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The popularity of the Hamas militant group among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has spiked significantly following the 50-day war with Israel, according to an opinion poll released Tuesday. The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and headed by leading Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, indicates that 61 percent of Palestinians would choose the Islamic militant group's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, for president if Palestinian presidential elections were held today. Only 32 percent would vote for current President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas' rival, the survey suggested. The support for Haniyeh marks a stark increase...

On a February trip to the Middle East, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) told Qatari leaders that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, that a Palestinian capital should be established in East Jerusalem as part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and that he was "shocked" by what he saw on a visit to Gaza. Kerry discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in a visit to Qatar during separate meetings with Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani and the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa, as revealed by the disclosure of diplomatic cables by the website...

Special to Israel News Agency from Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jerusalem, Israel --- September 9, 2014 ... Instead of investigating Hamas’ deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the UN decided to “investigate” Israel, a democracy exercising its legitimate right of self-defense. Throughout the recent conflict Israel has done its utmost to comply with the strictest standards of international humanitarian law, despite significant operational costs. On July 23, while Hamas rocket fire on Israel continued daily, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to appoint a “commission of inquiry” the purpose of...

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. Something extraordinary has happened.On August 31, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told an audience of Fatah members that Egypt had offered to give the PA some 1,600 kilometers of land in Sinai adjacent to Gaza, thus quintupling the size of the Gaza Strip. Egypt even offered to allow all the so-called “Palestinian refugees” to settle in the expanded Gaza Strip.Then Abbas told his Fatah followers that he rejected the Egyptian offer.On Monday Army Radio substantiated Abbas’s claim.According to Army Radio, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi proposed that the Palestinians establish their...

A recent Al-Jazeera TV report took the viewers down into new tunnels dug by the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, after the Gaza cease-fire. "We are getting these tunnels ready for the next battle, in order to launch attacks and fire mortars and artillery. These tunnels will also have other uses, which we will not disclose," said a masked militant. The report aired on September 4.

The efficacy and threat level of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has heightened after Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Dr. Michael Oren stated Monday—and allegedly justifies a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. Israel’s economic, political, and cultural status has already been damaged existentially across the globe, Oren warned, due to the constant campaigns for “Israel Apartheid Week” on college campuses and European divestment from the Jewish state. […] Hamas consciously declared victory in its PR campaign against Israel several weeks ago, after it encouraged ordinary Gazans to become human shields,...

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday denied reports that he had offered to establish a Palestinian state in the Sinai Peninsula, the website of Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper reported. […] Earlier Monday, Army Radio reported that Sisi has offered Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to cede 160 square kilometers of the Sinai Peninsula adjoining Gaza to the PA, thus creating a Palestinian state five times the present size of Gaza. In return, the PA would stop demanding that Israel return to the indefensible pre-1967 borders. […] According to the report, Abbas had rejected the offer. Later Monday, Abbas’s office wasted...

Jewish Home party chairwoman MK Ayelet Shaked responded Monday morning to reports that the Egyptian government had offered the Palestinian Authority a state extending from Gaza through the Sinai Peninsula, and called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to take it seriously. Aiming a barb at the Israeli Left, she said the initiative proved how out of touch they were. "If the report is indeed correct, the president of Egypt has managed to understand what the Left in Israel has refused to understand for decades." She asserted that the solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian "needs to be regional,...

“Moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has bragged of his regime’s role in aiding Hamas’s terror war against Israel, even as Iran is locked in a final round of negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program. Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the “victory” of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only possible thanks to Iranian aid, reports Channel 10. Rouhani has been presented to the world as a “moderate” following his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but many have warned that his “charm offensive” has been even more dangerous given the cover it provides for Iran’s ongoing...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the country’s citizens to attend a rally against anti-Semitism next week in Berlin where she will speak. Merkel said Saturday she will do everything possible to make sure anti-Semitism has no chance in Germany. …

This summer’s 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which has come to a close if a cease-fire reached last week holds, has spurred a sharp rise in both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents around the world. At the same time, the boundary between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has become increasingly blurred, particularly on American college campuses. flag of israel Trouble for Jewish students got underway even before the start of classes. At an orientation event in late August, a pro-Israel student at Temple University in Philadelphia was punched in the face by a member of Students for Justice in Palestine...

This video was uploaded to Facebook on August 29 and is called Two Minutes in Gaza. It might not be what you're expecting. Let's go to the videotape.

Mark Langfan posts part of a fascinating interview with Penelope Ironside. Ms. Ironside heads up the UNICEF field office in Gaza. UNICEF is the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, and is meant to help children all over the world, including in both Gaza and Israel. Ms. Ironside reports that the UNICEF and the United Nations were asked by the IDF to evacuate civilians who were being used as human shields by Hamas in Gaza. The organizations refused to act. At 29 minutes into the briefing, Ms. Ironside landed what could be an absolute bombshell in any future war-crimes tribunal....

This is the real reason why Abbas won’t hold elections and has been ruling unilaterally for quite a while. It’s because all Hamas needs to do to win an election is start a war.It’s also why peace is hopeless. A two state solution that depends on negotiations is a non-starter. Abbas doesn’t represent anyone except the PLO. Hamas’ idea of a final solution is the genocide expressed in Article 7 of its charter. Hamas would win election in Judea and Samaria and well as Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh would defeat Mahmoud Abbas if elections were held today, according to a...

The United Nations has been quick to launch a special inquiry into Israel for defending itself this summer against Hamas terrorist attacks out of Gaza. But will anyone be investigating the role in this conflict of the U.N. itself? This latest bout of war has underscored alarming questions about the U.N.’s chief agency in Gaza, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better known as UNRWA. Officially, UNRWA advertises itself as a strictly neutral party providing humanitarian and relief services — including schooling, health care, construction, loans, and emergency response — to Palestinian refugees...

Breaking News U.S. Military Conducts Operation In Somalia By Barbara Starr September 1, 2014 (CNN) -- U.S. military forces conducted an operation Monday against the Al-Shabaab network in Somalia, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. "We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," he said.

Mideast: For those hoping for a "breakthrough" in Mideast peace comes a disconcerting new poll showing the terrorist group Hamas gaining popularity among Palestinians. Sadly, their misery is self-inflicted. Among the victims of the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas, it would seem, is any sign of Palestinian moderation. A new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows 61% of both West Bank and Gaza Palestinians say they'd vote for the terrorist group Hamas' leader, Ismail Haniyeh, for president if elections were held today.

Support for the terrorist organization Hamas has skyrocketed in Judea, Samaria and Gaza according to a new poll, after Hamas “skyrocketed” Israel with a massive missile barrage and terror war in Operation Protective Edge. A full 61% of Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza would pick Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for unity government president if elections were held today, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll reported Tuesday by Associated Press (AP). By contrast, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was found to have dropped sharply to a mere 32% in support. …

JNS.org - Several prominent Turkish Jews have written an open letter reprimanding their government for publicly asking the Jewish community to denounce Israel’s operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison.Eliezer Stein, a writer for a Jewish online publication, Hamodia.com, was struck by the same graphic photograph that we were. It was published on the front page of The New York Times August 23rd edition. The photo shows three armed Hamas killers, wearing black tee shirts and black hoods, roughing up three hooded, kneeling men with their hands tied behind them. The Times’ captioned the photograph: “Gazans Suspected of Collaborating Are Executed.” The killers are described in the caption as “militants.” They are said to be “preparing to execute.” There’s a lot...