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Jordan's al-Rad newspaper on Saturday morning reported that Israel had transferred $5 million to the Jordanian government as compensation for the deaths of Mohammed Jawada and Bashir Hamarna, who were shot by an Israeli security guard, as well as for the death of Jordanian "judge" Raed Zeiter. In July 2017, a Jordanian furniture worker attacked the deputy security officer serving in the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan. The attack, which occurred at the official's home adjacent to the embassy, took place while furniture was being moved into the residence. According to the report, one of the two Jordanian workers moving...

Special Briefing Senior State Department Official Via Teleconference January 19, 2018 MODERATOR: Good morning. Thank you, sir. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for today’s background call on U.S. policy on Syria, and specifically the implications of the Secretary’s speech that took place in California earlier this week. We’re joined today by [Senior State Department Official], who will be referred to as Senior State Department Official. As a reminder, today’s call is on background and will be embargoed until the conclusion of the call. With that, I’m happy to turn it over to our senior State Department official...

The Trump administration is expected to approve a plan to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as early as next year, rather than waiting for several years, Trump administration officials said Friday. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been considering several options since President Donald Trump, late last year, declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital and announced the United States would finally move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. Tillerson has said previously that building a new facility that satisfies the significant security requirements is a complex process involving site-selection, permitting and construction. He’s said that process is...

A rabbi in Israel is calling on fellow Jewish activists in the country to protect the thousands of African asylum-seekers the government is threatening to deport. Religious leaders from the advocacy group Rabbis for Human Rights expressed their willingness on Tuesday to open up their own homes to shelter the migrants. Rabbi Susan Silverman, sister of the American comedian Sarah Silverman, promoted the idea during a conference in Jerusalem and received the support of about 130 religious leaders who had assembled there, Haaretz reports. Silverman said the rabbis’ activism is driven by their Jewish faith ― and the fear that...

CNN’s Martin Savage interviewed a diverse group of Democratic voters from Ohio on Wednesday who all praised President Donald Trump for the things he has done during his first year in office. The group of Democratic voters, who had all crossed over to vote for Trump during the 2016 election, agreed in their assessments of the president and on the importance of his key agenda goals, like ending illegal immigration. When asked how they thought he was performing, the group replied, "Fantastic," "Phenomenal," "Better than I ever would have dreamt," and "He's doing wonderful, he's staying on task." The panel...

Moscow will work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal despite Donald Trump's recent pledge to change it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at his annual news conference. "Unfortunately, our American colleagues still want to operate only on the basis of dictating policy, issuing ultimatums, they do not want to hear the perspectives of other centers of world politics," Lavrov said on Monday. The US is refusing to "acknowledge the reality of the emerging multi-polar world," he added. The Russian foreign minister said that statements coming from the US also "seriously aggravated" tensions in other parts of the world, including...

Moshe Arens, Israel’s defense minister at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, wanted to launch a ground operation against Iraqi missile launchers firing missiles at Tel Aviv, but ran into strong opposition from then-IDF Chief of Staff Dan Shomron, according to recordings from IDF archives released Thursday on the 26th anniversary of the war. After American forces invaded Iraq in January 1991, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired a total of 39 modified Soviet ‘Scud’ missiles at Israel in the hope the Jewish State would respond to the provocation by striking back at a Iraq. He reasoned the move would...

A Jordanian government spokesperson said Thursday evening that he had received from Israel an “official memorandum” apologizing for the deaths of two Jordanians in a shooting incident at the Israeli Embassy in Amman in July, and the killing of a Jordanian judge in a separate incident in 2014. Shortly afterward, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office put out a statement announcing that the embassy, which was closed in the wake of July’s incident, will reopen. The Jordanian spokesperson, Mohammad Momani, also said Israel had agreed to comply with all the kingdom’s preconditions for resuming regular diplomatic relations between the two sides....

Speaking at Stanford University after being introduced by former top diplomat Condoleezza Rice, Tillerson said the Trump administration was determined not to repeat President Barack Obama's "mistake" when he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Republicans for years have argued the withdrawal created the opening for IS' rapid expansion.... Securing a successful U.N. peace process, getting Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power, ridding Syria of Iran's influence and eradicating all weapons of mass destruction in the country.

UNRWA – which employs 11,500 employees in Gaza alone – should be radically revamped, if not disbanded altogether. 3 minute read. A Palestinian woman takes part in a protest against possible reductions of the services and aid offered by United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in front of UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City August 16, 2015.. (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM) The US under the leadership of President Donald Trump is rightly reconsidering the logic of funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine – at least as it operates presently. Some $125 million, which makes up about...

For decades, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has been touted by American leaders as a moderate man of peace. U.S. leaders from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, and from Condoleezza Rice to John Kerry, all insisted that Abbas is the Palestinian leader who will make an historic deal with Israel. President Donald Trump has met three times with Abbas since taking office. On Sunday night, Abbas showed them what he really thinks. He cursed Trump saying that the U.S. President’s “house should be destroyed.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched into a long-winded diatribe last Sunday against President Trump and against Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state. Abbas called President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem a “slap in the face” and threatened that the Palestinians “will slap back.” Abbas declared, "Politically, Jerusalem is our capital; in our religion, it is our capital; geographically, it is our capital." As for Israel, Abbas claimed that “Israel is a colonialist project that has nothing to do with Jews. The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land — call it whatever...

The State Department has turned the page on Turkey for it no longer views Ankara as a reliable US partner. Many argue that Washington will abandon Syria’s Kurds in order to assuage Turkish anger. I doubt this. Washington expects more anti-US actions from Erdogan. Many in DC believe that Turkey’s rising Islamism, hardening dictatorship, and worsening anti-Israel rhetoric will only increase in the future. They do not hold out hope that Washington can reverse this trend.The US is increasingly falling back on support for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump has clearly set his course and reversed Obama’s effort to...

The Palestinian president on Wednesday again blasted Donald Trump in a fiery and emotional speech, saying the U.S. leader’s decision to recognize contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was “sinful” and “ill-fated.” Mahmoud Abbas, who has openly cursed Trump over his policies, told a conference in Egypt that the United States has disqualified itself from continuing as a broker in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a role America has had for decades. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he was certain the U.S. Embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem sometime this year, much sooner than Trump administration...

The U.N. agency that serves Palestinian refugees and their descendants said Wednesday it would launch a global fundraising appeal in hopes of making up for funding cuts announced by the United States. The Trump administration on Tuesday suspended $65 million for UNRWA, demanding it undertake a “fundamental re-examination.” The U.S. provides roughly one-third of UNRWA’s budget, and the agency has warned that it now faces the “most dramatic financial crisis” in its nearly 70-year history. The agency provides health care, education and social services to 5 million Palestinians across the Middle East. UNRWA’s secretary-general, Pierre Krähenbühl, said the fundraising appeal...

Super short video of shootout or riot or something Forces from the IDF and the Border Police’s Yaman counter-terrorism unit on Wednesday evening located in Jenin the terrorists who carried out the shooting attack near Havat Gilad last week, in which Rabbi Raziel Shevach was murdered. The first terrorist was arrested at a gas station in Jenin and taken for questioning. A second terrorist was spotted nearby and was killed in a shootout that developed with him. After that, a manhunt began for a third terrorist who was hiding in a house. The security forces encircled the house and began...

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely blasted UNRWA in an interview with the BBC. "UNWRA should do its job and cease being an agency which perpetuates fake refugees"...

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blames "Americans and Zionists" for the recent protests. The Shiite Muslim hard-liner says money supporting the citizens came from "one of the filthy-rich governments of the Persian Gulf." (Associated Press/File) Iran’s rulers have inflicted death by torture and gunfire on citizen protesters in a crackdown since the Dec. 28 street uprising erupted, the main opposition group said Tuesday. The Europe-based National Council of Resistance of Iran says the Islamic republic’s ubiquitous security apparatus has arrested more than 8,000 citizens and killed at least 50, all while the West has remained mostly silent. The...

Caroline Glick, the conservative American-Israeli columnist renowned for her powerful criticisms of the Middle East peace process, has joined Breitbart News. Glick, the long-serving senior contributing editor and chief columnist for the Jerusalem Post, is one of the world’s most widely-read commentators on Israel and international affairs. She also writes about American politics from a staunchly pro-Israel perspective. She is the author of several books — including, most recently, The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East (2014), which calls for Israel to annex the West Bank.Glick, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened war if US President Donald Trump does not allocate Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian State. In a Cairo speech, Abbas said, "Jerusalem is the key to peace if it is our capital, and if it is not - it is the key to war. Trump will need to chose." According to Abbas, Trump provoked millions of Muslims by choosing to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. "There is no such thing as a Palestinian who will give up even one millimeter of Jerusalem," he claimed. Last week, Abbas told the Palestine Liberation...