Free Republic

A group of 51 Muslim states has blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting at the United Nations next month on ending Aids, sparking a protest by the US, Canada and the EU. Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member general assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to object to the participation of the 11 groups. It did not give a reason in the letter, which Reuters has seen. Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, wrote to the general assembly president, Mogens Lykketoft, and said the groups appeared to have been...

Secretary of State John Kerry continues to assert, misleadingly, that the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement will immediately usher in peaceful relations between the Jewish state and the world’s Islamic nations. He has made the statement several times in public since launching the drive last July for a “final status” Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Citing the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), he says, if Israelis and Palestinians agree to a negotiated settlement then all 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will normalize ties with Israel. He has said moreover that this would happen “instantaneously”—“the minute” that an Israeli-Palestinian...