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The UN Human Rights Council has released a report detailing a “black list” of international companies operating in Judea and Samaria. The council listed 112 companies which it claims violate international law by continuing to operate in the Jewish communities in the area, including Airbnb, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz responded to the black List, saying that “the UN Human Rights Council’s announcement of the “black list” of business companies is a shameful surrender to the pressures of countries and organizations interested in hurting Israel, even though most countries in the world have refused to join this political...

Getting other Arab interlocutors to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel remains Trump's crucial starting point to ending the Arab-Jewish conflict Nabil Abu Rudeineh - spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas—has angrily reacted to President Trump’s intensive diplomatic efforts seeking to enlist Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in advancing Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Refugees arrive in some of Europe's poorest states, mainly Greece, Italy and Hungary, but insist that they have a right to head for more prosperous nations where welfare benefits are higher and healthcare freely available. "Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. ... It's too costly to relocate them here. Kuwait is too expensive for them anyway, as opposed to Lebanon and Turkey, which are cheap. They are better suited for the Syrian refugees. ... it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don't...

The major Arab powers once deemed essential to the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have largely pulled back from the U.S.-led military campaign, undercutting the Obama administration's claims about the depth and reach of the coalition it has built with allies in the region. The Obama administration consistently touts the "65-nation coalition" it has assembled to fight the group also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh -- but critics say the fewer than a dozen nations today are contributing anything significant to the campaign. And behind closed doors, administration and military officials admit that air support...

Analysis: The Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Gulf state rulers trust Israel's re-elected prime minister to handle the Iranian issue, and the Americans to pressure him on the Palestinian issue. The Arab world, just like officials in Jerusalem and in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, is monitoring the steps of the American dance which is casting a shadow on the elections results here. One can definitely say that the roof did not collapse on the Arab leaders' heads when Netanyahu won. The elections here appeared odd, and if there was any attention, it focused on the joint Arab list, and...

Arab governments are privately expressing their concern to Washington about the emerging terms of a potential deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program, according to Arab and U.S. officials involved in the deliberations. The direction of U.S. diplomacy with Tehran has added fuel to fears in some Arab states of a nuclear-arms race in the region, as well as reviving talk about possibly extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Middle East allies to counter any Iranian threat. The major Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have said that a final agreement could allow Shiite-dominated...

Arab states “will never recognize Israel”, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) foreign minister stated on Monday, according to NRG/Maariv. Riyad al-Malki was speaking to Radio Palestine after participating in a weekend meeting in Paris between U.S. Secretary State of John Kerry and foreign ministers of the Arab League. …

The Arab world received the news of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s death with relative schadenfreude, publicly criticizing him for his role in the Sabra and Shatila Massacre during the First Lebanon War. From Cairo and Beirut to Dubai and the Gaza Strip, there were competitions of who could insult him more, while others were satisfied with celebrating outside turning local streets into a pocket of bedlam. […] Brazilian caricaturist Carlos Latuff depicted Sharon as carrying his sins—Sabra, Shatila, Qibya and Jenin—to hell. An Egyptian caricature showed Sharon being thrown into the garbage can of history. …

PHILADELPHIA – Is the reported willingness of Arab Gulf states to fund a U.S. military campaign in Syria really about major oil and gas interests that run through the country? The potential for trillions of dollars of energy revenue in deals that snake through Syrian territory may be a motivating factor for the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Arab states in the current Syria crisis.

Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;(Joel 3:4) As we stated earlier, an interesting exercise for Bible readers is to take the geographical predictions of the Hebrew prophets and transpose the ancient place names with modern place names, For example, Amman, would be Jordan, so would Moab and Edom, Elam would be Iran, Persia also is Iran, Assyria would be part of Iran and part...

<p>Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul said Wednesday night that he is not anti-Semitic, and that he is pro-Israel, despite remarks made earlier this week by his former aide by which Paul would have preferred it if Israel did not exist.</p>

Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year. Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer, beholden to foreign providers for nearly half its total food consumption. Half of Egyptians live on less...

It was hardly noticed at the time, but its consequences could be catastrophic. Late last September, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which assigns internet domain names, approved a huge change in the way it operates. Europe and North America will now have five seats on its Board of Directors, instead of ten, and a new "Arab States" region will have five seats as well. How big a deal is this? ICANN at the same time took a reference to "terrorism" out of its Draft Applicant Guidebook. Why? Because Arab groups complained. And so now jihad terror...

Regional cooperation begins with resuming negotiations with the Palestinians. In the interests of achieving a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace, Israel sees the economic domain as one of the cornerstones of good relations. Political dialogue with our Palestinian partners is critical, but it will not be furthered by allowing a settlement freeze to be imposed as a precondition to negotiation. Nor will it be advanced by a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood. Beyond the Palestinian question, the largest obstacle to regional peace is the current Iranian regime, which continues to do everything in its power to undermine the moderate regimes...

If you wanted to find a single story that summed up everything wrong about the politics of the Arab and Islamic world, it is this little item from the New York Times about the Arab summit meeting in Doha, Qatar. As the Times puts it, the Arabs are divided about everything … except their support for Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the architect of a campaign of rape and murder in Darfur that earned him an indictment from the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There may be a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest sitting in...

....The demise of the edifice of Soviet communism in the early 1990s led to a conceptual swing in Arab societies. Not only was the West restored to its post-World War I status as an unrivaled military and economic force in the Middle East, but so, too, did liberal democracy revert to what it was at the beginning of the century in the region: A form of government with universal pretensions. The significance of these developments was not lost on many Arab intellectuals. At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, discussions on the universality of liberal democracy...

This was the main object of the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s Middle East trip. With the promise of financial support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states and private Muslim donors, the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government of Ismail Haniyeh is guaranteed at least half a billion dollars a year, or $40 million a month. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources: Saudi Arabian King Abdullah decided to pledge the financial support needed to prop up the Hamas-led PA government and maintain its ability to function. (During the first week of February, immediately after Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections, DEBKA-Net-Weekly...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Arab governments appeared reluctant Thursday to condemn Iran's president for calling the Holocaust a "myth" used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world. While official Arab reaction in such cases is usually slower than international reaction, any issue involving a defense of Israel is a thorny one for Arab governments, who risk appearing to side with Israel against a Muslim nation. The comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, broadcast live Wednesday on state-run Iranian television, drew quick condemnation from Israel, the European Union and the United States. However, in...

Few people speak with as much passion and authority as Natan Sharansky about the irresistible power of freedom to transform oppressed populations. Ever the optimist, however, Sharansky believes that democracy is a distinct possibility among Arab states and in a future Palestinian state. There is no choice, he says: “In an age of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism, the dangers of ignoring the absence of democracy in any part of the world have increased dramatically.” "You, Mr. President, are a dissident among the leaders of the free world.”

The Bush administration has quietly invited Arab leaders to attend the G-8 summit, scheduled to take place next month in Sea Island, Georgia, which will focus in part on US efforts to promote democratization of the Middle East, diplomatic sources in Washington told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. The sources said that several leaders from across the Middle East had already accepted Washington's invitation. But key US allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt have not yet replied and officials here are interpreting their silence as a sign they do not plan to attend. Washington's Greater Middle East Initiative, versions of which...