Free Republic

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “the Arab countries will be ready to give security guarantees to Israel,” if Israel leaves the territories we liberated in 1967 (which includes the Kotel, of course), according to a report in Sputnik News. Coming from Jordan, the country on the verge of collapse and takeover by ISIS, that’s just a barrel of laughs. ..... Safadi added: “We consider the settlement of the Palestinian problem as a core of tensions in our region. That is why we definitely plan to create additional conditions for security and stability in our region and in the whole...

Western media is reporting on the Muslim refugee crisis as a humanitarian problem that the West must deal with. But where are the media’s questions about the huge financial and land resources available to oil rich Arab and Muslim countries? Where are the Islamic solutions in this equation? The world is often lectured to about the urgency of respecting Arab and Islamic brotherly love, but where is the Arab action to rescue fellow Muslims and Arabs from the claws of ISIS? Where are Arab feminists, especially those who demonstrated against France for banning the hijab? They are silent and doing...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Monday called for an anti-terror alliance with Arab countries to boost cooperation and information-sharing in the wake of deadly attacks and arrests across Europe. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday that "we need an alliance. We need to strengthen our way of cooperating together."...

" only the large scale here is exceptional. This is the traditional celebratory gunfire at a wedding celebration. Note that the arms being fired are fully-automatic sub-machine guns. And you thought the United States had a "gun culture!" We're pikers compared to most of the Middle East...."

James Zogby, the anti-Israel pollster who released these findings today, blames the drop in support for Obama in the Arab world on Obama’s failure to put the amount of pressure on Israel the Arab world wanted and expected. But according to the poll, the Arab world doesn’t seem to be happy with any of America’s foreign policy positions. Respondents rated Obama’s policies as the least popular, when compared with other leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Killing Osama bin Laden also contributed to the Arab world’s negative views of Obama. In all six countries surveyed – Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan,...

Arab intellectual of Palestinian origin George Kattan discusses the discrimination against Christians in the Arab countries today, describing their deteriorating status and diminishing numbers in comparison with previous eras in the region's history. He warns that the Christian population of the region may vanish as Christians emigrate to the West rather than tolerate the backwardness and tyranny of their home countries. Further, he calls upon the Christian communities to stay put and fight for democracy and human rights in their own countries.(1) The following are excerpts from the article: The Spread of the Islamic Movement and Extremist Salafi Views Led...

......Asharq Al Awsat, widely read by Arabs in and out side the region, subtly endorsed the re-election of Bush, leading with a picture of Bush and the first lady waving under the headline, "The world prepares itself for 4 more years with Bush." An article by Mamoun Fandy titled "Bush's victory ... is a new American message" observed, "The American voter didn't give any weight to criticism from Europe, especially from France and Britain, which saw that George Bush as the worst President of the United States ... the Americans with a resounding majority said 'No' very clearly to the...

A measure of Islamic fundamentalists’ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death. Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there...

If a schoolyard bully were menacing the other kids on the playground with a weapon, most people would have a serious problem with that. If a bigger kid called the bully to task and threatened to take pre-emptive action if the thug didn't give up the weapon and his menacing ways, most would respect that, even though the threat of escalating violence on the playground would alarm us and send us in search of a more diplomatic, peaceful resolution. What would be passing strange, however, would be for the other kids to harangue the kid trying to stop the bully,...

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Lynn Neary. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. In Arab countries, there are vast human resources and higher expenditure on education than elsewhere in the developing world. Life expectancy is generally high, adult illiteracy has declined and dire poverty--life on less than a dollar a day--is more rare there than just about anywhere else. But freedom, women's rights and participation in the modern communications and computer revolution are in short supply. These are all findings of a United Nations Development Program report released today in Cairo. Unlike many other pronouncements...