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update from February 18, 2011: Trial postponed for a second time.WBNG-TV Action News, February 18, 2011:The Broome County District Attorney's Office says the court has postponed the murder trial for Abdusalam al-Zahrani, 45, from Saudi Arabia.An examination by two Broome County psychologists this week determined he is incompetent to stand trial. [...]The DA's office says doctors concluded Al-Zahrani lacks the capacity to understand the proceedings against him or assist in his own defense.An order of examination has been issued, and he will be committed to a state mental health facility.He could be tried if and when he is found to...

Christiane Amanpour has spent her entire career pretending to be an impartial journalist. Yet, the dark-haired Iranian with the British accent has taken every opportunity to use journalism as a tool to undermine America and her ally Israel's reputation on the world stage. Ms. Amanpour has had many low points in her quest to portray the United States in a less than favorable light. In the Muslim world, America's standing was severely damaged when, in an unbiased way, the London-raised journalist commiserated with radical terrorists by suggesting that the Bush administration's use of enhanced interrogation mirrored Pol Pot and the...

Last week, Steve Clemons organized a contingent of foreign-policy officials and commentators to send a letter to President Obama urging the U.S. to support the anti-settlement resolution at the UN. It included many prominent critics of the Israel — Peter Beinart, Chas Freeman, and Andrew Sullivan, to name just a few. Based on their well-documented eagerness to condemn Israel whenever possible, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin referred to the group as “Israel-bashers” – prompting an angry response from Clemons and setting off a debate about the meaning of “pro-Israel,” according to Ben Smith: The group J Street has been waging,...

As noted in Gateway Pundit and The Blaze, anti-Israeli signs are rolling through the streets of Seattle, Washington. Purchased by the pro-Hamas group, Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, they say, "Israeli War Crimes, Your Tax Dollars at Work." The text accompanies a photo of a bombed building. K5 News video, Seattle, WA About its Ed Mast (the "bearded Marxist" in the video, as one might suppose by his position on the issue; just consider the facial hair, the thoughtful effeteness, and as John Lennon might remind, "Imagine" the wire rimmed glasses, merely added flairs) according to the Seatle Times: "The ads...

Anti-Israel messages are once again about to hit the streets in the U.S., this time on buses in Seattle. According to a report on Seattle’s KING5 TV which aired on Friday, a group calling itself the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has paid Seattle’s King County $1,794 so that twelve buses will carry an ad reading “Israeli War Crimes: Your tax dollars at work” with an image of a group of children next to it, showing one little boy staring out at the viewer while the others gawk at a demolished building. The ad is expected to hit Seattle’s buses on...

The next time you come across an Electronic Intifada article alleging some devious Israeli plot to annex Palestinian olive groves, direct your eye-rolls toward The Hague. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Dutch government may have been unwittingly helping to finance the radical anti-Israel website for years. The Post reported Friday that the Electronic Intifada is funded by the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, which is apparently being subsidized quite heavily by the Dutch government and the European Union: The Dutch government has been funding the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada...

Turkey is testing the chilly diplomatic ties with Israel with another anti-Zionist production, this time a movie in which a revenge campaign is carried out against a fictitious Israeli who commanded the boarding of the IHH terrorist Mavi Marmara ship last May 31. In the “Valley of the Wolves – Palestine” film, the “hero” leads a campaign that brutally murders and blows up Israeli soldiers, who are depicted as killers of Arab children. The hero also rescues a man who was kidnapped by Israelis and held at the Israeli embassy. “We were trying to show that Israel and the United...

In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes came up with the "explanation for it all" ..... "I think, therefore I am". I remember this statement being the source of numerous debates in various philosophy classes in my undergraduate days. It was the existential "which came first" story ..... the Chicken or the Egg. The Thought or the Being. I am a Jew. I am a Zionist. I am a Zionist because I am a Jew ..... That is true, & probably a truism too. It is almost enough for me, and maybe more than enough. I don't need...

Historically, the structural and class bases of anti-Jewish feeling in Europe were inextricably linked with the ruling classes and the forces of reaction. The Catholic church propagated anti-Semitism as a matter of religious ideology as well as expediency. Landed aristocracy created the class of Jewish moneylenders, and then allied themselves with the peasants against their Jewish creditors. Reactionary regimes like the Tsarist Regime in Russia used the Jews as scapegoats for the ills of their society. [snip] Much literature and philosophy of the 19th century, especially socialist and communist literature, was permeated with anti-Semitism. Proudhon and Fourier were notorious anti-Semites....

Anti-Israel racist hate groups are mushrooming on the Facebook social networking Internet website, with few controls being exerted to stem what is threatening to eventually become a possible riptide sponsored by and catering to anti-Semites and Muslims. At present there are nearly 200 such pages, with hundreds of thousands of members declaring their support in foul language for the trend. One of the most recent, a group entitled “F—k Israel” (expletive deleted –ed.) – self-categorized as a “Local Business” has been allowed to remain despite at least four complaints filed against it by Facebook members who say they find it...

The controversy over the 'Ground Zero mosque' has portrayed the United States as a land of bigots. Toby Harnden wonders why the US President has helped fuel this myth. It took a Manhattan taxi driver called Ahmed Sharif to speak out for America, which is being vilified as bigoted and Islamophobic because of the controversy generated by opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero mosque". The United States was his dream country, he enthused, and he loved New York City. "I feel like I belong here. This is the city actually [for] all colours, races, religion, everyone. We live here side...

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee wants the State Department to explain its use of taxpayer funds to purchase and distribute Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s book What’s Right With Islam. “Certainly Senate Foreign Relations Committee members will want some briefing from the State Department,” Andy Fisher, the spokesman for Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations told HUMAN EVENTS. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had no immediate reaction to the controversy. On the House side, Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, is “looking into...

Muslims making a spectacle of desecrating the American flag.

<p>A few years ago I blogged that Rav Shimon Dahan mentioned in a shiur that "Pakistan" is made up of two words: Paki and Stan. Paki is gematria 190 and equals keitz (קץ end); Stan is Satan. Pakistan = Keitz Satan. Rabbi Dahan quoted Rav Kaduri zt'l who (apparently) said that "Pakistan will be the last war of the war of Gog and Magog." But judging by the current state of Pakistan, they are already defeated.</p>

A “women-only” ship, complete with a nun and a heavily pregnant mother, has cleared political and technical obstacles and is set to sail for Gaza, presenting Israel with a new challenge. The ship is supposed to leave Tripoli by Sunday night, its co-coordinator, Hizbullah-backer Samar al-Hajj, told the London Guardian. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told Israel National News, “There are no limits on goods going to Gaza, and any ships trying to bring so-called aid to Gaza will be regarded as provocations.” The sight of women—supposedly unarmed—facing Israeli naval commandos trying to stop it from breaking the sea embargo...

The Occupation by Ari Bussel There is something wrong in the Middle East. A tiny Jewish presence continues to anger her neighbors and her existence drives the whole world mad. It is easy to blame all the faults of the world on “them, the Jews,” and more particularly it has become acceptable to channel the rampant anti-Semitism against Israel. Irrespective of what Israel does, she is deemed guilty. Judge, jury, God and His armies on earth, all conspired and decided there is one root cause for all the ills in the world. So rooted is this anger and so well...

Israel continues to be the demon poster-child of the Left. The prime example of a repressive regime and abuser of human rights. On the Left, people became outraged and agitated over Israel more than over any other cause. Israel’s supposed villainy will bring out protestors on cold, rainy days in a way no other issue can.

The United States State Department has announced to the Palestinian Authority/Palestinian Liberation Organization Mission representative in the United States that its status will be upgraded from a 'bureau' to that of a "general delegation' and that this change will allow the office in which the representation is situated to fly the PLO, now also the Palestine Authority, flag at its entrance. The upgrading, besides allowing the flag to be flown, also grants certan privileges to the delegation staff, such as diplomatic immunity, although it is not equal to embassy status. The PLO's chief representative in the United States, Maen Areikat,...

Members of Communist-backed labor union say they blocked five El Al counters for two hours to protest Gaza siege. An Israel-bound flight was delayed for about two hours at Athens International Airport Wednesday after protesters against the blockade of Gaza blocked check-in counters, airport officials said. Members of a Communist-backed labor union said they blocked five El Al airline counters for two hours to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the Jewish state's oppressive policies.

Candidate target of protest for his ties to Muslim extremist group CAIR PHILADELPHIA – Democratic nominee Joe Sestak would be "the most anti-Israel member" of the U.S. Senate, pro-Israel activists contended as the race for the Pennsylvania Senate seat erupted in controversy over the candidate's ties to a Muslim extremist group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Sestak is a second-term congressman representing the suburbs of Philadelphia who surprised political observers in the May primary election by defeating incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter, who had switched to the Democratic Party to avoid impending defeat as a Republican.