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As the civil war in Syria enters its third year, there is much discussion of the regimeÂ’s chemical weapons and whether SyriaÂ’s Bashar al-Assad will unleash them against Syrian rebels, or whether a power vacuum after AssadÂ’s fall might make those horrific tools available to the highest bidder. The conversation centers on SyriaÂ’s chemical weaponry, not on something vastly more serious: its nuclear weaponry. It well might have. This is the inside story of why it does not. Relations between the United States and Israel had grown rocky after IsraelÂ’s incursion into Lebanon in 2006, for Secretary of State Condoleezza...

The continued stalemate in Libya is not good news for Samantha Power widely seen as one of the architects of the Libyan intervention. Power, who works with the National Security Council, has been touted as the next secretary of State if Obama is re-elected but if Libya continues to be a stalemate it will not help her case... But the original script went wrong from there with rebels advancing, then retreating like a bad Charlie Chaplin scene before the current stalemate. Stalemate is not good in that corner of the world, and a leaderless state, like Somalia can soon become...

The Obama administration has asked the Palestinian Authority to delay its bid to unilaterally declare a state at the United Nations until after November’s presidential election, a senior PA official told KleinOnline. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the request was passed to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ office by the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem earlier this month. The official said the PA has not yet made a decision about the timing of its application with the U.N. General Assembly for accepting “Palestine” as a non-member state. The official, however, did indicate Abbas is inclined toward waiting until after...

The Palestinians on Friday persuaded the U.N. cultural agency to list the Church of the Nativity—the place where Christians believe Jesus was born—as an endangered World Heritage site despite misgivings by churches in charge of the basilica.The Palestinians hailed the nod by UNESCO as a step forward in their quest for global recognition of an independent Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967. The centuries-old basilica is located in a part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank where the Palestinians have self-rule. UNESCO's decision was seen by them as validation of their rights to...

I am in Washington D.C. with top Israeli leaders. In a few hours, I will be in a meeting with the Prime Minister. As I write, the meeting between President Obama and my old friend Benjamin Netanyahu is still going on. Mr. Obama is desperately attempting to persuade Israel not to attack Iran before the U.S. elections this November. The threat posed to Israel by an atomic Iran is no secret. The radical Islamists have made it more than clear that they want to see Israel “wiped off the map.” Israel must take action soon, or Iran will pass into...

Buried in news stories about the conviction on a former president of Israel on rape charges was a telling insight into the Jewish state: The three-judge panel that convicted Moshe Katsav and the three-judge tribunal that rejected his appeal each had a justice who is an Israeli Arab. Arabs make up 20 percent of the population of Israel, and, as the Katsav story indicates, they are able to play prominent roles in the country’s governmental life, including service in the Knesset. Hundreds of thousands of Jews live in communities in the disputed West Bank territories. To Israelis, the West Bank...

Buried in news stories about the conviction on a former president of Israel on rape charges was a telling insight into the Jewish state: The three-judge panel that convicted Moshe Katsav and the three-judge tribunal that rejected his appeal each had a justice who is an Israeli Arab. Arabs make up 20 percent of the population of Israel, and, as the Katsav story indicates, they are able to play prominent roles in the country’s governmental life, including service in the Knesset. Hundreds of thousands of Jews live in communities in the disputed West Bank territories. To Israelis, the West Bank...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says he is being factually accurate when he calls the Palestinians an "invented" people and says they are the creation of anti-Israel propaganda. Gingrich's chief rival for the presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, says the former House speaker has made a mistake in the description and has made it more difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate toward peace.

The reality is that the entire world is crying for the Palestinians to be given a state. I say, “Yes, let’s give them a state.” Now that we are agreed on that though, the first thing we must do is to identify who the real Palestinians are. Neither they nor Palestine are mentioned in the Koran. Why? A little lesson in history: The etymology of the word “Palestinian” in English is derived from the Old French word “Philistin,” from Late Latin it is “Philistinus,” and from Late Greek, “Philistinoi.” They were not an Arab or a Semitic people, but were...

The Palestinian Authority, which has already made a pact with the Hamas terrorist organization, now seeks recognition for a unilaterally declared state at the United Nations. President Barack Obama, though deeply committed to Palestinian statehood, declares his intention to block that scheme, even by exercising an American veto in the Security Council. Congress, for its part, threatens to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if it breaches its commitment to direct talks with Israel and pursues unilateralism. American mediators, meanwhile, lobby other members of the Middle East Quartet—the U.S., the European Union, the U.N., and Russia—in an attempt to...

The invisible economic war against Israel has already begun. Some countries are planning to impose new sanctions against Israeli products, while others will raise tariffs and make trade more difficult. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called this week for the nations of the world to “put pressure” on Israel to force them to make concessions in the name of peace. This is a deliberate attempt to destroy Israel’s economy. This is new warfare for the modern age—before the rockets fly and the tanks roll, and the boycotts and economic sanctions fall. The OPEC nations are using their vast oil wealth...

Secretary of State Clinton, in a sharp departure from her stance when she was a senator, is warning that any American action, even symbolically, toward recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel must be avoided for the reason that it would jeopardize the peace process. Her warnings were issued in a brief she has just filed with the Supreme Court — in which she is arguing that a law she voted for when she was Senator is unconstitutional because it could require the U.S. government to give to an American citizen born at Jerusalem papers showing the birthplace as Israel.

Please pray for me. I am in meetings with Iranian leaders at the hotel where Ahmadinejad is staying, giving them my testimony! Bill O'Reilly has asked for my help arranging an interview for tomorrow on Fox News. I am standing for Israel as your ambassador. Almost thirty years ago when I anointed Benjamin Netanyahu with oil and prayed with him, I told him he would be prime minister of Israel twice. My prayer ended with, “the second time will be the gravest days of Israel’s history.” The following day, I shared the prophecy with then Prime Minister Menachem Begin and...

Dozens of Palestinians protest in Ramallah, heeding officials' instructions to hold anti-Obama demonstrations in West Bank. US President Barack Obama will be held responsible for the failure of the Middle East peace process, members of the Palestinian Authority delegation to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York charged on Thursday. The latest allegation came as the PA called for anti-Obama demonstrations in protest against his opposition to the Palestinian statehood bid. RELATED: 'Palestinians are still pushing for full UN membership' NY: Obama tells Abbas US will veto Palestinians at UN Relations between the PA and the US were now...

The Vatican is maintaining its neutrality on Palestine’s bid for United Nations membership, despite the move being openly backed the retired Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem. “We have nothing to say on the matter, although we have to show respect for the view of the United Nations,” said papal spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi to the Catholic News Agency on September 19. Palestinian officials will soon launch their application for full United Nations membership at the U.N. headquarters in New York, asking for international recognition based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as a capital. The idea is strongly...

Prophecy was Given for Fools By Ari Bussel Prophecy, it is said, was given to fools. Allow me then to amuse myself looking at the coming weeks. The usage of the phrase “9/11” refers in our collective minds to the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Twin Towers reduced to shambles in an avalanche of dust particles, a section of an outer ring of the Pentagon on fire and Flight 93 disintegrated into fragments, the memory of American heroes. Recently, I referred to September, 2011, as 9/11 of the Jewish People. Two events, scheduled to coincide back-to-back...

U.S. laboring to avoid veto of Palestinian statehood bid at UN, sources say Speaking on the possible outcome of a Security Council vote, U.S. envoy to UN there may be several council members who are 'skeptical about the timeliness' of the Palestinian move. By Natasha Mozgovaya and Haaretz The United States is working to gather enough United Nations Security Council members to resist a planned Palestinian statehood bid so as to avoid having to use its veto power, Israeli and U.S. sources said on Saturday. American officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama, have been outspoken in their objection to a...

Palestinian leader says PA to proceed with UN bid in September because President Obama endorsed Palestinian state; 'I’m going to the UN in order to demand our legitimate rights and secure full membership,' he says. Dramatic speech in Ramallah: The Palestinian Authority will be seeking full United Nations membership in its statehood bid later this month, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said Friday. "I’m going to the UN in order to demand our legitimate rights and secure full membership for the state of Palestine," the Palestinian president said in Ramallah. "We hope to secure full membership." "We are going to the...

POLITICO's Josh Gerstein reports on President Obama's schedule for his trip to the United Nations, as detailed by the adviser Ben Rhodes to reporters: Tuesday: Meeting the chairman of Libya's governing council, and a high-level meeting on Libya; then, a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, one with Brazil's president, and a session with Turkey's prime minister to talk about Syria and Israel Wednesday: Obama's speech to the General Assembly to "address dramatic change" since last year's meeting, like in South Sudan; then a meeting with Japan's premier, a luncheon with the U.N. secretary general, a speech to the Clinton...

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will address the UN General Assembly on Friday next week, setting the stage for a potentially dramatic diplomatic showdown with the Palestinians. He will speak on the same day that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, is due to deliver a landmark speech calling on the global body to support Palestinian statehood. “The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing,” Mr Netanyahu said on Thursday. “But I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it.” The Israeli government, which opposes the Palestinian UN...

President Barack Obama is the unlikely star of a new Palestinian media campaign. Part of a speech Obama gave in 2010 to the United Nations General Assembly is featured in an ad aimed to rally support for the Palestinians upcoming bid for statehood at the United Nations on Sept. 20, Reuters reported on Wednesday. “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that can lead to a new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel,” Obama said in the 2010 speech in the clip that is played...

If the UN declares the PA to be a state, it might as well decide the world is flat, Netanyahu says. Regardless, US can block the move with veto. .....

This is too priceless not to share. This is a video of an interview with U.N. lobbyist, Phyliis Bennis, who is a Palestinian state/ anti Israel advocate. She is ranting about Israel when.... the DC earthquake hit. Look at the fear on her face and how she runs for the hills. God cut her off midsentence. I hope she takes that as a warning. Somehow... I don't think so.

The Palestinians' decision to place the issue of the establishment of a Palestinian state before the United Nations for a vote next month repudiates the principles of the 1993 Oslo peace framework, through which the Palestinian Authority was formed out of the PLO. The Oslo framework dictated that the final status of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem would be determined through direct negotiations between the PLO and Israel. While brazen, the Palestinians' UN gambit is not the first time that Israel has been confronted with unequivocal proof that the Palestinians have been operating in bad faith. ........ Recently, several leading...

A terrorist organization is at the center of gravity in a newly proposed Middle East peace plan fashioned by the European Union. It is no surprise that the Liberal Left in America is in full agreement. President Obama has scheduled a July 11 summit in Washington instead of just “saying no” to Mahmoud Abbas and his plan for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. Each time Israel is summoned to a farsical meeting such as this, she loses land, people, and bargaining power. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being dragged to Washington once again...

Shaath says Spain wants Palestine recognized in UN; announcement comes as Abbas meets with Islamic Jihad officials, Gen. Tantawi in Cairo to discuss Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Mideast peace process. Talkbacks (13) The Palestinian Authority announced on Thursday that Spain has decided to recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines before September. A spanish diplomat told Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath that Spain would support making the state of Palestine a UN member. The announcement came as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo on Monday, under the auspices of Egyptian authorities, with Ramadan Shallah, Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad organization,...

Despite the avalanche of articles analyzing U.S. President Barack Obama's May 19, 2011 Middle East speech, one irony has not been mentioned. The president laid out a magnificent blueprint for the countries in the region to follow in order to ensure dignity, freedom, and hope for their citizens. But all the president had to do was look reality in the face, and find his vision reflected in Israel. Yet Israel was the only country which the president wants both to shrink, and away from which he told Arabs to turn. Obama's refusal to credit Israel's freedom as a value for...

I've been in Washington D.C. for the past few days to give you an inside "behind the scenes" look at what's going on and to tell you the truth no one else will. What the media is telling you is incomplete and often completely misleading. A declaration of Palestinian statehood would not be merely a symbolic act at the UN. Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak warned his compatriots that a pro-Palestinian, diplomatic tsunami was about to crest. Presently the Palestinians have observer status at the UN, as do the Vatican and the EU. The desire to be a sovereign member...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Senior Palestinian officials say that negotiations with Israel have become pointless after Israel's prime minister rejected President Barack Obama's call to base Mideast border talks on the pre-1967 war lines. [Snip] ...A bid to become a U.N. member requires approval not just from the General Assembly, where the Palestinians might win the needed majority, but also from the U.N. Security Council, where the U.S. might veto such a step. [Snip] Shaath noted that Obama didn't threaten a veto.

If the result of the current attempts to birth another Palestinian country in addition to Jordan was not a Middle East war, the whole situation might be considered comical. All one needs to recognize are the results of each stage of the path that has led to the current positions and then extrapolate on to the actual forming of this new state and you will quickly recognize the complete absurdity of the whole endeavor. What has been accomplished thus far? Before the great minds of the world cooked up this wondrous idea to bring back Yasser Arafat to lead the...

The acts of recognition of a Palestinian state in 1967 borders by Brazil, Argentina, and possibly other Latin American states have no significance other than as a political expression of opinion. These acts of recognition run counter to statements by Brazil and Argentina in the United Nations Security Council in 1967 in favor of freely negotiated borders between the parties and an internationally sponsored peace negotiation process as set out in Resolution 242. The unceasing efforts among states by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority to attain recognition of unilateral statehood within the 1967 borders and thereby bypass the accepted...

Following in Brazil’s footsteps from last Friday, Argentina announced on Monday it recognized a “free and independent” Palestinian state, sparking an immediate condemnation from Israel. Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a letter that her country recognized a Palestine defined by 1967 borders, Argentine officials said. The Argentine Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement that the move was designed to help “definitively advance the negotiation process that will lead to the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” Uruguay announced soon afterward that it would recognize a Palestinian state next...

Brazilian President Lula acknowledges “Palestinian” State Without imposing on them any condition on gay “rights” By Julio Severo Lula announced that he decided officially to acknowledge a “Palestinian State. That acknowledgment happened on November 3, 2010. The Brazilian megalomaniac likes to be in the center of the attentions. And if the whole world is looking to the Middle East, because of the afflictions of Israel, then Lula wants a piece of the spotlight. He is determined to spend his last days in the Brazilian presidency drawing the attention from everybody, even if it means that he needs to make a...

JAKARTA, Indonesia – From the most Muslim nation on earth, President Barack Obama is reaching out to the Islamic world, declaring that efforts to build trust and peace are showing promise but are still clearly "incomplete." Obama on Wednesday will deliver one of the most personal and potentially consequential speeches of his presidency, reflecting on his own years of upbringing in Indonesia and giving an update on America's "new beginning" with Muslims that he promised last year in Cairo. At the same time, the path to lasting peace in the Middle East was hardly looking smoother. A reminder of that...

BRUSSELS — Arab nations may seek UN recognition of a Palestinian state if Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, Egypt's foreign minister said Friday.

Israel’s Audacity of Being by Ari Bussel My heart is aching. I am hurting. It feels like an elephant is standing on my chest, a belt tightening or two hands gripping my neck forcefully. My lungs constrict, air is unable to pass through to the millions of nodes and from there to the brain. I am suffocating. “Relax. Control yourself,” I tell my brain, but the feeling remains, chocking me. Inside my body, circulating in the blood, are trillions of tiny bubbles, all threatening to explode. The pressure has been building for some time, and there is no escape. In...

On the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and the yartzeit this month of more than 2,500 Israel soldiers who gave their lives in a war for the very survival of the State and the protection of their homes and families, the United States has nearly completed the turn of its policy. The objective of American diplomacy used to be to ensure that Israel received the recognition of the Arab States that it was due as a member of the United Nations. That recognition was to have resulted in the "secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of...

It is 'highly unlikely, if not impossible', says Mosab Hassan Yousef - 'Son of Hamas -- as he weighs in on this controversial topic Born in Ramallah, in the Palestinian West Bank in 1978, Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the best-selling book, "Son of Hamas" (published by Tyndale House and written with Ron Brackin, a veteran Special Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service), has weighed in on the thorny question, "Will Palestinian statehood bring peace?" Yousef says, "This is a big question and not an easy one to answer. I long for an independent state as much as any Palestinian....

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad published a plan in August 2009 to unilaterally declare statehood after a two-year state-building process. The Fayyad plan involves numerous governance components that already exist within the various frameworks composing the Oslo Accords, which already enable the Palestinians to develop their state-building capabilities within the peace process, and not necessarily as a unilateral initiative outside the process. The only valid legal framework between the Israelis and the Palestinians remains the 1995 Interim Agreement, which represents the source of authority for the existence of the Palestinian governance and its component institutions. The Interim Agreement established that:...

November 05, 2009 At the J Street meeting By Lori Lowenthal Marcus The Washington conference of the new organization "J Street" took place on October 25-28. It was a fascinating but scary cultural experience. For three days I watched hundreds of intensely pious people sitting under an awning that reads "pro-Israel, pro-peace." But by far the dearest hopes of the folks on J Street were for the well-being, and especially the sovereignty, of a people whose leadership has stated repeatedly that its goal is to destroy Israel and murder Jews. I saw two overarching themes defining this conference: one, Iran...

What makes Obama think that a Palestinian state will make Iran hate Israel any less than it does now? You would think the President of the United States would give pause before engaging Iran. You would think the President of the United States would be wary of a country that has aided insurgents to kill American soldiers in Iraq. You would think the President of the United States would proceed cautiously towards a country that created Hezbollah, a terrorist organization responsible for killing 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut. You would think the President of the United States would be mindful...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will refuse on his trip to Washington to back the formation of a Palestinian state, an MP close to the premier said on Saturday, according to national radio. Netanyahu "will not make a commitment to Washington on the creation of a Palestinian state which would undoubtedly become a 'Hamastan'," Ophir Akunis from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party was quoted as saying, referring to the Islamic movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and favours armed struggle against Israel. The hawkish prime minister is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Sunday ahead of his maiden meeting with...

While the outlines of a two-state solution are generally known, the maximum that any government of Israel will be ready to offer the Palestinians and still survive politically is much less than the minimum that any Palestinian leader can accept. The real gap between both sides is much greater than what is perceived, and that gap is growing. The level of trust between both sides has changed. There are fewer Israelis who believe that the real intention of the Palestinians is to have only a small Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, there is less trust in...

It has become almost axiomatic in U.S. and European foreign policy circles that Israel and the Palestinians were on the verge of reaching a two-state peace agreement at the end of the Clinton administration, but that it was not finalized because of political circumstances in the United States, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority (PA). President Bill Clinton's term was coming to an end, Prime Minister Ehud Barak had lost his parliamentary majority, and Yasser Arafat preferred to resort to violence through a second intifada, instead of taking an offer that had been based partly on back-channel contacts with his key...

When asked about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state. Gov. Huckabee, who has visited Israel nine times, also expressed support for moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and stressed the importance...

June 18, 2007 JINSA Report #674Message to the President as PM Olmert Comes to Washington [Ed. Note: this is part of a series about the demise of the Palestinian experiment in self-government and the implications for U.S. policy in the region.] Mr. President, in the interest of the Palestinian people, please withdraw formal American support for an independent Palestinian state. There are people in the region who have staked everything on you and still look to you for moral clarity. Israel and Jordan are the friends of American interests that the Palestinians never wanted to be, and they need...

HAIFA - The Arab world has never come to terms with Israel's existence within ANY set of borders whatsoever and is still seeking the annihilation of Israel and its population. The only reason the PLO ever wanted control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was to use them as bases for attacks on Israel. This is the only real use to which they will be put by any future Palestinian State. Palestinians are Arabs. The Arabs already rule 22 States. There is no reason why they should be entitled to a 23rd State, and creation of a 23rd Arab...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas a "terrorist" and accused him of transferring more than $1 million to militants to carry out attacks against Israel, in an interview with Time magazine released Friday. Haniyeh aide Ghazi Hamad said Olmert's statements were "confused and irresponsible". Israel has been urging other countries to shun Haniyeh and the government, citing Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel or renounce violence...

Arab leaders will formally relaunch a five-year-old initiative on Thursday to trade peace for land and end the Arab-Israeli conflict which is at the heart of the region's problems. A summit, which began on Wednesday, has drawn several world and Muslim leaders who backed the Arab peace plan offering Israel normal ties with all Arab countries in return for its withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. "The Arab peace initiative is one of the pillars for the peace process. This initiative sends a signal that the Arabs are serious about achieving peace," U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon...

GAZA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified militants stormed on Monday an office of the Palestinian state-run television in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, Palestinian witnesses said. The militants briefly clashed with security members guarding the building housing the office of the Palestine TV before breaking into it, said the witnesses. The militants destroyed equipment in the office and smashed the transmitter connecting the office with the TV's headquarters in Gaza City, the witnesses added. General Director of the Palestine TV Mohammed Dahoudi accused the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of being behind the storm and slammed the group...