Free Republic

Portugal’s parliament on Friday adopted a resolution calling on the government to recognize the Palestinian state, following a growing number of similar votes around Europe. Parliament’s motion, filed jointly by the ruling center-right majority and the opposition Socialist party, proposed “recognizing, in coordination with the European Union, the state of Palestine as independent and sovereign,” according to AFP. However, Portugal’s Foreign Minister Rui Machete said after the vote the government “will choose the moment best suited” to recognize the Palestinian state. …

Seven people, including a family of five with young children, were lightly wounded in the West Bank Friday afternoon when a Palestinian man hurled acid into their car, before being shot and seriously wounded. The attack occurred near a checkpoint between the Gush Etzion settlement of Beitar Illit, where the family is from, and the Palestinian village of Husan, southwest of Jerusalem. Palestinian news agency Ma’an identified the attacker as Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghayatha, 45, from the West Bank village of Nahalin. Media networks affiliated with Hamas said the man was a former Palestinian prisoner in Israel jail, Israel Radio...

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority received a pledge from the U.S. that by the end of 2014, the Obama administration will issue an official written declaration presenting general highlights of a future Palestinian state, a senior Palestinian negotiator told WND. The negotiator further said the goal is to have the general framework for a deal ironed out by April. The current framework for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement being brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry calls for the phased implementation of more Palestinian sovereignty within three to five years, the negotiator said. As part of the written declaration, the U.S....

Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Prevention of Genocide, on Tuesday emphatically stated that Iran’s genocidal threats to “wipe Israel off the earth” are “totally unacceptable.” Dieng was at the UN’s headquarters in New York to commemorate the Anniversary of the Genocide Convention that was first adopted on December 9, 1948. Carmen Maria Rodriguez of Radio Marti asked the question that sparked Dieng’s direct censure of Iran’s recent waves of calls for Israel’s annihilation. Dieng went on to elaborate that not only are Iran’s genocidal threats to wipe Israel off the map “totally unacceptable,” but also that...

Greek authorities are investigating a pre-dawn, drive-by gunfire attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens, which caused no injuries or damage. […] There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. …

State Attorney Shai Nitzan on Tuesday evening was said to support submitting an indictment against pro-Hamas Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad), according to Channel 10. According to the report, the indictment will be on charges of threatening police officers, after Zoabi verbally abused two Arab Israeli police officers in Nazareth, and urged Arab youths to attack them. […] The indictment apparently will not be served for other notorious incidents, which include her defending the Hamas terrorists who abducted and murdered three Israeli teens on June 12, saying they weren’t “terrorists” and justifying their actions as a “legitimate” way to “fight...

France's upper house of parliament on Thursday urged the government to recognize "the state of Palestine", following a similar and highly symbolic vote in the lower house. The Senate resolution, calling for French recognition of" Palestine" and an "immediate restarting" of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, passed narrowly, with 153 votes in favor and 146 against. The vote came as European countries seek to restart the stalled Middle East process and followed an unopposed motion in the Irish parliament to recognize "Palestine" - the fourth assembly in Europe to do so. Lawmakers in Britain and Spain have...

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the sharp fall in global oil prices is the result of “treachery,” in an apparent reference to regional rival Saudi Arabia, which opposed production cuts. Oil prices have plunged by more than 40 percent since June to around $65 a barrel, placing severe strain on Iran’s economy, which is already hobbled by international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. An OPEC meeting last month failed to reach agreement on production curbs, mainly because of Saudi opposition. Rouhani told a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the fall in prices is at least partly “politically motivated,”...

WASHINGTON – In a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday that sounded like the first foreign policy address of a presidential campaign, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for a return to the international politics of President Ronald Reagan. Cruz contrasted Reagan’s approach with the Obama-Clinton policy of not putting distance between the U.S. and traditional allies, such as Britain and Israel, in the hope of “domesticating” long-standing enemies such as Russia and Iran. “This backfired,” Cruz argued. “The end result is that Churchill is no longer welcome in the Oval Office. He recalled one of Obama’s first acts...

Quiet allegations of Iranian cheating on its interim nuclear agreement are fueling speculation in the Israeli press that Israel may be preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, reports the Algemeiner. The official position from Washington has been reflected in Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertions that Iran has so far adhered to the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action nuclear agreement, which bound Iran to suspend certain work at its Arak heavy-water reactor designed to produce plutonium. “Iran has held up its end of the bargain,” Kerry said last month in Vienna while announcing a seven-month...

Former Likud MK Moshe Kahlon will indeed be running for the Knesset – and on Wednesday evening, he introduced his new party to Israelis. The party's name will be “Kulanu,” meaning “all of us.” The name is reminiscent of the campaign phrase used by Ehud Barak in his campaign for the Prime Minister's position in 1999, when he said that he would be the leader of “kulam” - everyone. Kahlon did not announced the names of any of the candidates who would be running with him. However, he said, his slogan to the voters would be “Be like Kahlon” (“Tihyu...

The IDF will be on high alert in Judea and Samaria on Thursday, in anticipation of riots by Palestinian Arabs during the funeral of Ziad Abu Ein, a senior Palestinian Authority official who died Wednesday of a heart attack during riots against the IDF. As part of the preparations for the funeral, the IDF will send reinforcements to the region. The decision to do so was made in light of intelligence information that was received indicating that Arabs are planning riots. Abu Ein, 55, was a convicted terrorist who previously held the post of PA Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs....

Looking for a job? If you're a programmer or computer science grad, there are plenty, said Meir Brand, head of Google's Israel office.Looking for a job? If you're a programmer or computer science grad, there are plenty of jobs for you in Israel, said Meir Brand, head of Google's Israel office. “I can tell you that there is a worldwide shortage of qualified people in these areas, and Israel is feeling this as well,” Brand told an audience at Haifa University, at an event sponsored by the Israel Lottery. The Lottery raises money for education, and Brand's message for listeners...

Interesting argument!

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the sharp fall in global oil prices is the result of "treachery," in an apparent reference to regional rival Saudi Arabia, which opposed production cuts. Oil prices have plunged by more than 40 percent since June to around $65 a barrel, placing severe strain on Iran's economy, which is already hobbled by international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. An OPEC meeting last month failed to reach agreement on production curbs, mainly because of Saudi opposition.

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday asked lawmakers debating legislation to authorize the war against the so-called Islamic State not to rule out the use of U.S. ground troops in combat. “The president has been clear that his policy is that U.S. military forces will not be deployed to conduct ground combat operations,” Kerry began. “However,” he added, "while we certainly believe this is the soundest policy, and while the president has been clear he's open to clarifications on the use of U.S. combat troops to be outlined in an AUMF, that does not mean we should preemptively bind...

Packing potatoes at his vegetable stand on a sun-baked street in Caracas's hillside Catia slum, Jesus Jimenez fondly recounts voting for late president Hugo Chavez. Like millions in Venezuela's poor "barrios," the chatty father of 14 worshipped the larger-than-life Chavez and benefited from his welfare programs, especially Cuban-staffed free health centers and substantial pension rises. So after Chavez's death last year, Jimenez naturally voted for the leader's hand-picked protege Nicolas Maduro, a former union activist and bus driver who vowed to continue the idiosyncratic brand of socialism known as "Chavismo". Now, though, he struggles to make ends meet as inflation...

The Irish government is expected to accept a motion to be proposed by the opposition calling on parliament to recognize “Palestine” as a state, Reuters reports. The decision follows the passing of a motion in Ireland’s upper house in October calling on the government to formally recognize a Palestinian state. Members of parliament in the lower house are due to discuss the motion proposed by the opposition Sinn Féin party later on Tuesday and on Wednesday, according to Reuters. A government spokesman said it will not oppose the bill, meaning MPs will not be required to vote. The motion calls...

The latest, spectacular “Exit South Stream, Enter Turk Stream” Pipelinistan gambit will be sending big geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. This is what the New Great Game in Eurasia is all about. In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised North Stream – fully operational – and South Stream – still a project – to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devises a new sweet deal with Turkey to bypass the “non-constructive” (Putin’s words) approach of the European Commission (EC) concerning the European “Third Energy Package”, which prohibits one company from...

An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion poll released Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP). The poll also found that more than half of Palestinian Arabs support a new “intifada” (uprising) against Israel, and that Hamas would win presidential elections if they were held today.