Free Republic

Middle East peace hopes were dealt a blow on Thursday when Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian leader, announced he would stand down within weeks. He expressed frustration over shifts in the White House's policy on Israeli settlement construction as he told colleagues he was not prepared to seek a second term in elections in January. The loss of one of the Palestinian hierarchy's most conciliatory voices left President Barack Obama's Middle East peacekeeping efforts floundering and raised questions about his handling of negotiations in the region. Critics say the US president has fatally undermined Mr Abbas by conceding political ground...

(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has sent multiple messages to United States President Barack Obama threatening to quit, Channel 10 news reported Monday night. Abbas blamed Israel and the U.S. for pushing him to desperation, saying negotiations with Israel were at a stand-still and Obama had “abandoned” him. Abbas also mentioned the serious hit to his popularity caused by the delay of a United Nations vote on the Goldstone Report. The report accused Israel of war crimes in connection with the three-week Cast Lead counterterror offensive in Gaza. Obama responded to the threats by calling Abbas and calming him,...

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2009 – An Iraqi police special weapons and tactics team from Nasiriyah and U.S. advisors arrested two suspects, including a violent extremist leader, during an operation conducted in Fadhiliyah, Iraq, yesterday. The extremist leader, Walid Abbass, is linked to several acts of violence committed in Dhi Qar province, including several assassination attempts on local officials and a rocket attack that struck a mosque tower in Ur last month. In other recent operations in Iraq: -- An Iraqi SWAT team accompanied by coalition forces advisors killed a suspected former leader of a criminal network during an operation in...

Achille Lauro What happened during the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985? AP Photo Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, 1985 On October 7, 1985 four heavily armed terrorists representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, with some 100 mostly elderly passengers on board, in Egyptian waters. The hijackers demanded that Israel free 50 Palestinian prisoners, and to prove their determination, they shot and killed a disabled American tourist, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body overboard with his wheelchair. After a two-day drama, the Egyptian government, unaware that Klinghoffer...

WASHINGTON — The war to determine if there will be a Palestinian state has begun. On one side is the quadriad of terror: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Arafat's "martyrs" brigade. Their goal is to defeat Israel and drive the Jews out of the Middle East. On the other side is the Palestinian Authority, largely made up of Arabs who want a state of their own on all of the West Bank and Gaza, engaged in peaceful trade with Israel. For a decade, these two sides tried to present themselves as one, with Yasir Arafat constantly straddling: condemning violence to...