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The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents. Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away. Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still...

The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents. Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it. It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away. Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else. And though the secular Palestinian Authority still...

A prospective juror who is a priori prejudiced will, as a matter of course, be dismissed from serving on a jury pool. Many use this knowledge to be excused from jury service. Israel finds herself in the most peculiar position of always being found guilty before deliberations even begin. The World, itself Judge and Jury, stands and applauds: the harsher the treatment, the stronger the clapping. Israel’s Prime Minister decided to freeze all construction within Jewish settlements for ten months. This created an uproar, first because of the manner which it was done (decided in a cabinet meeting and implemented...

The Italian-American Civil Rights League was founded by Joe Colombo.In addition to standing up for the civil rights of Italian-Americans, it's stated purpose was also to combat the stereotyping of law-abiding, honest, and patriotic Italian-Americans as criminals.A nobel cause. With just one major problem:Joe Colombo, was not only the founder and boss of that Italian-American civil rights organization, but also the boss of the former Profaci mafia crime family. Which eventually became known as the Colombo-Family.$ Hundreds of thousands of dollars went directly to the crime family as a result of Colombo's public-rallies and fundraising events. As the story goes, Colombo's high-profile public...

God forbid that the Christian bodies should mess up the ground where a woman accused of adultery is to be earth-pitted up to her chin, then stoned till dead, village children watching.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have turned out in the Gaza Strip to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the founding of the Islamist group Hamas. Supporters filled the streets, waving banners and portraits of assassinated Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The event comes almost a year after a deadly three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Islamist group has controlled Gaza since routing the rival Palestinian Fatah faction from there in June 2007. It is currently engaged in tense mediated negotiations with Israel over the fate of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held in Gaza since June 2006. Under blockade The...

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday, according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency. During the meeting, Ahmadinejad told Mashaal that "Iran will always stand by the oppressed people of Palestine," Fars reported.

"Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries" ... "El Shafie said that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries"

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the IDF is getting ready for missile strikes that could hit Tel Aviv fired from the Gaza strip. Hamas has obtained the missiles , courtesy of Iran: “The IDF Home Front Command is preparing for the possibility that Hamas will fire missiles up to a range of 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip in the event of a future conflict with Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Soldiers of the Home Front Command and Magen David Adom medics exercise the rescue of wounded civilians from a building during a simulation drill of a missile...

This is a repost because first did not provide link. "Nassur: 'Did he beat you only once?'”

Saraa Barhoum (laughing): “Well, everybody… Obviously, your father wanted to teach you something.”

TV character Nassour: “There won’t be any Jews or Zionists, Allah willing. They’ll be erased. “We want to slaughter them so they will be expelled from our land, right?”

A US congressman is the latest to call for a Justice Department investigation into whether a pro-Palestinian group has been raising money on college campuses for Hamas. In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) urged a probe into Viva Palestina USA, a humanitarian aid convoy led by British lawmaker George Galloway that brought medical supplies to Gaza last July.

(IsraelNN.com) Terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza escalated attacks against Israel Sunday and fired Russian-made anti-tank missiles for the first time. The missiles exploded in the fields of Kibbutz Alumim, adjacent to the separation fence, and no injuries or damage was reported. The advanced missiles were of the type usually fired from helicopters, and they carry a larger payload and have a longer range than anti-tank missiles that previously have been used in attacks against Israel.

This Saturday, 5 December, Senator Mary Landrieu is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at an event co-sponsored by two groups that have been tied to Jihad by the Justice Department: the Muslim Students Association and the Islamic Circle of North America. The Muslim Students Association and ICNA were both listed as unindicted co-conspirators by the Justice Dept in the largest terrorism financing trial in US history...the Holy Land Foundation Trial, in which defendants were convicted on all counts and sentenced to 65 years in federal prison. During that trial, in documents uncovered by the FBI and stipulated to by...

Hamas: 1 Israel Soldier Equals 1,000 Soldiers From Palestine By Herb Brandon Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- December 1, 2009 ..... The Israel State Prosecutor’s office confirmed today that Israel will free up to 980 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Though the news was excellent for the Shalit family, it did very little for the pride of the Islamic terror group Hamas and those seeking to live in a state called Palestine. "Sadly, we must beg of those in Israel for over 1,000 of our brave brothers to return to Gaza," a Palestinian journalist told...

There is mounting evidence that the global Jihadist insurgency is fully entrenched in the USA. After the Fort Hood massacre news services seem divided between those hell-bent-for-leather on denying that it was a case of anything other than a persecuted loner “snapping” and those who proclaimed it the first “terrorist” attack on US soil since September 11th. Both were wrong. Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to “connect the dots.” I decided to go back...

The educational content of the Hamas children's Web site Al-Fateh (The Conqueror) is not a form of pedagogy, but an "indoctrination to suicide bombing," said David Oman, the director of communications for the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE) on Tuesday at a press conference at the Regent Hotel. Gert Weisskirchen, a former Social Democratic Party MP and chairman of the OSCE on combating anti-Semitism between 2004-2008, introduced the IMPACT-SE study, and said that "there is a chance to prevent the indoctrination of children and youngsters in Germany and all over Europe." The study "Al-Fateh...

According to the Saudi Network, al-Arabiya (via Ynet), Gilad Shalit, Kidnapped by Hamas over three years ago, may be coming home as soon as this coming Friday. It will be a four-stage deal. Israel will release 450 terrorists, custody of Shalit will be transferred to the Egyptian Government. Israel will follow up by releasing the another 650 terrorists and Egypt will transfer Shalit to the Israel. I assume that means that Hamas believes that one Jewish life is worth 1,000 Arab terrorist lives. Israel had agreed to release 1,000 prisoners months ago, within the group 450 specific prisoners were demanded...

A deal to free captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit has been finalized, and will be signed in the coming days, according to Hamas sources quoted by Arab media Sunday. Captured IDF soldier Gilad... Al-Arabiya also quoted the sources as saying that something could still go wrong with the deal at any point. The deal would entail 450 Palestinian prisoners being released by Israel, 70 of which were new to the previous list. Some of the Palestinians would be transferred to the Gaza Strip, while others would leave the country. After the Palestinians are released, Schalit would be transferred to Israel...

Concerns are growing in Israel’s government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the June 4, 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council. On August 26th, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued a 54-page plan ("Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State") that proposed the establishment of a de-facto Palestinian state within two years – a state to be established regardless of negotiations with Israel and outside the framework of the performance-based March 2003 Roadmap and the Oslo Agreement. [1] While the Plan adopts...

A Gaza charity headed by the interior minister of Hamas yesterday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts an Israeli soldier. Palestinians have frequently called on Israeli Arabs to abduct soldiers, but this is the first time money has been offered.

Top Obama donor and fundraiser Jodie Evans met with the Taliban in Afghanistan on a recent trip there, according to a report by Jane Fonda of a discussion she had with Evans last month. The meeting with the Taliban took place just weeks before Evans was videotaped directly handing to President Barack Obama a package of information about her trip to Afghanistan at a high dollar fundraiser in San Francisco.The meeting with the Taliban was kept secret by Evans and her group Code Pink in reports she and the group posted from Kabul and in interviews with the media and...

2nd Circuit to Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart: Go Directly to Jail A federal appeals court says bail for civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart should be revoked and she should begin serving her sentence “forthwith” for passing messages from an imprisoned terrorist to his followers. The New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Stewart’s conviction in an opinion (PDF) released today, rejecting her argument that the First Amendment protected her release of statements by an imprisoned sheik. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists by passing messages from Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to...

Sources tells CBS News that investigators are continuing to look for any possible ties between the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, and terrorist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, an affiliate of Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood operates behind the scenes in the United States and seeks to subtly place individuals into influential positions in the academic, legal or medical professions to further their cause of undermining the United States. So far all investigations of Hasan have indicated that he acted alone, without support or direction from any outside group. Stories published this week indicated that Hasan had been...

And so a personnel file already teeming with red flags gets another giant one. If you’re wondering how a British newspaper managed to track down this information when the U.S. military apparently couldn’t, you’re not alone. There’s no question now that we need congressional hearings into how the army missed the warning signs on Hasan, especially given the suspicions as to why they might have looked the other way. Chop chop, Messrs. Boehner and Cantor. Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in...

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during last winter's military assault on the Gaza Strip. The Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, has already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, which sponsored the fact-finding commission. The General Assembly on Thursday voted by a margin of 114 to 18 to adopt the report after debating it for two days. Forty-four member-nations abstained from voting. The report calls on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate accusations of human-rights violations during the 22-day conflict in...

Dore Gold Illustrates UN Goldstone Report Bias Against Israel In Brandeis Debate Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- November 5, 2009 ..... Israel's defensive war against Hamas terrorism in Gaza moved tonight to the sleepy and tranquil academic halls of Brandeis University. Former Israel UN Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold articulated in the most enlightened manner Israel's right to self-defense against a recognized terror group - Hamas. Justice Richard Goldstone who was appointed to lead the UN Human Rights Council Fact-finding mission on the Israel Gaza Conflict was left stuttering. In all fairness, one could witness that Goldstone is not...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president said Thursday he does not want to run for another term in January elections, blaming a stalemate in Mideast peace talks on Israel and the United States. In a televised speech to the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas said he has told his "brothers" in the Fatah movement of his "desire not to run in the upcoming elections." But Abbas' careful wording left room for the possibility that he could be persuaded to change his mind, especially if he perceives the United States as backing his position on demanding an end to Israeli construction in...

U.N. Human Rights Council witnesses dramatic face-off when head of controversial UN "fact-finding" mission on Gaza unexpectedly confronted by one of his own witnesses. Dr. Mirela Siderer, an Israeli doctor brutally disfigured by a 2008 rocket attack fired from Gaza into her Ashkelon medical clinic, pointedly accused Judge Richard Goldstone of ignoring her July oral testimony in his report, and of failing to disclose material information concerning the mandate and members of the mission. Both declared Israel guilty in advance. Testimony arranged by the Geneva human rights organization UN Watch.

Palestinian Sources have announced today that the leader of Fatah/President of the Palestinian Territories has decided he will step down because of a lack of progress in peace talks. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election in polls next year, reports suggest. Officials from the Palestine Liberation Organisation told journalists in the West Bank that Mr Abbas "insists on not running" in the 24 January election. A aide to Mr Abbas said earlier a lack of progress in peace talks with Israel and failure to achieve reconciliation with Hamas could prompt such a move. But another aide said...

Israel's military intelligence chief has warned that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have successfully tested an Iranian rocket that can reach Tel Aviv, the Jewish state's largest urban conurbation. That adds a new urgency to Israel's efforts to develop an effective defensive system capable of shooting down short-range rockets that, if the warning by Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin is correct, are becoming a strategic threat. Yadlin says the rocket has a range of 37 miles, 8 miles longer He did not identify the Iranian system, but there have been reports that Iran has been seeking to smuggle Fajr-5 (Dawn)...

In 1993, a secret meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee—mostly senior Hamas leaders--was held in a Philadelphia Marriott. The group discussed new ways to secretly funnel money to Hamas and of creating a new public relations organization to deceive the American about their true objectives of helping Hamas. Less than a year later, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was created to serve as a front group for Hamas. Since that time, it has morphed into a quasi legitimate “Islamic civil rights” group portrayed in some circles as the equivalent of the NAACP. For 14 years, CAIR got...

Democracy vs. Terrorism - Congress, UN Vote On Goldstone Israel Gaza Report Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- November 3, 2009 ..... There was never an easier vote to decide upon. Today the US House of Representatives is expected to vote on a resolution requesting US President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’.” What has become known as the UN Goldstone Report, a biased, one sided investigation that refers to the internationally recognized terror group Hamas as...

Following a day of clashes between security forces and Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday evening stated that the fate of the capital would be determined by force, not negotiations. "The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables," Mashaal said in a speech, according to Channel 10. "The Israelis want to divide al-Aqsa Mosque, and this is not all. They want to hold their religious ceremonies in the mosque … in preparation for demolishing it and building their temple there," he reportedly said. Israel is interested in...

The following appeared as an op-ed in Kuwait’s Arab Times. I’ve oft quoted it’s Editor -in-Chief Ahmed al-Jarallah,. He’s no Zionist stooge, gentle reader, and while I oft times disagree with his views I find them fair coming from an Arab editor, in an Arab land. Does Iran want the Palestinian peace process to pass through nuclear reactions? Whenever Egypt expresses its frustration over Hamas activities, demanding that they should deal with it as the largest Arab nation, not as a Palestinian but a Palestinian faction, it shows its despondency. The so-called resistant group has remained adamant for quite a...

The world finally has a definitive answer to the age-old question about whether intelligence is the same thing as common sense. That answer, in case you've ever wondered, is a conclusive "no."

UN Watch Oral Statement - Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp, 16 October 2009 - UN Human Rights Council: 12th Special Session ... Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

The Netanyahu government's slow-moving, lackadaisical handling of the Goldstone commission mandated for accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, played into the hands of a coalition formed to strip the Israeli military of legitimacy as a defensive strike force against Iran's fast-moving nuclear weapons program and its Middle East allies' missile arsenals. Those missiles are poised to strike Israel's population centers if Iran is attacked. Israel had - and still has - plenty of moral, diplomatic and strategic tools for defending itself. They were not applied and so this hostile coalition was allowed to strike Israel on three fronts in...

Almost everyone in a dispute hopes to find an honest broker to mediate their differences. The controversy over the Goldstone Report on Gaza and the active role of Turkey’s prime minister therein has raised a collateral issue, which is the US role as a go-between or broker in the Middle East. So let’s look at the prospect that the US can be such a broker, either alone or in tandem with Turkey, which has been actively involved in the area. No one can be a broker when beholden utterly to one side, and while US President Barack Obama sounds much...

Despite protests and threats from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, four Congress members went ahead with a press conference at the U.S. Capitol yesterday to call for an investigation of the Muslim lobby group based on documents uncovered in the explosive new book "Muslim Mafia," by WND Books. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., received a fax Tuesday from CAIR's in-house legal counsel, alleging the authors of the new book, set for release today, had engaged in "criminal actions" and warning that a report already had been filed with law enforcement authorities. The faxed letter from CAIR's Nadhira al-Khalili noted the Washington-based...

House ethics officials have called for disclosure of costs associated with Minnesota Democrat Rep. Keith Ellison's religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year. Originally, Ellison – who is the United States' first Muslim congressman – opted not to announce the cost of the trip, which had a price tag of $13,350. More disturbing than Ellison's lack of transparency is the fact that The Star-Tribune (Minn.) said the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS) paid the $13,350 bill for Ellison’s two-week visit to Mecca. Americans have great cause for concern. The Chicago Tribune said the MAS, despite calling itself an "independent...

SNIPPET: "For all his public activity, Bray has rarely, if ever, discussed his life story in detail. His own MAS biography offers vague descriptions of his work as "a long time civil and human rights advocate." A charismatic African-American convert to Islam, Bray spent this entire decade working for Islamist organizations. Prior to joining MAS, Bray was political director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Those jobs have helped him build a growing public profile and given him access to politicians and policy makers. And that may explain his reluctance to discuss his life before political activism. The Investigative...

42 kilometers away from Harsina (a/k/a Remat Mamre) as the crow flies, a tunnel implodes in Aza. My family and I hear the explosion like a massive thunder clap on a clear, blue day. My daughter-in-law identifies the cause immediately, says she hears them often in Bat Ayin, another 12 kilometers to the North along Highway 60, says sometimes the entire yishuv shakes. Four months out of America and all delusions of longitude have been shattered by a bomb 42 kilometers to the Southwest of my home. News is no longer something I watch on television or listen to on...

There have been an detailed critiques regarding the UN’s Goldstone report, created for the purpose of bashing Israel over the Gaza war with phony claims of “war crimes.” And more are coming out each day on both sides of the Issue. The report is full of Hamas-let witnesses masking propaganda against Israel; the UN magnified it. Little verifiable evidence was presented, and almost nothing was said about Hamas terrorist activities. Hamas has taken the Goldstone report as if they were given a Carte Blanche by the world community to continue their terrorist strategies and even expand them further.

Here is video of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit shown alive though he has been held by Hamas since 2006. Hamas agreed to make a video showing Schalit's condition in exchange for the release of 19 Palestinian women prisoners by Israel. The video is shown as part of a report on the release of the prisoners, and the report also says Hamas has said Israel will have to release "hundreds of male prisoners" to gain Schalit's release. . . . (VIDEO)

In 2006 taking advantage of an earlier cease-fire, infiltrated into Israel, killed two soldiers, and captured Cpl. Gilad Shalit.After three long years we finally received evidence that Gilad Schalit is alive. But he is not yet home by a long-shot. Most civilized nations allow the International Red Cross visit prisoners, but Hamas is neither civilized or a nation so it took this long period for Shalit's parents to find out if he survived the attack that killed his two buddies. In a brokered trade, Israel released 19 terrorists for video that he is alive. Below is the video and an...

(IsraelNN.com) A recent children's television program broadcast from Gaza teaches Muslim Arab children several different vocabulary words for "slaughtering" the Jews in the Land of Israel. The theme is hardly new for the Hamas-run station. Al-Aqsa TV broadcasts a children's program called "Tomorrow's Pioneers" featuring a live child actor and an adult actor dressed in an animal costume. The current "animal" co-host is Nassur the Bear, introduced earlier this year, who follows in the footsteps of Nahoul the Bee, Assoud the Rabbit, and Farfour, who was a Mickey Mouse lookalike. Themes promoted by all the characters include Islamic triumphalism, anti-Semitism,...

Tehran, Aug. 13: One of Osama bin Laden’s sons, Saad, together with a number of top Al Qaeda commanders, including Seif al Adel, are hiding in Iran and are not in Syria as reported by several Western papers this week, a well informed source said. The source, a top Iranian intelligence official until a few months ago, said Al Qaeda and members of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, are negotiating coordinated actions against the United States and Israel. The Al Qaeda members had been living for the past four years in a neighbourhood in northern Tehran under the surveillance...

GAZA CITY, Sept. 25 -- An Israeli air strike on Friday night killed three members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement who military officials said were on their way to fire rockets into Israel. An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the three men were hit near their vehicle in the Al Tufah area east of Gaza City at about 8 p.m. A fourth man was injured, according to Palestinian officials. They were thought to be part of a group responsible for firing homemade Qassam rockets and mortars into Israel in recent weeks, including two that fell on the border town...