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There is a growing consensus in the United States and around the world that the way to end the Israel-Gaza war is to disarm Hamas. President Obama seems to be the only hold-out. On July 24, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a resolution calling on the Obama Administration to make the disarming of Hamas a central part of any cease-fire proposal. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, is spearheading this effort together with Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Ben Cardin of Maryland. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on July 15 to...

Israeli forces shelled a U.N.-run school sheltering Palestinians in the northern Gaza strip, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and raising the conflict's death toll to nearly 750. Israel Radio said, without citing a source, that most of those killed at the United Nations school were children. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incident reported as a truce between the Jewish state and Hamas-led Islamist guerrillas remained elusive, despite intensive attempts at mediation.

Jim Jordan EXPLODES On Irs Commissioner John Koskinen. Commissioner John Koskinen testified at a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) response to congressional oversight and investigation into alleged targeting of conservative groups.

(CNSNews.com) - Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Wednesday called out the IRS on holding back information regarding lost emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner, telling the IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at a House Subcommittee for Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Regulatory Affairs on Capitol Hill, “You guys were never going to tell us until we caught you.” At the hearing titled, “An Update on the IRS Response to its Targeting Scandal,” Jordan explained the timeline of events in the ongoing IRS investigation, citing how Koskinen knew about the missing emails in April yet waited until June 13, 2014 to...

The European Union on Tuesday called upon terrorist groups in Gaza to disarm, and to end and renounce violence. The official statement read: "The EU strongly condemns the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel by Hamas and militant groups in the Gaza Strip, directly harming civilians. These are criminal and unjustifiable acts. The EU calls on Hamas to immediately put an end to these acts and to renounce violence. All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm. The EU strongly condemns calls on the civilian population of Gaza to provide themselves as human shields."

Dan Shapiro: ‘We’ll seek to help moderate Palestinians become stronger in Gaza,’ since they’d run it better than ‘Hamas, a terrorist group’ The US wants to see Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority restored to ruling Gaza after the current conflict is over, and will make efforts to bring this about, American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro indicated Saturday night. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news, Shapiro was asked about the unity government formed last month by Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas. He did not reply directly and instead noted that Abbas was currently in close contact with Egypt, trying...

US Secretary of State John Kerry apologized this week for using the term ‘Apartheid’ in describing Israel’s status following the collapse of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Nonetheless, it appears that the Obama administration is convinced that Israel is by large responsible for the impasse in the peace process and therefore slated to pay the price for it in the near future. “The Jewish people are supposed to be smart. You’re supposed to know how to read the map: In the 21st century, the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation,” a US official told Yediot Ahronot....

Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri says Cairo's offer 'provides the needs of all sides.' Egypt does not have any plans to revise its ceasefire proposal to end the fighting in Gaza, Foreign Minister Sameh Shukrisaid in a joint press conference with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Cairo. "It provides the needs of all sides and we will continue to offer it, hoping to get their support as soon as possible," said Shukri, referring to the initiative rejected by Hamas. On Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked France to use its influence on Hamas allies such as Turkey and Qatar to...

Analysis: Israel's intelligence community sees Cairo as only real platform capable of influencing Hamas. With all the chatter incessantly coming out of the mouths of experts sitting in air-conditioned television studios and offering their different solutions to the Hamas problem, it's really hard to understand what is going on behind the scenes. But there is one thing we can all agree on: The news about a ceasefire will come from one place only – Cairo. The common estimate among the decision makers is that the Egyptians are the only ones who can end the fighting. The Egyptian capital serves as...

Palestinian and other Arab commentators are blasting Egypt's cease-fire offer this week in the Israeli-Gazan fighting, saying it was a gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted it, and a trap for Hamas, which rejected it. Azmi Bishara, the fugitive former Knesset member who now heads the Arab Center for Research and Policy in Doha, Qatar, wrote in the pan-Arab alaraby.co.uk that the offer gave no relief to Gaza, nor freedom for the Hamas members recently returned to Israeli prisons. "This Egyptian declaration represents a stab in the back to the resistance and the people of Gaza. … [T]his...

A recent United Nations report, still classified, confirms that Iran is implicated in exporting longer-range missiles to the region, such as the M-302 rockets launched from Gaza. UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. — Evidence that Hamas is firing more sophisticated weapons at Israel – including longer-range rockets – than in past conflicts is focusing a new light on Iran’s role in arming the militant organization....

The celebrations in Israel Tuesday morning over the Egyptian ceasefire initiative were premature. Contrary to the assessment of all manner of eminent Israeli notables, Hamas is not sufficiently weakened to accept an immediate ceasefire that meets none of its demands. Far from it. As Hamas made clear in the course of a rocket-filled Tuesday, it doesn’t give a damn about Egypt or Arab public opinion, and it is continuing on its own path, one of escalation. You can say a lot to Hamas’s detriment in its handling of this conflict: It was wrong to enter this round of hostilities and...

Qatar, the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter, is using its gas money to cash in on some top-of-the-line U.S. supplied military hardware. Qatar’s defense minister, Hamad Bin Ali al-Attiyah, met with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and signed acceptance letters for $11 billion worth of Apache attack helicopters, Patriot missile defense batteries and anti-tank Javelin missiles, the Pentagon said in a statement Monday. “Today’s signing ceremony underscores the strong partnership between the United States and Qatar in the area of security and defense and will help improve our bilateral cooperation across a range of military operations,” said Rear Adm....

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for years has been on record supporting the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, appears to have abandoned the idea, according to The Times of Israel. "He made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank," the Times reported. While he did not renounce support for the two-state solution, his comments reflected a view that he believes such a state is no longer a possibility after Israel repeatedly evacuated Arab territories only for it to come under the control of Palestinian extremists...

Despite devastation in Gaza, and its inability to inflict Israeli casualties, the organization is in robust shape — personnel unharmed, rocket supplies plentiful, popularity soaring. headquarters and the IDF have been repeating over the past two days assertions like “Hamas is frustrated” and “Hamas wants a ceasefire.”In principle, they’re right,but those statements must be accompanied by two critical caveats that in practice prevent a halt in the fighting. True, Gaza’s Hamas rulers are frustrated to a certain extent. They aren’t happy that the almost 1,000 rockets they’ve fired at Israel so far have caused few injuries and haven’t even significantly...

ISIS unveils ‘cabinet’ lineup: report By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News Friday, 11 July 2014 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has reportedly formed a cabinet to be in charge of his newly established “caliphate.” Documents published by The Telegraph newspaper this week revealed for the first time in details the structure of the group, which has claimed universal authority throughout the Muslim world, declaring Baghdadi its caliph. The British newspaper published an infograph that explains the leadership arrangement under Baghdadi, based on documents seized from an ISIS member’s house...

While the British government is making its own citizens pay for the jihadis allowed to return to the UK from Syria and Iraq, both in terms of money – through the £1.1 billion cash injection for defence announced today, £800 million of which will fund an extra investment in intelligence and surveillance to deal with the threat of terrorism – and in terms of intrusion and greater state power – through emergency laws to monitor phone and internet records “to stop terrorists" –, people hear of the establishment of a caliphate in the Middle East without the media –...

The best litmus test of any society’s success or failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfN2IvnIA4M

Islamic State routs Iraqi armored column in Anbar By BILL ROGGIO Iraqi and Syrian towns and cities seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham and its allies. Map created by The Long War Journal. Click to view larger map. Fighters from the newly established Islamic State ambushed and destroyed an Iraqi armored column in the western province of Anbar. Islamic State fighters also captured several American-made armored personnel carriers. The ambush highlights the deteriorating state of the Iraqi security forces. The Islamic State's Anbar Wilayat (division or province) released a series of photographs on its Twitter account...

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...