Free Republic

The United States on Tuesday rejected Israel’s expressions of disappointment over its statements that Washington was planning to cooperate with the new Palestinian Authority (PA) unity government. Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, in fact, that the new government does not include any members of the Hamas terrorist group. “It is not a government backed by Hamas. There are no members of Hamas in the government,” Harf told reporters. She added that the new unity government is a transitional one that is made up of individuals who are not politically associated with any party. “Hamas is a designated terror...

Lawmakers in the United States on Monday called on the Obama administration to suspend financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of the formation of the new unity government between Hamas and Fatah. The calls came as the State Department stated that the U.S. would work with the new unity government. According to The Hill, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas “argues that the new government is composed of ministers without political affiliation, but this new government appears dependent upon Hamas and Hamas continues to support terrorism in its quest to...

Z Street representative Lori Lowenthal Marcus spoke out in March 2013 about the harassment the pro-Israel group received from the Obama IRS: “They told us terrorism happens in Israel. Therefore, they had to look into our organization because they thought we might be funding terrorism. We’re a purely educational entity. We didn’t fund anybody. We barely funded ourselves.” Remember: This is the same administration that wouldn’t call the Benghazi massacre a terrorist attack but accused a pro-Israel group of supporting terror.

Israel, Iran mafia flood Saudi market with fakes Substandard and fake products worth billions of dollars are being dumped in the Kingdom by mafias in Israel and Iran, said Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil, president of the Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC). Al-Zamil urged the cooperation of Saudis and expats to prevent such products from entering the market. “You can see such products everywhere and most of these products come from Israel and Iran with the support of mafias,” Al-Zamil told Arab News. He urged expats to be cautious of such products. “Ignorant consumers purchase these products, only to bin them after...

F.W. de Klerk, who served as the last President of apartheid-era South Africa, said on Wednesday that it was unfair to say that Israel is an apartheid state. De Klerk, who is visiting Israel where he received an honorary doctorate from Haifa University, gave an interview to Channel 2 News, in which he was asked about comments recently attributed to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, that Israel would become “an apartheid state” if talks failed. “There are many definitions of apartheid. I do not know what Mr. Kerry meant, but one should be careful about making comparisons,” said de...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman were right when they blamed the noxious anti-Israel incitement rampant in Europe for Saturday's murderous shooting attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels >>SNIP<< Pope Benedict XVI was perceived as a friend of Israel, despite his childhood membership in the Hitler Youth. His opposition to Islam's rejection of reason, eloquently expressed at his speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006, positioned him as a religious champion of reason, individual responsibility and law — Judaism's primary contributions to humanity. His predecessor Pope John Paul II was less willing to confront Islamic...

Pope Francis delivered a powerful boost of support to the Palestinians during a Holy Land pilgrimage Sunday, repeatedly backing their statehood aspirations, praying solemnly at Israel’s controversial separation barrier and calling the stalemate in peace efforts “unacceptable.” Palestinian officials hailed Francis’ decision to refer to the “state of Palestine.” In its official program, the Vatican referred to President Mahmoud Abbas as the president of the “state of Palestine,” and his Bethlehem office as the “presidential palace.” He pointedly called Abbas a “man of peace.” ... “Coming to Bethlehem and flying to Bethlehem from Jordan shows solidarity with the Palestinian people,...

America has no business dictating terms on issues of vital national security to Israel, US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said in the Knesset Monday. He placed the blame on the Palestinians for the recent failure of peace talks, saying “the principal impediment to peace is that, to date, the Palestinians have refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and have refused to renounce terror. “Unless and until the Palestinians can agree on those very basic starting blocks, no lasting peace solution is likely,” he stated. Cruz...

We can argue all day about the Jews’ historical, Biblical, and legal right to be in he Land of Israel. We can argue over the moral propriety of Zionism, the belief that Jews have a connection and right to return to the Land. We can argue over the Israeli government’s policies regarding housing and building in areas called the “west bank”. I’m actually tired of arguing those points. Israel is tired of arguing them too.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to modify history by modifying classical art, in an exhibit it commissioned to show Pope Francis during his visit to Bethlehem next Sunday, which presents Jesus as a “suffering Palestinian.” The Palestinian Museum arranged exhibit features an array of collages mixing classical paintings of Christian art with photographs of what are to be taken as “oppressed” Palestinians. […] One work on the display is a modification of Raphael’s “The Deposition” (1507), which depicts the dead Jesus being brought to his tomb. The PA version weaves in a wounded Arab man being carried away as an...

Palestinian Arab activists and radical leftists have uploaded an edited video that claims to show security camera footage of the IDF shooting two Arab youths, in an incident that took place last Thursday, on “Nakba Day.” The youths hurled rocks at IDF soldiers at the Bitunia checkpoint, not far from Beit El. The footage appears to show them dropping to the ground as they walked away from the IDF position. The IDF said that the video is heavily edited in order to give a false picture of what really took place. “On Thursday, a violent and illegal disturbance took place...

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs defends Israel's investigative processes The head of a Canadian Jewish advocacy group is slamming the United Nations over its "knee-jerk" reaction to a video that human rights groups claim shows two unarmed Palestinian teenagers being shot by Israeli soldiers. "Frankly, Israel really doesn't need to take instructions from the UN about the proper followup to incidents involving fatalities," Shimon Fogel, head of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told CBC News. "There's a long established process by which every such incident is thoroughly investigated by an arm's length body within the national policing...

Palestinian Authority (PA) and Arab Christian sources are already celebrating Pope Francis’ visit to Israel starting next Sunday, saying his choice to begin the trip directly in PA-held Bethlehem is meant to “recognize Palestine” and “oppose the occupation.” “He is taking a helicopter directly from Jordan to Palestine—to Bethlehem. It’s a kind of sign of recognizing Palestine,” Father Jamal Khader of the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem told AFP. The claims that his trip will begin in a “recognition of Palestine” comes amid reports from February by Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a member of the Argentinian parliament and close friend of Pope...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday by addressing disturbing statistics from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which published a survey last week proving that over 25% of the world’s population holds anti-Semitic views. “This is the result of the Palestinian Authority’s endless incitement against Israel and attempts to distort Israel’s image and the character of the Jewish people, as we know from past experience,” Netanyahu said. […] Such incitement ranges from the glorification of Nazism and the lionization of Adolf Hitler, to programs on official PA television featuring heavily-stereotyped Jews as villains (and encouraging violence against them),...

A unique “Peace Run” initiated by an Australian extreme athlete to promote coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Judea and Samaria was dealt a severe blow Sunday after the Palestinian Authority objected to the presence of Jewish runners. A group of six Israelis were asked to refrain from participating in Australian ultra marathon runner Pat Farmer’s Peace Run, as it passed the Jewish communities of Eli and Shiloh in Samaria, north of Jerusalem. The group—which was organized by the Yesha Council in conjunction with Regavim—had coordinated with Farmer’s team ahead of time to ensure that Jews and Palestinians could run...

Martin Indyk, the American negotiator in the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), reportedly went on a “nasty” rant blaming the Jewish state for the talks” failure in a conversation in an upscale Washington DC bar last Thursday. A person who overheard the conversation told Washington Free Beacon that the 30-minute-long tirade included Indyk, his wife Gahl Burt, and several members of his staff. It took place right after he spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where he openly blamed Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria for the failure of the talks, despite...

Palestinians marched in the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday to commemorate their displacement in the 1948 Mideast war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel. Sirens wailed at noon in Ramallah and elsewhere across the West Bank for 66 seconds to symbolize the number of years since the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe” in Arabic—the term Palestinians use to describe their defeat and displacement in the war. Israel overcame the armies of surrounding Arab states as well as local Arabs who attacked after the Jewish state was declared on May 15, 1948. […] “It is time for the leaders...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Israel at Peace, Palestinians at WarPosted By Gideon Israel On May 5, 2014 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments The recent breakdown in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and its apparent implications distorts the day to day reality in Israel.  Furthermore, the comments made by John Kerry paint a bleak picture of a country on the verge of becoming a pariah in the international community, or at the least indicate that it would be fair for Israel to be treated that way. While many are predisposed regarding the prospects of the peace process and who is at...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Friday became a formal party to five global treaties banning torture and racial discrimination, and protecting the rights of women, children and the disabled, the UN said, according to AFP. Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters that the move followed the PA’s April 2 declaration to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that they were adopting the treaties. In addition, the PA will on May 7 become party to an accord protecting children in conflict zones—which is an optional part of the overall child rights treaty—and on July 2 it will...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Rashid Khalidi’s False Narrative of Israeli HistoryPosted By Andrew Harrod On May 1, 2014 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Palestinian-American Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi addressed America’s role in the Arab-Israeli peace process on April 17, 2014, at Washington, DC’s Jerusalem Fund, a pro-Palestinian think tank.  Describing Israel’s “entirely false narrative” into which “we have all been brainwashed,” Khalidi revealed his own myopia before an audience of about forty mostly likeminded, middle-aged people.John Halaka’s “Portraits of Denial and Despair” photo exhibit currently displayed in Jerusalem Fund hallways set a worrying...