web site now permits both options, sparking fears about an anti-Facebook cyber-war.

The Golan Heights is Syrian territory that was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Since then it has been internationally classified as Israeli-occupied territory.

Up until recently, Facebook fans in the Golan Heights could only choose Syria as their country of origin or else leave it blank. Pro-Israel Web site honestreporting.com sought to change that, starting a group called "Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria."

Alex Margolin says the campaign was never political. "It was never a question of the future of Golan... it's totally possible that at some time in the future the Golan will change hands and go to Syria."

The group welcomed 2,500 members in the first week. Shortly afterwards Facebook policy changed. Do you think Facebook was right to change policy?

"We have enabled users in Golan Heights to choose either Syria or Israel in the listings," a Facebook spokesperson told CNN. "We currently have the same dual-listing options for the West Bank settlement, which is listed in both Palestine and Israel.

"We deal with the listings for disputed territories on a case-by-case basis, and with Golan Heights we decided a dual listing made sense in this instance."

Eighteen-year old Ofri Bazaz is delighted she can finally change her profile to Israel, squealing with delight as she tries it for the first time. She said: "It's very important on the Internet when somebody comes to my profile on Facebook they will see Israel and not Syria. I'm not Syrian."

But a 20-minute drive away in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, the reaction is very different. Facebook users here consider themselves Syrian and refuse to accept the change, as they fear it undermines their peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Shopkeeper Sakar abu Sabit said: "Even if it's just on the computer, I want people to always recognize me in the Golan Heights as a Syrian citizen."

Reaction from Syria is likely to be muted according to Syrian scholar, Ammar Abdulhamid. He told CNN that Facebook and other social networking sites have already been banned in Syria. "The Syrian government has really taken a strong stance on Internet activism and social networking sites," he said.

"The real reason is nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, it's because these sites are very popular with Syrian activists."

But with 300 million users worldwide and an estimated 120 million logging in every single day according to Facebook, there will inevitably be fears about a backlash against the site that now finds itself at the center of a 40-year-old conflict.

An ancient synagogue discovered in northern Israel may have a Christian connection. CNN's Paula Hancocks reports.

JERUSALEM (CNN) - Israel on Sunday withheld the press credentials of a Swedish newspaper in retaliation for a controversial piece that suggested the Israeli army kidnapped and killed young Palestinians to harvest their organs.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish government's hands-off position to the country's neutrality during World War II.

The journalists need the credentials to report from Gaza.

"We have no duty to supply them with press cards immediately; (we) have 90 days to decide about their status," said Danny Siman, the head of the government press office.

The article, "Our sons are being stripped of their organs," appeared Tuesday in Aftonbladet and was an opinion piece written by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom.

Bostrom told CNN he had no proof that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs, and that the purpose of his piece was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on in the West Bank and Gaza.

Even though the Swedish embassy distanced itself from the report, the country's foreign ministry refused to condemn it - saying Sweden has a "free press."

The refusal has rankled Israel, which said it will submit an official complaint.

"This is an anti-Semitic blood libel against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The Swedish government cannot remain apathetic," said Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.

"We know the origins of these claims. In medieval times, there were claims that the Jews use the blood of Christians to bake their Matzas for Passover. The modern version now is that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers use organs of Palestinians to make money."

He continued: "It makes no difference whether this comes from a neo-Nazi organization or from an honorable newspaper. The Swedish government must renounce itself from this anti-Semitic publication."

The article centers around the case of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, a 19-year-old Palestinian man who was shot and killed in 1992, allegedly by Israeli forces, in the West Bank village of Imatin.

Bostrom, who witnessed the man's killing, said Ghanem was taken away by Israeli forces while he was still mortally wounded. His body was returned five days later with a cut in his midsection that had been stitched up.

Ghanem's family said they believed that his organs had been removed.

After that incident, at least 20 Palestinian families told Bostrom that they suspected the Israeli military had taken the organs of their sons after they had been killed by Israeli forces and their bodies taken away - presumably for routine autopsies.

Bostrom said he balanced those claims in his article by including a reaction from an Israeli military spokesman who told him that the Israel Defense Forces routinely carries out autopsies on Palestinians killed by their troops.

But, as he stated in his article, Bostrom said he has doubts about the necessity of the procedures if it is clear how the person died.

Last week Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish Foreign Ministry's hands-off position to the country's neutrality during World War II.

"It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews," Lieberman told Sweden's ambassador to Israel on Thursday evening. "This is reminiscent of Sweden's stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well."

As more Israelis die of swine flu, CNN's Paula Hancocks asks what safeguards are in place.

Civil marriages are not allowed in Israel. CNN's Paula Hancocks talks to those who fall foul of the law.

Locals in Israel say there is a mermaid living in the waters. CNN's Paula Hancocks reports.