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Taking charge of Group of 77, which encompasses 134 developing countries, Abbas slams Israel’s ‘occupation of the state of Palestine,’ condemns ‘terrorism in all its forms’ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas assumed the chairmanship of the largest bloc of countries at the United Nations on behalf of “the State of Palestine” on Tuesday in New York City. The Palestinians are slated to serve as the leader of the bloc, known as the Group of 77, for the next year. In a speech at the UN headquarters, Abbas called the task of leading the Group of 77 “a great responsibility.” "I...

RUSH: Yeah, another thing that’s so frustrating to me about all this honestly, folks, is that Donald Trump has really made good on his promise to make America great again and then is in the process of reshaping the world. Do you realize…? Have you heard the ChiComs have agreed to start importing rice from the United States? Now, stop and think about this for a second. Donald Trump sold ice to Eskimos. He has just made a deal where the ChiComs are gonna import rice from American farmers. The ChiComs on all of these arguments over tariffs are gonna...

Following meetings with top Saudi Arabian leaders in the country's capital on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that one of the Trump administration's top regional goals is to "make sure that the Iranian people get control of their capital," a shot across the bow to a ruling regime that has spent billions to beef up its foreign military and terrorist operations. Pompeo, speaking to reporters in Riyadh, said that the Trump administration's primary goal is to empower the Iranian people to rein in the ruling regime, which has spent a fortune on foreign wars and terror operations as...

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Democrat, was called out Monday after Palestinian activist Abbas Hamideh, a staunch defender of the terrorist group Hezbollah, posted photos of the two of them posing at her swearing-in ceremony in Detroit. Mr. Hamideh tweeted a photo of himself Saturday with Ms. Tlaib along with the caption, “I was honored to be at Congresswoman @RashidaTlaib swearing in ceremony in #Detroit and private dinner afterward with the entire family, friends and activists across the country.” Critics were quick to point out that Mr. Hamideh, a co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Al-Awda, which means “right of return,” has...

Excavation uncovers a unique, monumental structure previously unknown in the region. Was it a shrine — or the site of David’s triumphant parade of the legendary ark? Facebook Twitter linkedin email 4,229 shares Amanda Borschel-Dan is The Times of Israel's Jewish World and Archaeology editor. In the upper terrace at Kiriath-jearim, a massive wall was unearthed some 15 cm below topsoil. The well-preserved wall is circa 3 m broad and preserved to 2.15 m on its outer face. (Shmunis Family Excavations at Kiriath-jearim) Illustration from the 13th century Morgan Bible of David bringing the Ark into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6)....

FULL TITLE: Trump touts 'long overdue' Syria pullout, says US 'will devastate Turkey economically' if they attack Kurds President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted that the "long overdue pullout from Syria" is starting, and threatened that the U.S. will "devastate Turkey economically" if they attack Kurdish forces in the war-torn country. Trump said the removal of troops, which he announced via Twitter in December, is happening "while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions." The president also vowed that the U.S. "Will attack [ISIS] again from existing nearby base if it reforms." Trump promised the...

In order for any private citizen to be able to buy a gun, you have to either live in what the government considers a dangerous area or have been a combat soldier. I believe every single citizen should be able to purchase a gun regardless of where they reside. Terrorism can strike anywhere in the country and it doesn’t matter whether you are in Hebron or Tel Aviv. For the most part every time a terrorist attempted an attack he has always been stopped by an armed civilian. Guns make communities safer as a deterrent since terrorists won’t attack a...

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama gave a speech in Cairo that he referred to as "A New Beginning." In that speech in June, 2009, Obama identified the United States as one of the causes of turmoil and violence in the Middle East. He never said the words, "I'm sorry," but his tone was apologetic as he viciously criticized the Israeli "occupation and the US invasion of Iraq. Yesterday, almost 10 years later, American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave the speech that Obama should have given. It was unabashedly pro-American and identified America as a force for good in...

As the partial government shutdown stretches on with no clear end in sight, it’s affecting US embassy staff around the world — and making it harder for the US to conduct diplomacy abroad. Many of the State Department’s roughly 75,000 employees — 50,000 are employed locally in US embassies abroad — have found trouble progressing with their work and even, in some cases, struggling to put food on the table while they wait for the White House and Congress to strike a deal. That’s a big problem, since the State Department is America’s leading foreign relations agency. It now means...

For much of the last week, the press in Israel and Croatia have given frenzied coverage to US objections to Israeli plans to sell the small Eastern European nation 12 used F-16 fighters. On Thursday, the Croatian government announced the deal was officially shelved as Israel had not received approval from Washington to sell the fighters, which were built in the US. The US decision to 'veto' the Israeli sale of the F-16s draws attention to the complicated nature of export controls in arms sales involving multiple nations. The Croatian F-16 saga also bears some similarities to the now-forgotten story...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday launched an astonishing rebuke of former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy at the site of Obama’s famous speech to the Muslim world -- declaring that “the age of self-inflicted American shame is over.” Pompeo delivered his remarks in Cairo, where Obama famously spoke in 2009 and promised a new beginning with Muslim and Arab countries. He was criticized by conservatives for placing too much blame on the U.S. for strife in the region. Pompeo, while not mentioning Obama by name, said that “it was here, in this city, another American stood before you”...

In a pair of his first policy-oriented messages as the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro said his administration will target the “Marxist garbage” within his country’s education system. video is 4:13 min

There has been a sharp decline in the number of American Jews participating in the “Birthright” trips to Israel this winter, reported Haaretz, describing “a downturn of this magnitude, unrelated to the security situation” as “unprecedented”. Since its establishment in 1999, the Birthright organisation has brought some 500,000 young Jews from around the world on free trips to Israel. According to the paper, citing some of Birthright’s key trip providers, the drop ranges from 20 per cent to 50 per cent – depending on the provider – in comparison with the last winter season (which extends from December through March)....

Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian congresswoman, made a change to the map of her congressional office in Washington, DC, replacing Israel with Palestine. After Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, swore in front of Congress last Thursday, a BuzzFeed reporter, who was touring the congresswoman’s new office, noticed a “slight change” on the map hung on the wall. One of the pictures posted by the reporter on Twitter revealed that someone, perhaps not Tlaib herself, placed a sticker, with the word Palestine on it, near the location of Israel on the map and accompanied it by an arrow directed to the...

The New York Times is quick to the typeset to explain how Brussels is desperately offended because President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have lowered the importance of the EU. Officials from the European Union are apoplectic that U.S. officials have downgraded their status amid the official registry of diplomatic protocols. (snip) -- BRUSSELS — The Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s delegation to the United States last year without making a formal announcement or informing the bloc about the change, a European official said on Tuesday.

Issam Akel, an Arab who holds American citizenship and an Israeli identification card had been kidnapped by the Palestinian Authority after being charged with helping to sell an Arab-owned house to Jews. “We are aware of reports that a U.S. citizen has been sentenced by a Palestinian court,” a U.S. government official said. “The Ramallah Grand Criminal Court sentenced a Palestinian identified only by his initials I.A. to life in prison with hard labor after it found him guilty of selling Palestinian land to a foreign country,” Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Monday. The “unidentified” Palestinian is, in fact,...

Manny Yekutiel opened his restaurant as a ‘civic social gathering space,’ but weekly protests accuse him of racism for supporting Israel Manny Yekutiel hosts an event in San Francisco. (YouTube screenshot) Manny Yekutiel opened his eponymous Manny’s in November, calling the Middle Eastern cafe and restaurant in downtown San Francisco a “civic social gathering space.” His goal for the Mission District eatery was “to create a central, accessible and affordable place to go to become a better informed and more involved citizen,” he told the San Francisco Examiner. Manny’s has earned praise for hosting talks with speakers on issues ranging...

The think tank that I run, the Center for Near East Policy Research, has completed a four-year research activity in which all 364 schoolbooks for grades 1-12 that were published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the years 2013-2018 were examined. The chief researcher whom we hired to examine the texts used by the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools was Dr. Arnon Groiss, a scholar of Middle Eastern studies. The goal of this research project was to check the Palestinian attitude toward the Israeli-Jewish "other" and to the possibility of solving the...

Cockpit voice recordings of a January 2 incident of the crew of an Israeli F-15 fighter jet who managed to save the aircraft after it lost its canopy in flight have gone viral in recent days. Interestingly, an Indian Air Force pilot won the Vayu Sena Medal for Gallantry after he managed to land his Russian-built MiG-29 fighter after a near-identical accident in 2016. In addition to risk of direct physical injury, the loss of a canopy also exposes pilots to severe cold temperatures and wind speeds at high altitudes, impairing their physiological and cognitive responses. In June 2016, squadron...

>Book Review: Rescue in Albania, by Harvey Sarner, Brunswick Press, 1997, 106 pages. Kosovo and the Holocaust: Falsifying History By Carl Savich History is in many ways a myth we create for ourselves. History is constantly falsified to justify wars and territorial claims. Albanian apologists have falsified the role Albania played in the Holocaust to justify an illegal US/NATO war against Serbia and to allow for the creation of a Greater Albania that would include the Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija. The Albanian role in the Holocaust was falsified and manipulated to advance the creation of an “independent” Kosova, an ethnically...