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WASHINGTON–The Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday called a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz on Iranian and Palestinian terrorism “biased and inflammatory.”Cruz shrugged off the attack.“It is not surprising a terrorist organization like the PLO is upset with the truths that were told at our hearing yesterday,” he said....In an unusually blunt statement from its diplomatic mission in Washington, the PLO complained that Cruz’s hearing lacked any Palestinian viewpoints, and asserted that it painted all Palestinians as terrorists while failing to acknowledge “recent acts of Israeli incitement.”“The growing and alarming trend in the United States to dehumanize Palestinians must...

Whatever he says before the cameras next week when he meets with Netanyahu, Obama has no intention of letting bygones be bygones. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama next week is likely to look less like a rapprochement than a showdown at the OK Corral. The flurry of spy stories spinning around in recent weeks makes clear that US-Israel relations remain in crisis. Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published a fairly detailed account of the US’s massive spying operations against Israel between 2010 and 2012. Their purpose was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s...

Earlier today the Obama White House attempted to downplay any links to ISIS in relation to the recent Russian airline disaster that took place shortly after Metrojet Flight 9268 took off from Egypt last week on its way back to Russia, killing everyone on board. For days British officials have quietly suggested foul play while U.S. officials were noticeably tight-lipped. Now some within American intelligence are voicing very similar thoughts to their British counterparts, despite the Obama White House’s apparent desire that no official statement on the matter be made. As for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, he is said to be...

Egypt's pumping of salt water from the nearby Mediterranean into the tunnels is not only creating a mess as it rises to the surface. Palestinian officials say it is also contaminating water supplies as well as threatening to wreck farmland and spread disease. Local residents say that at the peak of the tunnel business, after Hamas Islamists seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 and Israel tightened a closure of its crossings into the enclave, nearly 2,500 underground passages snaked under the border with Egypt. The direction of traffic was mainly into Gaza. Commercial goods - and weapons smuggled in separate...

Days after authorities dismissed claims that ISIS brought down a Russian passenger jet, a U.S. intelligence analysis now suggests that the terror group or its affiliates planted a bomb on the plane. And the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron says the plane "may well have been brought down by an explosive device." Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed Saturday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after breaking apart in midair, killing all 224 people on board. It was en route to St. Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a conservative candidate for President. He just announced he’s leading an effort in both houses of Congress to OFFICIALLY list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.With major support in Congress, this legislation would force the State Department and other federal agencies to determine if the Muslim Brotherhood officially meet the requirements to be a terrorist organization… which they most certainly do! However, "if the Secretary of State determines that the Muslim Brotherhood does not meet the criteria," it must submit to Congress "a detailed justification as to which criteria have not been met," according...

The latest U.S. intelligence suggests that the crash of a Russian passenger jet in the Sinai over the weekend was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an ISIS affiliate, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. But the official stressed a formal conclusion has not been reached by the U.S. intelligence community.

The latest U.S. intelligence suggests that the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an ISIS affiliate, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. The official stressed that there has not been a formal conclusion reached by the U.S. intelligence community. "There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere on the plane," the official told CNN's Barbara Starr. The assessment was reached, the official said, by looking back at intelligence reports that had been gathered before Saturday's plane crash...

US Embassy On October 29, Ambassador Stephen Beecroft and Senior Defense Official Major General Charles Hooper joined Air Marshal Younes al-Masri and other senior Egyptian military officials in a ceremony at the Cairo West Air Force Base to receive four F-16 “Fighting Falcon” fighter jets delivered by the United States to the Egyptian Air Force. Welcoming the four U.S. Air Force pilots who made the 14 hour flight from the United States to Egypt, Ambassador Beecroft called the delivery “another step forward in U.S.-Egyptian cooperation on fighting terror, bringing stability to the region, and strengthening our historic relationship.” The F-16...

All flights to Britain from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh have been delayed to allow security checks at the airport. A Downing Street spokesman said a team of UK experts were assessing security arrangements at the airport.

The British government has suspended all flights to the UK from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after declaring it believes the Russian plane that crashed over Sinai may have been brought down by an explosive device. It is the first statement by any country that it believes a bomb or other device could have downed the flight, as Russian and Egyptian authorities investigate.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is trying to force the Obama administration's hand to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.Along with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the presidential hopeful on Tuesday introduced legislation calling on the Obama administration to designate the Islamist political group as a foreign terrorist organization.The bill, called the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, comes after a string of evidence suggesting the group supports terrorism, Cruz said, and after similar moves from a handful of foreign countries in recent years."As this bill details, the Brotherhood's stated goal is to wage violent jihad against its enemies, and...

Putin and Netanyahu to strike deal on Leviathan gas field The Australian October 20, 2015 12:00AM Russia wants to be the major partner in Israel’s offshore ­Leviathan natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, a top ­Israeli foreign affairs analyst said in Sydney yesterday. Ehud Yaari, the senior Middle East commentator for ­Israel’s Channel Two news, said “everybody regrets” a deal was not done with Woodside and that until now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ruled out a Gazprom deal. Gazprom bid for a stake in the project in 2012 but was beaten by Woodside, which pulled out of...

ran will not cooperate with the United States on the “fight against terrorists in Syria”, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media on Wednesday. “Iran will not cooperate directly or indirectly with the United States,” Ali Akbar Velayati was quoted as saying on Press TV after a meeting with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Tehran.

An unethical smear campaign is launched against any faculty member who is pro-Israel. It is frightening to see the persecution that follows. Professor Denise Nussbaum is a strong believer in objective truth and a lover of Zion. She is also the Chair of the Sociology Department, an author, and an expert in “bias, diversity, race, ethnicity, and discrimination” at her campus: Mount San Jacinto College (MSJC) which occupies four campuses in California: San Jacinto, Menifee, Beaumont/Banning, and Temecula. Professor Nussbaum has received grants and awards on this very campus for her work in “diversity training.” How ironic, how tragic, that...

ISIS is probably regretting claiming responsibility for downing a Russian plane after they heard the plans that Putin has for them. I guess they thought they could get away with whatever they wanted since they seem to be able to do it in the good ol USA: By now youve probably heard that a Russian airliner crashed in the Middle East, killing all 224 passengers on board. ISIS claimed responsibility, saying they actually shot the plane down. Too bad for them, the epic revenge Russian President Vladimir Putin has in mind is a peace making wet dream , and its...

Unusual sounds were emitted from the plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula last week, according to a transcript of the cockpit recording obtained by the Russian news agency Interfax. An international investigation into the cause of the crash is currently underway and investigators are analysing the two flight data recorders for vital information about the last few moments of the flight. Interfax reports that it has obtained a transcript of one of the recordings, though this has not yet been independently verified. An unnamed source quoted by the agency said "sounds uncharacteristic of routine flight were recorded preceding the...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- Investigators are still trying to determine what led to the sudden and catastrophic breakup of a Metrojet plane Saturday over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, just 23 minutes after the Russian-operated jetliner took off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.</p>

Earlier today, we highlighted commentary from Russia’s Kogalymavia (the airline operating the ill-fated Airbus A321 which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula) where officials said human and technical factors weren’t responsible for the mid-air disaster which killed 224 people. IS Sinai took credit for “destroying” the plane but it wasn’t immediately clear what the contention was in terms of just how the group went about sabotaging the flight. Subsequently, a series of analysts and commentators opined that there was simply no way the militants could have possessed the technology or the expertise to shoot down a plane flying at 31,000 feet,...

NYT article. No excerpt.