Free Republic

RAMALLAH (PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES) (AFP) - A senior Palestinian official on Friday condemned Brazilian far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's announcement that he would move his country's Israel embassy to Jerusalem. "These are provocative and illegal steps that will only destabilise security and stability in the region," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, told AFP. The United States moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, sparking fury among Palestinians, who consider the Israeli-annexed eastern part of the city the capital of their future state. "It is very unfortunate that Brazil has joined this negative alliance...

In Egypt, the president appoints the governors of the country’s provinces. This practice began with President Nasser after the end of the kings’ era. Last month President Al-Sisi appointed two Christian governors to two principally Christian provinces — the highest concentration of Christians in all of rural Egypt — located in Upper Egypt and West Egypt. This is monumental in a country where Islamic sectarianism dictates politics. When Al-Sisi took office in 2013 for a four-year term, he immediately appointed new governors, all Muslim, for each of the 27 provinces, as did his predecessors — Mubarak, Sadat, and Nasser. Now...

CAIRO — Egypt said Sunday that security forces have killed 19 militants in a shootout, including the gunmen suspected of killing seven Christians in an attack on pilgrims traveling to a remote desert monastery.The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said the militants were tracked to a hideout in the desert west of the central province of Minya, the site of Friday’s attack, which also left 19 people wounded.It said the alleged militants opened fire when they realized they were being besieged by security forces. It did not say when the shootout took place. The ministry published photographs purporting to...

Two years ago, eleven HDP deputies were arrested in Turkey. After two years of imprisonment, the European Court of Human Rights is now to decide. On 4 November, eleven deputies of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were arrested in Turkey. In the middle of the night, party leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, as well as Nursel Aydoğan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Selma Irmak, Ziya Pir, Ferhat Encü, Gülser Yıldırım, İdris Baluken, Leyla Birlik and İmam Taşçıer were brought out of their homes. While Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Ziya Pir and İmam Taşçıer were later released against mandatory reporting, others were remanded...

European leaders are opening the door to possible sanctions on Iran in the wake of terror plots across the continent -- even as they criticize the Trump administration for reimposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil exports and financial dealings. Denmark’s intelligence agency on Tuesday said that it had foiled an Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist, and had arrested a Norwegian of Iranian descent. The suspect has denied the allegations and is being held in custody. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has denied any involvement and has issued a “strong protest” to the Danish government. The Wall Street Journal reported...

MINYA, Egypt (AP) -- Hundreds of Egyptian Christians attended a funeral service Saturday after seven people were killed in an ambush by Islamic State militants of buses carrying pilgrims to a remote desert monastery. 【Related】IS attack on Christian pilgrims in Egypt kills 7 【Related】Japan, Egypt to work to bring stability to Middle East 【Related】Egypt governor: Remove Disney figures from kindergartens The service at Prince Tadros church in the central city of Minya was held amid tight security. Minya's top cleric, Anba Makarios, led prayers over a row of six white coffins, all victims from the same family. A separate funeral...

In Minya, Egypt, Coptic Christians were terrorized in another attack targeting the minority group on Friday. Islamic militants opened gunfire on two buses carrying Coptic Christians en route to an ancient monastery in Upper Egypt, killing seven and injuring more than eleven. Friday’s attack is one in a series of attacks on Egypt’s ancient Christian community, which currently makes up between 10 and 15 percent of Egypt’s population. Minya has the largest population of Christians in the country — 35 percent of residents are Christians — and experiences a lion’s share of the sectarian attacks. According to Open Doors USA’s...

At least seven people were killed and at least 19 others were injured in an attack on several buses carrying Coptic Christians near a monastery in Egypt on Friday, according to a spokesperson for Egypt's Coptic Church. Gunmen attacked two buses and a microbus on a road near the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor, in Minya, south of Cairo, the spokesperson said. One of the buses was carrying 28 members of a family that had traveled to the monastery for the baptism of one of its children, six of whom were injured, according to the spokesman. At least seven...

CAIRO – Islamic militants on Friday ambushed two buses carrying Christian pilgrims on their way to a remote desert monastery south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, killing seven and wounding up to 16, according to the Interior Ministry and security officials. Coptic Orthodox Church spokesman Boulos Halim said the death toll was likely to rise. Local church officials in Minya province where the attack took place put the death toll at 10, but the higher figure could not be confirmed. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have for years...

US Policy in a Changing Middle East United States Secretary of Defense - James Mattis—remarkably failed to mention “the two-state solution”, or even the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” in his keynote address—“US Policy in a Changing Middle East”—delivered at the International Institute for Strategic Affairs 14th Regional Security Summit in Manama, Bahrein held between 26-28 October. Mattis’ pointed omissions can only fuel speculation that a “one-state solution”—possibly involving the creation of a Jordan enclave in the West Bank - could now be uppermost in President Trump’s thinking.

A Kuwaiti paper reveals another monstrous Obama betrayal. We thought the Obama administration could stoop no lower when it was revealed that the administration transferred $1.7 billion in untraceable cash to the Islamic Republic as ransom for the release of four Americans hostages they were holding. We were wrong. In its twilight weeks, the administration gave its consent to allow the Iranians to receive 116 metric tons of natural uranium from Russia as compensation for its export of tons of reactor coolant. According to experts familiar with the transaction, the uranium could be enriched to weapons-grade sufficient for the production...

Syrian Kurdish forces around the town of Manbij will be buried in their own trenches, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar warned on Thursday, blaming the United States for failing to make them withdraw, Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said. Tensions have risen between Turkey and the United States in recent weeks as Turkish leaders have renewed pledges to launch a new offensive against the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish force that controls most of northeastern Syria. The Turkish government says the YPG and its political arm, the PYD, is a terrorist group linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party...

A heavyweight right-wing financier has thrown in with a left-right coalition to end the U.S. military’s involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian catastrophes, The Daily Beast has learned. The Charles Koch Institute, bearing the brand of one of the most influential sources of conservative political money, is backing an effort spearheaded by progressive California Democrat Ro Khanna to demand either an end to non-counterterrorism aid to the Yemen war or a direct congressional vote authorizing it. Multiple congressional and allied sources told The Daily Beast they plan to bring their resolution to...

Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old seven-term congressman who built his campaign around pledges to crush corruption and crime, secured over 55 percent of the vote, an 11 percent lead over his far-left rival Fernando Haddad. “We cannot continue flirting with socialism, communism, populism and leftist extremism … We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,” said Bolsonaro in his late Sunday night acceptance speech broadcast from his home in Rio Highly divisive among Jewish voters, the Conservative lawmaker — whose middle name, Messias, literally means “messiah” — won the ballot after a drama-filled election that looks set to radically reforge...

Although some pundits, mostly on the left, have denounced criticism of left-wing billionaire George Soros as anti-Semitic, it is important to note that Israel has officially stated that criticism of Soros is legitimate because he "continuously" seeks to undermine the Israeli government and he funds organizations "that defame the Jewish state." These same Soros-funded groups also seek to prevent Israel from defending itself, according to the Israeli government. In July 2017, Israel's ambassador to Hungary criticized a government-funded billboard campaign that showed a photo of Soros and stated, "Let's not allow Soros to have the last laugh." The campaign was...

Lena Dunham will write the harrowing survival tale of a Syrian refugee stranded at sea for the big screen. Dunham has been tapped by co-producers Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams to adapt “A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival.” The nonfiction release comes from author Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner and Flatiron Books. It documents the true story of Doaa Al Zamel, a mother of two fleeing Egypt for Sweden by boat. Shipwrecked along the way, Al Zamel survived for days in open water holding...

The White House has confirmed that there has been a complete disconnect between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration. Former US secretary of state John Kerry met in London with a close associate of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Hussein Agha. Stall, play for time, do not break. Trump will not remain in office for a long, within a year Trump would not be in the White House. Kerry offered to help Sheppard his alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support from Europeans, Arab states and the international community. He promised to use all his contacts and...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Oman last week came as a surprise to the Palestinians, who denounced it as a form of "normalization" with Israel. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said on Saturday they did not know if PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who also visited Oman last week, knew in advance about Netanyahu's visit to the country's port capital of Muscat. A senior adviser to Abbas would neither confirm nor deny reports to the effect that Oman and its leader, Sultan Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said, were acting as mediators between Israel and the Palestinians in a bid...

The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France, and Germany have reiterated calls for a UN-backed political process to end the war in Syria that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a summit in Istanbul on October 27 that "the meeting demonstrated there is common determination to solve the problem."A joint solution can be achieved, not through military means, but only through political effort under the UN aegis," she added.Along with Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and French President Emmanuel Macron gathered for the talks in search of an end to...

In a highly unusual plea, Mohammed al-Issa, an ally of the kingdom’s reformist crown prince, says mission could help ‘provide fertile ground to find solutions’ The head of the Saudi-based Muslim World League has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem to promote the cause of peace by finding common ground between religions. Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Karim al-Issa, who is an ally of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told Fox News in an interview Thursday: “We should send a peace convoy that is representative of all three Abrahamic religions. They should be Muslim, Christian and Jewish...