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When you listen to reports from international media outlets, you'll hear a whole lot about how the Israelis "kill civilians" in Gaza, including children. What you don't hear about is the fact that Hamas uses women and children as human shields. When women and children are killed as a result, Hamas parades their bodies around as propaganda for the media to attack Israel. Further, journalists tend to only report about Gaza and the West Bank but fail to include the hell Israeli civilians go through. They also never mention this fact: the entire point of Hamas launching rockets into Israel...

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is continuing his quest to unilaterally achieve a Palestinian state. Aides to Abbas on Sunday told The Associated Press (AP) that he will soon appeal to the international community to set a deadline for Israel to withdraw back to the pre-1967 borders and make way for an independent Palestinian state. Abbas is expected to unveil his proposal as part of a "day after" plan following the current war in Gaza, likely at a meeting of the Palestinian leadership on Tuesday, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity. With no end in sight...

UNICEF has said that the Israeli occupation killed around 500 Palestinian children during the war on the Gaza Strip and wounded around 3,000 others. Chief of UNICEF's Gaza Field Office Pernille Ironside said that 469 children were killed. The number is expected to rise. She described the effects and damage of the Israeli war on the Palestinian children as "bad," noting that nine children were killed in the last 48 hours. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced a higher number. They said that 560 children were killed and 11,000 wounded. Meanwhile, three children were killed on Thursday in Al-Nafaq Street...

The partnership that has emerged in this war between Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia is a direct consequence of Obama’s abandonment of the US’s traditional allies. Hamas’s war with Israel is not a stand-alone event. It is happening in the context of the vast changes that are casting asunder old patterns of behavior and strategic understandings as actors in the region begin to reassess the threats they face. Hamas was once funded by Saudi Arabia and enabled by Egypt. Now the regimes of these countries view it as part of a larger axis of Sunni jihad that threatens not only...

Qatar's new Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is set to announce a cabinet reshuffle, a day after taking over from his father Sheikh Hamad, officials say. ... Sheikh Hamad seized power from his father Sheikh Khalifa in a bloodless coup in 1995, with the support of the armed forces and cabinet, and also neighbouring states. ... In 2003, he named Sheikh Tamim - his second son by his second wife Sheikha Moza bint Nasser - as his heir apparent. ... In foreign policy, the emirate is expected to maintain its alliance with the West while at the same...

Why Israel? Why now? Though few Americans paid any attention at the time, in November of last year, Secretary of State John Kerry announced to the world that this summer would be defined by violence against the Jewish state. Almost as he had been tipped off, the Secretary of State warned Israel to make a deal with the likes of Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian parties who do not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, Kerry said, “Does Israel want a third intifada? … “I believe that if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis; if we do not...

Egypt on Saturday called for an open-ended cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, urging Israel and Hamas to return to indirect talks after seven weeks of fighting punctuated by a number of failed truce attempts. The call from the foreign ministry came shortly after Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. Egyptian officials did not say how they expected renewed talks to produce a different outcome after repeated failures. …

Palestinian UN rep says every missile fired from Gaza at Israel is ‘a crime against humanity’ In interview with PA TV, diplomat details possible risks to the Palestinians of their joining the International Criminal Court BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF July 14, 2014, 7:06 am The Palestinian representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva said that every rocket and mortar fired from Gaza toward Israel is a “crime against humanity.” Speaking on July 9 to Palestinian Authority TV on the possible risks involved if Palestinians leaders ask to join the International Criminal Court — as they have threatened...

It has been a difficult month for the victims of state violence, as well as their families, friends, and those in solidarity. The month-long Israeli assault on Gaza involved a litany of war crimes, including the killing of trapped civilians, multiple bombings of hospitals, and the destruction of Gaza’s only power plant — all with critical U.S. support. And after the U.S. population reeled in shock from the NYPD murder of unarmed black man Eric Garner in broad daylight, Ferguson, Mo., was the site of another police murder — this time of unarmed, black 18-year-old Michael Brown, who, according to...

There needs to be an investigation of the United Nations. As I wrote on July 29: “There needs to be an investigation of the UNRWA over this. Could it really keep happening without any UN officials knowing what was going on? The problem is, who can investigate the United Nations? Not Obama’s investigative or intelligence apparatus.” Enough is enough. The UN should be defunded and expelled from the United States. “4-Year-Old Israeli Boy, Daniel Tregerman, Killed by Mortar Fired From UNRWA School in Gaza,” Algemeiner, August 22, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller): Daniel Tregerman, a 4-year-old boy was killed in...

Iran plans to send aid to Gaza after Egypt said it would allow the shipment to enter the territory, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday, according to AFP. The official IRNA news agency said Cairo had agreed to transfer humanitarian aid bound for the coastal enclave, citing a foreign ministry source in Tehran. The source said a first Iranian Red Crescent shipment of 100 tons of medicine and food would be flown "soon" to Cairo. "The package weighs 100 tons and consists of food and medication," IRNA quoted the source as saying. Tehran said at the end of July...

Gaza gunmen killed 18 alleged spies for Israel on Friday, including seven who were lined up behind a mosque with bags over their heads and shot in front of hundreds of people. The killings came in response to Israel’s deadly airstrike against three top Hamas military commanders. Hamas media said Friday’s shootings signaled the start of a crackdown, under the rallying cry of “choking the necks of the collaborators.” It was the largest number of suspected informers killed by Hamas in a single day since it seized Gaza by force in 2007. The Al Majd website, which is close to...

Hamas militants killed seven Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel in a public execution in a central Gaza square on Friday, witnesses and a Hamas website said. The victims, their heads covered and hands tied, were shot dead by masked gunmen dressed in black in front of a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque after prayers, witnesses and al-Majd, a pro-Hamas website, said.

A salvo of rockets landed close to a packed Israeli kindergarten in the south on Friday, breaking the calm after a relatively quiet night. A five-rocket salvo saw the Iron Dome intercept two rockets over Ashkelon. Three rockets struck the western Negev; one of them landed just 12 meters (roughly feet) from a packed kindergarten. Luckily, all children and staff are safe; the building was protected from rocket fire and all of the occupants were in safe areas. Earlier on Friday, a 54 year-old man in Be'er Sheva was moderately wounded by shrapnel from a three-rocket salvo on the southern...

4 minute interview here This is stunning! I'm listening to an interview with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, the author of "The Harbinger". He's describing how the Hebrew word for Violence and destruction, "חָמָס" phonetically chmac, and the Strong's concordance H2555. He pointed out about a dozen examples where this word is used in the Hebrew Scriptures. The link below will take you to Isaiah 53 Verse 9, which reads, And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Here is the passage...

"criminally-biased selective moralizing  -from a suitably safe distance" It's easy to criticize at-a-distance... but none of the people currently protesting against Israel would behave any differently in the same circumstances -and many of them would behave a helluva lot worse. This is why the selective outrage we're seeing is SO truly nauseating. Where were all you 'progressive humanitarians' when Assad was butchering 1000s in Syria, or Bashir in Sudan? Where were the angry mass demonstrations for those people? Or for the victims of the (Muslim) butchery in Nigeria? Or for the 1000s murdered in Iraq just recently... in cold blood. But the...

A 33-year-old man has been wounded by rocket shrapnel in the Eshkol Regional Council, after Gaza terrorists pounded the southern area with rockets Thursday morning. The victim's wounds were at first considered to be minor but are currently classified as moderate to severe. Hamas launched a large rocket salvo at the south on Thursday morning. Many of the rockets struck down in open fields in the Eshkol Regional Council. Among the buildings hit was a kindergarten...

Hamas said that an Israel airstrike in Gaza killed three of its senior military leaders early Thursday. The Palestinian militant group claimed that the men -- identified as Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar -- were killed along with three other people in a strike on a four-story building near Rafah, a town in the southern part of the coastal territory. The trio had played a key role in expanding Hamas' military capabilities in recent years, including digging attack tunnels leading to Israel, training of fighters and smuggling of weapons to Gaza, Israel said. Hamza Khalifa, an area...

There are few elected officials in the United States that are further to the left than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Although technically listed as an Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats and his failure to register as one of them is due to the fact that even they are not socialist enough for him. That said, unlike sycophantic and pandering Democrats, he is true to his beliefs (misguided as they may be) and takes his stance based on his desire to help people live a better life. Due to this honesty and transparency, even this right of center news outlet...

It’s never been exactly cozy between American Muslims and African Americans. But with Ferguson—and Gaza—that’s changing.The Muslim-American community of which I’m part hasn’t been great in standing up with and for African Americans. A lack of empathy and racism are the main culprits. What makes this especially astonishing is that 30 percent of the Muslim-American population is African-American. You would think that there would be natural alliances, but that hasn’t been the case. At least not up until now. The shooting of Michael Brown and the heavy-handed response by the police that followed has struck a nerve among Muslims. It...