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Israel's Chief Rabbi David Lau addresses letter to Pope Francis after Pope accuses Israel of engaging in terrorism just like Hamas.Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau addressed a letter today (Sunday) to Pope Francis in which he called on the Pontiff to retract comments made during a conversation with President Isaac Herzog last month in which he appeared to accuse both Israel and Hamas of “terrorism” in the ongoing war that started with the Hamas massacre of over 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7. During the conversation, Pope Francis said that it is “forbidden to respond to terror...

Francis’ New Book Hails Islam as a ‘Religion of Peace’Pontiff claims Islamic State terrorist outfit is a creation of the West In a new book recounting the last 10 years of his pontificate, Pope Francis is defending Islam as a "religion of peace" and suggesting the possibility of making celibacy optional for Latin rite priests. Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze (You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes), published in Italian and released Tuesday, is a series of dialogues with journalists Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti. The pontiff calls upon Europe to integrate Muslim migrants, insisting that "radical Islam is...

ROME — Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the European Bishops’ Conferences (COMECE), has called on the European Union (E.U.) to accept Ukraine’s application for membership. The Ukrainian government applied for E.U. membership on February 28 of this year, Cardinal Hollerich notes in his May 9 statement, a request that “deserves a positive and realistic response.” “Ukraine, but also Moldova, Georgia, and all the other European countries, notably in the region of the Western Balkans, which have made the same request in the past, and have undertaken significant reforms, need a credible accession perspective,” the cardinal declares. The cardinal’s statement, which...

There's something infecting right-wing circles, and it's showing no sign of letting up: a fixation on Hillary Clinton that I'm calling"Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome," or "HDS" for short. The symptoms of this persistent ailment include an unhealthy obsession with the former secretary of state -- from spreading lies about her past actions to blaming her for events with which she has no connection -- combined with an insatiable longing to see her run for president again in 2024. A new HDS variant apparently emerged last week when special counsel John Durham, who has been investigating the origins of the FBI's...

Carly Fiorina said on Sunday she had plenty of job offers after being fired as the CEO of Hewlett Packard, including posts in the George W. Bush administration, but she decided against them. "I didn’t want to go back to work as a CEO," the Republican presidential contender said on NBC's "Meet the Press," rejecting suggestions her lack of private-sector employment after leaving HP is an indictment of her leadership. "Yes, I was offered many jobs – as a CEO, in the Bush administration. I wanted a break, and then I wanted to give back."

he talk below recently took place at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida (Nov. 17-20, 2011). Frank Gaffney: Ladies and gentlemen, while we are hopefully going to pull together this PowerPoint presentation, which — I’m grateful to the hotel staff for trying to work on absolutely no notice, just as I’m very grateful to you for sticking around on no notice. My name is Frank Gaffney. I’m the president of an organization called the Center for Security Policy in Washington. This is absolutely, bar none — the high point of my year is being here. So if...

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons, even in self defense. But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation. Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to...

Student of history, Barack Obama, spoke to the Muslim World this week. During his speech Obama congratulated the Muslim World for their many accomplishments. Obama’s Cairo Speech - The Transcript: "As a student of history, I also know civilisation’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease...

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has launched an attack on GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson for Thompson's refusal to sign Norquist's pledge against raising taxes. Team Fred spokeswoman Karen Hanretty explained her candidate's position in an e-mail: Fred Thompson’s record of cutting taxes and pushing for reform speaks for itself. This is the approach he will take as president. He is bound by that principle and does not make a practice of signing pledges. That answer was not good enough for Grover the Security Pushover (more on that further down the column), who told Ronald Kessler of...

THESE days everyone is an expert on Islam. All it takes is to reach for your Koran and find a Sura to prove that Islam is exactly what Bin Laden says it is. Even Pope Benedict XVI has recently taken to quoting the word of Mohammed to address the prophet’s legacy, as has the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, who discovered this line in his belated reading of the Koran: “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush ...” And there you have...

Mohammad cartoon protests aren't unique to Islam By Michael Conlon 2 hours, 2 minutes ago The violence linked to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad is not unique to Islam, experts say, and the protests reflect political and cultural passions more than the faith's core values. Looking for distinct features that would make Islam liable for the cartoon-related violence around the world does little to explain it, said the Rev. Patrick Gaffney, an anthropologist and expert on Islam at the University of Notre Dame. "There are parallel behaviors in every tradition," he said. "Buddhism has a violent strain despite its pacifism...

What is it that the west, and America in particular, have against Islam and Muslim countries? Plenty, I believe, as does a noted political-analyst friend of mine whom I will not name because he does very sensitive work for the government. First, it was the shame of Guantanamo Bay and the barbaric torture of blindfolding of shackled, red-uniformed Muslim prisoners from Afghanistan, who were brutally tortured in barbaric instances which were fully condoned by George Bush and his former secretary of state, Colin Powell. Then came the destruction of Iraq against all sane admonition by sensible people from around the...

So, how are things going elsewhere in Iraq? Despite the fact that it's clearly uncool these days for people to ask "tough questions," even when they're asked to, some news is still leaking out. For example, according to the London Times, the US Army is "plagued by desertion and plunging morale" - apparently more than 5,000 soldiers have deserted since the war began, and "For the first time in a decade, the Army National Guard missed its recruitment target this year." The Times article goes on, "Experts are divided over how stretched America’s military really is. But they agree that...