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Syria has complained to the United Nations (UN) about several officials who, it claims, entered the country without visas in violation of its sovereignty. These include Republican Senator John McCain, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and former U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, according to Reuters. Syria's UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the 15-member Security Council to pressure governments to take "the necessary measures against their nationals who enter Syrian territory illegally." "Such actions are a blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty and of the resolutions of the Security Council concerning Syria," Ja'afari wrote in a...

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, on Sunday said that the PA will not agree to maintain the status quo and threatened that the PA will dismantle itself and “hand the keys” back to Israel. Speaking to Army Radio, Erekat referred to Israel’s decision to withhold the tax money it collects on behalf of the PA, which came in response to the PA’s request to join the International Criminal Court, and called it “collective punishment” and a “war crime”. “This is our money, Palestinian money that the Israeli government collects in exchange for 3%,” he said. “This is...

Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog has vowed to shut down the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division, which functions as an operational arm of the government to build and establish communities and infrastructures in Judea and Samaria - leaving hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the region without governmental representation. "As Prime Minister I will close the Settlement Division and open it later to serve the Negev and the Galilee," Herzog stated during an interview on "Meet the Press" Saturday night. "We see again and again the same group takes over the interests of the state and Netanyahu gave in to it."...

Former President Shimon Peres addressed the upcoming elections in March for the first time publicly on Saturday, hinting that he would like to see a replacement for current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "These elections are crucial," Peres said. "We have an opportunity to make the best out of the situation we find ourselves in. Some things have changed for the worse and need to be fixed, but there are good things and we should take advantage of them." One issue Peres said had improved was Israel's relationship with the "moderate" Arab world. "The position of the Arab world has changed,...

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) representative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) criticized Nigeria on Wednesday over its abstention during a UN vote on Palestinian statehood on Tuesday. In a statement quoted by the Ma’an news agency, the representative Muhannad al-Akluk, said Nigeria’s move was a "big disappointment", adding that voting against “Palestine” despite being a member of the OIC was a "clear contradiction." He also claimed that Nigeria’s abstention violated numerous resolutions passed at the Islamic organization's summits. The PA’s resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria by 2017 was defeated in the Security Council when...

Saudi Arabia has reportedly begun to allow Jews to work in the kingdom, according to a local newspaper. On Tuesday, the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported that Saudi authorities are now allowing people of all faiths, including Jews, to work in the kingdom, saying this was proof of the country's openness to other religions and cultures. The report was translated from Arabic by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The Saudi religious establishment is divided over the issue of foreign workers in the country, noted MEMRI, due to differing interpretations of a hadith of the Prophet Mohammed that states, "Remove...

The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday's vote at the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Palestinian statehood underlined the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to urgently resume peace negotiations. The Security Council failed to adopt an Arab-backed resolution that would have paved the way to a Palestinian state, setting a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the PA and calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria by the end of 2017. The vote "underlines once again the urgency of resuming meaningful negotiations between the...

After years of calling for Israel’s destruction, is Hamas actually prepared to talk with the Jewish state? According to a report on Monday in the British Independent, the group may be considering it. According to the report, Hamas is reviewing its strategy with the changing times. It is conducting an internal debate, with proposals which have had to be officially refuted. One such proposal was for direct negotiations with the Israelis, currently forbidden by the movement’s constitution. A statement was issued saying direct negotiations with Israel is not the movement’s policy and is not on the table for discussion. The...

Former New York Times Middle East bureau chief Chris Hedges was uninvited from speaking at a University of Pennsylvania conference following the publication of an incendiary column. That column, from December 15, closely compares Israel to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization. Hedges, who now works as a columnist for Truthdig.com, was scheduled to speak April 3 at a forum on prospects for peace in the Middle East sponsored by the Philadelphia university's International Affairs Association. Zachary Michael Belnavis, a student leader of the association, complained to the lecture agency that his group felt Hedges was not a "suitable fit"...

The IDF will on Thursday pull out its security forces from Israeli communities that are not located near the security fence with Gaza, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced on Monday evening. The move was made after evaluating the security situation, with the understanding that the IDF provides optimal security to the communities in the Gaza Belt, in coordination with the heads of the communities, the statement said. “IDF forces are deployed in the area and are prepared for any scenario,” stressed the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. Responding to the decision, the heads of the local communities in the Gaza Belt called...

A female aid worker from Sierra Leone has become the first person to bring Ebola to the United Kingdom, BBC News reports Monday night, and is in isolation in a Glasgow hospital. The aid worker, whose identity is being kept under wraps, had arrived in Glasgow via Casablanca and London's Heathrow airport, and arrived in Scotland Sunday night close to midnight. Less than eight hours later, she was admitted to Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital with symptoms. She will be transferred to a high-level isolation unit in London's Royal Free Hospital as soon as possible for further treatment, officials said. 71 passengers...

Egypt’s Culture Ministry on Sunday explained for the first time why it banned Ridley Scott's biblical epic "Exodus: Gods & Kings", claiming the movie presents a "racist" image of Jews, reports The Associated Press (AP). The ban was announced several days ago, but Sunday’s statement from the Culture Ministry marks the first time that the reason for the ban was officially explained. According to AP, the statement said the film put forth a reading of Egypt's history that is at odds with the story of Moses told by the world's monotheistic religions. Censors objected to the "intentional gross historical fallacies...

Channel 10 went dark on Sunday night at about 10:30 p.m. Israel time, at the instruction of the channel’s employees union. Instead of regular programming, the channel displayed a picture of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, alongside the words, "In three days, Channel 10 will close. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who serves as Minister of Communications, refuses to find a solution. Due to this the employees union has decided to cease Channel 10’s broadcast for the night. We will resume broadcasting at 6:00 a.m." The channel has been facing financial difficulties for several years. In December of 2012, the Knesset held...

ISIS has claimed responsibility for killing a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer earlier Sunday. Iranian military sources had simply stated that Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi was killed in Samarra, north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, but did not elaborate ...

Likud Central Committee chairman Danny Danon, who is challenging Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party, on Saturday night called on Israel to respond to an expected UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the "state of Palestine" by declaring sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. "We must clarify in the clearest terms to the world that every unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will bring Israeli sovereignty," declared Danon in a meeting with Likud activists in Judea's Gush Etzion region. Prime among the attendants at the meeting were Kiryat Arba Regional Council head Malakhi Levinger and Deputy Gush Etzion...

ISIS has lost more ground to Kurdish fighters in the embattled city of Kobane in northern Syria, according to local reports. "Kurdish forces now control more than 60 percent of the city," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "ISIS has even left areas that the Kurds did not enter for fear of mines," he added. Kobane, which lies on the border with Turkey, has been the center of a bloody and symbolic struggle between ISIS, or Islamic State, and the city's Kurdish defenders. In September it appeared as if the jihadis would seize...

he propaganda unit of Hamas's "military wing", the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, kicked into overdrive recently with a new film, which attempted to portray the terrorist organization's Gazan fighting force as a modern Islamic army, exhibiting advanced weaponry training for a wide range of scenarios - and with its sights on Jerusalem. Video In the video a large unit of terrorists are shown with all the equipment of a modern army, from combat vests to advanced assault rifles. Several are seen bearing a flag reading "the army of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)." The Hamas "army" is seen conducting an array of operations modeled...

When it became clear earlier this month that Israel was headed for early elections, some international policymakers were undecided as to whether to maintain their push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement or take a hiatus of three-plus months. Some European officials figured that it wouldn’t make much sense to press ahead until Israel had a new government with a fresh mandate from the people to take the decisions required for an accord. Overt pressure on Jerusalem in the course of the campaign would also likely help the right-wing parties, these officials calculated, and they consequently urged their governments to refrain from...

It sounds like the plot of a novel. A Jewish tour guide who survived a Palestinian terror attack that left her Christian friend dead helped shelter an Arab teen who got death threats after voicing support for Israel’s summer operation in Gaza. Pic British-born Kay Wilson said that she helped hide Mohammad Zoabi throughout the summer war in Gaza, before he was able to flee to the United States in fear of his life. Seventeen-year-old Zoabi, an Israeli Arab from Nazareth, was forced to leave the country after receiving death threats for posting a YouTube video harshly condemning the kidnapping...

tting North Korea back on its list of terrorism sponsors, after the hacking of Sony Pictures, reports the BBC. Speaking on CNN, Obama said a decision on the issue would be taken after a review, though he stressed that the attack was considered “an act of cyber-vandalism, not of war.” He said officials in Washington would examine all the evidence to determine whether North Korea should be put back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. "I'll wait to review what the finding are," Obama said, adding that he did not think the attack "was an act of war"....