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"The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," declared United Sates President Barack Obama in his June 4 Cairo address. Really? Compared to what? Things are tough all over. The Palestinians are one of many groups displaced by the population exchanges that followed World War II, and the only ones whose great-grandchildren still have the legal status of refugees. Why are they still there? The simplest explanation is that they like it there, because they are much better off than people of similar capacities in other Arab countries. The standard tables of gross domestic product (GDP) per capital show the...

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse. Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God. Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies...

A century ago, Christians dominated the intellectual and commercial life of the Levant, comprising more than one-fifth of the 13 million people of Turkey, the region's ruling power, and most of the population of Lebanon. Ancient communities flourished in what is now Iraq and Syria. But starting with the Armenian genocide in 1914 and continuing through the massacre and expulsion of Anatolian Greeks in 1922-1923, the Turks killed three to four million Christians in Turkey and the Ottoman provinces. Thus began a century of Muslim violence that nearly has eradicated Christian communities in the cradle of their religion. It may...

Syria is experiencing an economic holocaust. There is no other way to describe what the Syrian regime is so much trying to hide. The country is drying up, and no less than 250,000 farmers were forced in the past three years to abandon their land and migrate to the large cities. They live in tents there, completely neglected by the regime. These figures appeared in a special study undertaken by the United Nations and published on the al-Arabiya website. The immense Euphrates River, Syria’s main source of water, is drying up. The Turks are stopping its water in their territory,...

Dick Morris cites a poll of Jewish Democrats and their views of Obama's policies towards Israel. Here is a summary. Jewish Democrats reject nearly in wholesale every specific policy that Obama has produced vis a vis Israel. They reject his tough policies on settlements. They reject his policy toward Iran. They reject his view that a Palestinian state is key for peace. In fact, by a 52-20 margin Jewish Democrats believe that.

‘It made me feel so jealous,” said Abdulmonem Ibrahim, a young Egyptian political activist, of the recent upheaval in Iran. “We are amazed at the organization and speed with which the Iranian movement has been functioning. In Egypt you can count the number of activists on your hand.” This degree of “Iran envy” is a telling statement on the stagnation of Arab politics. It is not pretty, Iran’s upheaval, but grant the Iranians their due: They have gone out into the streets to contest the writ of the theocrats. In contrast, little has stirred in Arab politics of late. The...

The Medal of Freedom is America's highest civilian honor. This year, one of the recipients is Mary Robinson. The former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is best known as the architect behind the UN's disastrous Durban conference, known primarily for the US and Israel boycotting the racist, hatefilled platform given to Arab dictators. But not to worry, she also has a decades-long track record or bashing the United States and our foreign policy.

Reaching out to the Arab world isn't working out very well for President Obama, Just before the weekend The Saudi government dealt a blow to his misguided peace plan: Saudi Arabia on Friday sharply rejected American calls for gestures toward Israel, a central component of US efforts to pave the way for peace talks. "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and - we believe - will not achieve peace. Temporary security, confidence-building measures will also not bring peace," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a State Department press conference. "What is required is a comprehensive approach that...

This was not a good week for President Obama's attempt at a Middle East peace. Over the past seven days, the four Horsemen of the Obamaclypse visited Israel to try and strong-arm the Jewish state into making poor decisions about her security. This was followed by the other side of Obama's plan beginning to fall apart: Saudi Arabia on Friday sharply rejected American calls for gestures toward Israel, a central component of US efforts to pave the way for peace talks. "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach has not and - we believe - will not achieve peace. Temporary security, confidence-building...

DOKAN, Iraq – Iraq's prime minister headed north Sunday to the self-ruled Kurdish region to defuse rising tensions and address a range of disputes that have poisoned relations and threatened to become a new source of the conflict for the battered country as U.S. forces increasingly disengage. The meeting came as six died in bombs in Baghdad and western Iraq. U.S. officials have warned that Arab-Kurdish tensions could jeopardize security gains, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered U.S. help to mediate during his visit last month to Iraq in which he traveled to Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Irbil....

Israel Prepared to Take on Iran Israel this week reiterated its stance on dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak stating, "We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it." Barak's comments came as U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor James Jones, traveled to Israel to discuss Iran. The Obama administration, for its part, continued to hold out for diplomacy, with Gates commenting, "The timetable the president laid out [for negotiating] still seems to be viable and does not significantly...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saudi Arabia on Friday bluntly rejected U.S. appeals for improved relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks, saying the Jewish state is not interested in a deal. After talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his country will not consider steps suggested by U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell until Israel accepts Arab demands to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories. "Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach, has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace," Saud said as Clinton looked on at...

TEHRAN, July 30 (UPI) -- Iran has deployed a flotilla of warships and support vessels into the Gulf of Aden, the second in recent weeks, and says it also plans to establish a new naval base in the Gulf of Oman, at the southern end of the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz. This expanding naval activity by the Iranians may be intended to counter a recent increase in Israeli naval deployments. It also takes place against a backdrop of widening political turmoil in Tehran following the disputed re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12 that has caused international unease...

It’s a good thing we’re not having any kind of recession or financial crisis or massive deficit or anything like that here in the US, so we can afford to send $200 million in aid to Palestinians.

President Obama's strategy for achieving Middle East peace has "two major components.The first was to force Israel into a "minor" concession to show that he would pressure the Jewish state. Unfortunately for the President, what he thought was a "minor" concession was a major concession to Israel. The second component was to convince the Arab states particularly the Saudis to take public steps toward normalizing relations with Israel. To the President, getting the Saudis involved is important because the Hamas-Fatah split has weakened Abbas to the point that he does not have the power to deliver on any agreement that...

U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia are always something of a proverbial black box. And President Barack Obama's meeting with Saudi King Abdullah last month was no exception. A late add-on to Obama's planned June itinerary to Egypt, Germany, and France and conducted at King Abdullah's horse ranch outside of Riyadh, the June 3 meeting was quickly overtaken by coverage of Obama's high-profile June 4 speech to the Muslim world from Cairo. But two sources, one a former U.S. official who recently traveled there and one a current official speaking anonymously, say the meeting did not go well from Obama's perspective....

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian news agencies quote the country's nuclear agency chief as saying a Russian-built nuclear power reactor in Iran is still set to be switched on this year.

It is impossible to imagine the opposite scenario: The administration would never demand that Israel prevent Arabs from moving into a Jewish neighborhood. And the Obama Justice Department would unleash seven kinds of hell on anyone who tried to impose racial, ethnic, or religious redlining in an American city. In the 21st century, segregation is unthinkable — except, it seems, when it comes to housing Jews in Jerusalem.

It's the nightmare that haunts the modern Middle East --Iran succeeds in its quest for nuclear weapons and goes to war with Israel, causing massive human casualties and destruction on a demonic scale that in turn could trigger a worldwide economic collapse. Now, researchers at Washington's Center for Strategic & International Studies have tried to assess the extent to which civilian targets will be damaged in any Iran-Israel nuclear exchange.

Obama met (last Monday) for the first time with leaders of selected community Jewish organizations and leaks from the meeting now make one thing very clear. The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel. This was the first meeting with Jewish leaders. Earlier requests had reportedly been ignored. Six months after taking office the president finally issued an invitation to stop the bleeding. WAKE UP! The meeting, however, did not showcase the...

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the US continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and now a freeze on Jerusalem) every element of Obama's Middle East plan is falling apart. Syria and Iran aren't looking for engagement. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other US friends of Israel. The Arab League nations answered no to the Presidents request for a peace gesture and the President of the Palestinian Authority uses Obama's...

Observation: Is There A Pro Israel Mole In White House Or The Radical American Jewish Groups? Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 19 July 2009 There are two possible explanations for the gift the Obama team gave to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when, by specifically raising their objection to Jewish ownership of a building in the heart of Jerusalem, they succeeded in rallying all but the radical Israeli politicians to support Netanyahu's stance. That's including the support of the opposition Kadima Party: Explanation number one: The team in the White House, along with the representatives of American Jewish radical groups such as...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie said on Friday that Israel had planned to assassinate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad around the time of last month's presidential election.

A deal taking shape between Israel and Western leaders will facilitate international support for an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in exchange for concessions in peace negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, The Times reported Thursday. According to one British official quoted by the paper, such an understanding could allow an Israeli attack "within the year."

Islam began in the 7th century AD. in what is today Saudi Arabia. During the nearly 1400 years since that time, Islamic campaigns of military conquest, occupation, and colonization of the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia occurred. This is principaly how Islam was spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans: Imperialistic campaigns of military conquest. Occupation and colonization of conquered territory and countries. The subjigation of people under Islamic "occupation": In Nazi occupied Europe in World War II, Jews were forcibly made to distinguish themselves from the rest of the population with a cloth patch...

Sources say White House cadre bypassing agencies, jeopardizing security JERUSALEM – A small group of officials working mostly from the White House are tightly controlling U.S. foreign policy, bypassing other government agencies and making decisions without employing the expertise of those agencies, according to diplomatic sources speaking to WND. The sources said some of the decisions may be jeopardizing U.S. security. A senior Middle East diplomatic source said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently apologized to a Mideast leader, explaining to him U.S. policy regarding his country is being dictated by the White House and not her agency. The diplomatic...

Two Israeli navy ships made a rare crossing of Egypt's Suez Canal Tuesday, headed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea in the latest of "unusual" navy drills spotted in Suez over the past month, a port source told AFP. One of the ships, the Hanit, already crossed the canal both ways in June, in what the source said was the first case of a large Israeli warship using the strategic waterway, although this was not possible to confirm officially.

* When an armed force holds territory beyond its own national borders, the term “occupation” readily comes to mind. However, not all the factual situations that we commonly think of as “occupation” fall within the limited scope of the term “occupation” as defined in international law. Not every situation we refer to as “occupation” is subject to the international legal regime that regulates occupation and imposes obligations upon the occupier. * The term “occupation” is often employed politically, without regard for its general or legal meaning. The use of the term “occupation” in political rhetoric reduces complex situations of competing...

President Obama is facing a major crisis in the Middle East, a crisis of his own doing. Every element of his Middle East plan has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Obama's overall philosophy has been the only way to bring peace to the area (and win the War on Islamic Facsimile) is to have all of the complicated solutions to all the complicated issues worked out all at once. To that end he tried to * Outreach to the government of Iran * Outreach to the government of Syria * Force Israel into what he perceives is a minor...

U.S. President Barack Obama stated that the United States and Syria began diplomatic contacts between them. However, he emphasized that he expects a long way ahead for the two countries. In an interview on the British Sky News TV channel to be broadcast Sunday, Obama didn’t explicitly state whether he would accept an invitation from Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. When asked whether he would accept Assad’s invitation for face-to-face negotiations, Obama said, “Well, you know I think that we've started to see some diplomatic contacts between the United States and Syria. There are aspects of Syrian behavior that trouble us...

The United States and its European allies have tried for years to negotiate with Iran in an effort to resolve questions concerning Tehran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. Thus far, those efforts have yielded no progress, and it appears that the patience of some key players is quickly wearing thin. Shortly after his inauguration, President Barack Obama stated that he wanted to see significant progress in diplomatically solving the Iranian nuclear issue by the end of his first year in office. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed that statement up with one of his own, offering Iran a similar timeline...

Egyptian authorities said they arrested 25 radical Islamic terrorists who were planning a terror attack at the Suez Canal. The chief of the crew is a member of Al-Qaida, security officials said, while the rest were Egyptian citizens. Most were technicians and engineers. Authorities say the group was planning to remotely set off explosives on ships plying the canal, using cell phones. They were also planning to damage or destroy oil pipelines running beneath the canal. The group had undergone intensive training in terrorist tactics and fighting, including learning how to build car bombs.

Quick, name the two largest recipients of American foreign aid. If you guessed Israel and Egypt, you'd be correct. Since 1997, the US has provided between $2 billion and $3 billion dollars annually to Israel and between $1b. and $2b. to Egypt, accounting for about a third of its total foreign aid budget.

Police arrested a man early Saturday who had a bomb in a backpack that he may have been preparing to use at a school in the area, officials said. The man, identified as Jason A. Babson, 29, of 13 School St., Hudson Falls, was found with an explosive device just before 3 a.m. Saturday, said Hudson Falls Police Chief Randy Diamond. The FBI was notified of the incident and is conducting its own investigation into the matter. Hudson Falls Police Detective Scott Gillis said residents of the area where Babson was walking believed he made a comment about using a...

The New York Times has this report. An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment. A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition...

President Obama wrapped up his interview with the Catholic press with a question on the Middle East and how his administration plans to address the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. “We have been very clear that we think settlements should stop ...,� said the president. “On the other hand, it’s not just the problem of Israeli settlements. The Palestinians have a set of obligations, some of which the Palestinian Authority have met, some of which they have not been as strong on. We want to encourage them to clamp down on violence, to end the incitement that you still hear, unfortunately, in...

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak tried to convince special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell Tuesday that construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria isn’t an obstacle to the peace process. Barak's view is that the focus on building homes is short-sighted and that it will lead the peace process to a dead end instead of helping to create a wide-ranging regional peace plan. "In 2000, I was the Israeli Prime Minister that made the boldest steps to attain peace, and that year saw the largest number of Israeli construction-starts" in Judea and Samaria, he told Mitchell at their...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The Israeli navy took control of a boat that violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, while a Gaza group said the ship was carrying humanitarian aid, a former U.S. congresswoman and a Nobel laureate. The boat's crew included former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, according to the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the boat it calls "Spirit of Humanity" from Cyprus. Along with McKinney, who served six terms in the House of Representatives from Georgia and was the Green Party's presidential nominee in 2008, Israeli...

Documents released by Nixon Library show US tried to pressure Israel to sign Nonproliferation Treaty. 'If Israel elects to go the nuclear route it would cause a fundamental change in the US-Israeli relationship,' says unsigned memo, including 'our long-standing concern for Israel's security' Associated Press Published: 06.25.09, 22:23 / Israel News Inside the Nixon administration four decades ago, American officials weighed options to pressure Israel to declare that it had a nuclear weapons program. US officials concluded Israel was "actively working to improve its capability to produce nuclear weapons on short notice." In an unsigned National Security Council memo, prepared...

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members. Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men. .....

If the president doesn't want to meddle in Iran, and make himself the story, then, given his behavior over the last couple days, I'd hate to see what he'd do if he were trying to meddle. It started a couple days ago when he cancelled invitations by U.S. embassies to their counterparts in Iran for Fourth of July celebrations.

Daniel J. FlynnThe Fire Last Time Those looking hopefully to the Iran uprising should remember the harsh lessons of 1979. 24 June 2009 The bloody scenes in Tehran, with at least 19 protestors killed so far in clashes with government forces, may seem like a repeat in miniature of the violence there more than 30 years ago. The glaring difference is that the protestors who toppled a corrupt, oppressive regime in 1979 have become the corrupt, oppressive regime in 2009. With the 1979 Iranian revolution so close in the rearview mirror, the mistakes of Western observers then bear remembering...

CAIRO, June 24 (Reuters) - The Arab League said on Wednesday it saw a "window of hope" for Middle East peace and Arab states would respond positively to U.S. President Barack Obama's vision for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. But the league likened negotiating with Israel while settlements were continuing to expand as tantamount to surrendering on "matters over which we cannot surrender". "We see an open window in what the American president has said ... Now there is a window of hope that was not present for at least the previous eight years," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told...

Whatever else former president George W. Bush got wrong, he was right about this at least: "The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder." (Speech to American Enterprise Institute, February 2003.) That is, foster liberty in the world’s most oppressive countries and watch the axis of evil bend, then break. Look at Iran today. True, the burden of proof is on anybody who wants to attribute a passion for liberty to Tehran’s crowds. At one point, more than a million people were thought to...

Cinema Comes To Riyadh for First Time in Decades By DONNA ABU-NASR | Associated Press | For the first time in three decades, Saudis in the nation's capital did something that most Westerners take for granted _ they went to the movies. But it wasn't exactly date night. No women were allowed.

Some Taliban fighters have been able to ward off attacks by U.S. aircraft by wearing special infrared patches on their shirts that signal that they are friends rather than foes. The patches, which can also help suicide bombers get close to U.S. targets, are supposed to be the property of the U.S. government alone, but can be easily purchased over the Internet for about $10 each. Also available online: night-vision goggles and military-grade communications systems like the ones used by the terrorists who attacked the Indian city of Mumbai last year. While stealing uniforms is as old as warfare itself,...

A large assembly was held this evening, Sunday 21/6, at the Kotel to pray for the preservation of Israel's territorial integrity. I don't know if it got on the MSM or any media at all, but I was there until we had to take the young-uns home, and left during the impassioned speech of a Sephardic rabbi. Just thought people might want to know.

Palestinian Hamas members are helping the Iranian authorities crush street protests in support of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, two protesters told The Jerusalem Post On Tuesday. They made their allegations as rioting on a scale unseen in Iran for nearly a decade continued in the wake of the elections and the allegations that the results were falsified. The protests have now spread from Teheran to other major cities. Mousavi insisted on Tuesday that he would "protect" his supporters' votes "at all cost, even if I am at risk." Shouting from a car roof to a roaring crowd of...

First, here is an update of the latest in Iran. The Grand Ayatollah Khomenia certified the election results and warned any further protesters that they would face serious repercussions if the continue to protest. Iran's supreme leader said Friday that the country's disputed presidential vote had not been rigged, sternly warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue massive demonstrations demanding a new election. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sided with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and offered no concessions to the opposition. He effectively closed any chance for a new vote by calling the June 12 election an "absolute victory."