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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed converting the fabled Hagia Sophia into a mosque on Sunday. The Greek government responded with anger on Monday, pointing out that the Hagia Sophia was the seat of Greek Orthodox Christianity for centuries and has been designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. Erdogan said during a television interview on Sunday that the Hagia Sophia might be “reverted” into a mosque, referring to the structure’s status as a mosque following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 A.D. The Hagia Sophia was constructed as a relatively modest Greek Orthodox church in 360,...

Jerusalem (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel and Russia are to form a joint team to examine the withdrawal of foreign forces from Syria. Israel is seeking the removal of Iranian forces and has vowed to keep its main enemy from entrenching itself militarily in the neighbouring country. Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Moscow to discuss Iran's presence in Syria. "I made it unequivocally clear that Israel will not allow the military entrenchment of Iran in Syria, and I also made it unequivocally clear that we would continue to take military action...

The media and political elites who pose as defenders of the poor beleaguered Palestinians don't care about them at all.  They are merely pawns in an effort to rid the world of Jews, starting with the half of world Jewry living in the historic homeland of Jews, Israel.  This has been proven beyond a doubt by the reaction – really a lack of any reaction – to Syria's bombing of a large Palestinian settlement, in the course of that nation's civil war and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims, who stand in the way of Iran's effort to establish a Shia...

The Trump administration will launch an effort to decriminalize homosexuality in countries where it is still illegal, as part of a diplomatic push for LGBTQ rights — and an effort to isolate Iran, which persecutes homosexuals. NBC News reported Tuesday that the effort is to be led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a staunch Trump supporter who is among the highest-ranking openly gay officials ever to serve in the U.S. government. Grenell is currently among the front-runners to succeed Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump...

President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he intended to nominate Kelly Knight-Craft, the current U.S. envoy to Canada and a former businesswoman, to the vacant post of United Nations ambassador. Posting on Twitter, the president said that Craft would do "an outstanding job representing our nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level." If confirmed, Craft, a GOP donor and a Kentucky native, will fill the post vacated by former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. Craft became a front-runner for the position based on a recommendation by Senate...

Jew hater “Jihad” Jenny Tonge has posted the following on Facebook: It links to this article on Middle East Monitor. Let’s first start with the image. It shows Jewish Holocaust victims, not palestinians. What makes the inclusion of this fake image here even more duplicitous is the fact it is not the image Facebook automatically includes when you post this story: In other words, it looks like Tonge deliberately replaced the automatically chosen image with this fake one. But now to the story itself. Israeli Jewish journalist Asaf Shalev, who lives in California, has said that Israel had been hiding...

Former U.S. Senate candidate John James is seen as one of President Trump's top candidates to become ambassador to the United Nations, a source familiar with discussions about the matter told Fox News on Tuesday. The source said James is the leading candidate and has expressed interest in the position to the White House. The belief among Trump's inner circle is that James is a rising political superstar, and the U.N. post could provide him with a pathway into elected office. White House officials also confirmed to Fox News that James is under consideration.

The White House has narrowed down its search for the next United Nations ambassador to four names, according to Bloomberg. Potential nominees include Dina Powell, a partner at Goldman Sachs; Kelly Craft and Richard Grenell, the current ambassadors to Canada and Germany, respectively; and John James, a former GOP Senate candidate from Michigan, sources told the news service. The new list of candidates come after State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her nomination for the post over the weekend. Nauert, who was reportedly favored by President Trump, was to replace former Ambassador Nikki Haley in the job. Her decision to...

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her name from consideration for the U.N. ambassador nomination, the department said Saturday. “I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary Pompeo for the trust... Developing story

The Venezuelan people would have appreciated such moral support The United Nations Security Council met on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Venezuela, after overcoming a procedural vote demanded by Russia. The Putin regime claimed that the economic, political and humanitarian crisis wrought by the catastrophic actions of the Maduro regime was not a proper agenda item for the Security Council to consider. The Security Council, by a procedural vote of 9 in favor (Belgium, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Kuwait, Peru, Poland, United Kingdom, United States) to 4 against (China, Equatorial Guinea, Russian Federation, South Africa), with 2 abstentions (Côte...

Anti-Semites are violating federal law by boycotting Israel and Israeli companies and institutions. Activists in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, one of the highest-profile global projects of the left, are subject to criminal and financial penalties, including jail time of five years and fines up to $50,000. A U.S. exporter can lose the right to export any products to any country. So why isn’t the U.S. Department of Justice enforcing the anti-boycott laws? President Donald Trump should order the Office of Antiboycott Compliance to come out of cryogenic stasis and get back to work, and order DOJ to...

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...

The United States and Israel officially quit the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency at the stroke of midnight, the culmination of a process triggered more than a year ago amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias. The withdrawal is mainly procedural yet serves a new blow to UNESCO, co-founded by the U.S. after World War II to foster peace. The Trump administration filed its notice to withdraw in October 2017 and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed suit. The Paris-based organization has been denounced by its critics as a crucible for anti-Israel bias: blasted for criticizing Israel’s occupation...

On its face, Trump’s announcement that he is pulling US forces out of Syria seems like an unfriendly act toward Israel. But it isn’t. On its face, President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is pulling US forces out of Syria seems like an unfriendly act towards Israel. But it isn’t. Trump’s decision to pull US forces out of Syria is of a piece with outgoing US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley’s address on Tuesday to the UN Security Council regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Both statements reflect the depths of the administration’s friendship and support for the State...

MOSCOW, Russia - The Russian Orthodox church on Friday called on Pope Francis, the United Nations, the leaders of Germany and France, and other spiritual leaders to protect believers in Ukraine in the face of pressure on Moscow-affiliated clerics. Ukraine’s Orthodox clerics will gather for a meeting Saturday that is expected to form a new, independent Ukrainian church, and Ukrainian authorities have ramped up pressure on priests to support the move. The Ukrainian church has been part of the Russian church for centuries, while enjoying broad autonomy, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has pushed for the creation of an independent...

It is safe to say that there are now two main fronts in what we need to term the Islamist War Against the West. The first has been for many years now the Western liberal democracy of Israel surrounded by genocidal neighbors; the second is France, followed closely by other European countries, Australia, and America. During the week of December 11th, 2018, two sad things happened and this essay shall attempt to enlighten by placing them together. The first is the recent terrorist attack in Strasbourg France, and the second is the signing by most of the world (with the...

Katowice, Poland (CNN)The American delegation came to promote coal. And the kids laughed in their faces. That was the bizarre and symbolic scene that unfolded Monday at the UN COP24 climate talks at a spaceship-shaped conference center in Polish coal country. The nations of the world are meeting here to hash out a "rulebook" to help ensure the viability of humanity -- preventing runaway global warming from causing even greater calamity in the form of superstorms, searing droughts and deadly heat waves. That work, which follows up on the 2015 Paris Agreement, is seen as more critical now than ever....

An arrogant politician expressing contempt for Donald Trump and his supporters experienced a surprising and humiliating defeat in late 2016 in our presidential election. A corresponding scenario seems to be playing itself out again in Paris. A year and a half ago, in the wake of President Trump leaving the Paris Climate accord, France’s President Emmanuel Macron asked for a fight on climate change, in an address delivered in English, making it clear that his target was Donald Trump and the American electorate. As Andrew Bolt, writing for the Herald-Sun in Australia noted, he asked for a fight and “He...

[CUT - On Bill Barr:] "Well, I can't comment on whether I support [Barr] or not yet. I haven't even begun to review his qualifications or his record in the past," Rubio said Sunday. "I know he's been through the Senate process before. I'm going to watch the Judiciary process very closely. At the appropriate time I'll meet with the nominee and get my own take on it, and then I'll have a decision to make. I generally do not support nominees, for the most part, unless I know them personally [CUT - On Heather Nauert:] “Does she have detailed...

Slovakia will open a cultural embassy in Jerusalem for now. But that appears to be a prelude to a larger move. “Slovakia is on its way to relocating its embassy to Jerusalem,” Head of the Slovak National Council Andrej Danko told Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the visiting delegation of Slovak lawmakers announced the Eastern European country would open a cultural center in the Israeli capital. The move, when it materializes, would mark a break from European Union policy on Jerusalem. Slovakia would join the Czech Republic and Bulgaria as the other European Union member states to...