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Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas official, on Wednesday told the Associated Press (AP) in Istanbul that the terror group would agree to a ceasefire of five years or more, and agree to lay down its weapons, if an independent Palestinian state were created along the pre-1967 borders. Al-Hayya has represented Hamas in negotiations for a ceasefire deal and prisoner swap. In the interview with AP, he said that Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by Palestinian Authorty (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, to form a unified government for Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. According to al-Hayya, Hamas is...

Think the IRA has stepped off the world stage? Their role is closer to that of ringleader. One of America’s most influential terrorist enemies traces its lineage back some thirty years — and it isn’t a Muslim organization.In splinter groups like the Continuity IRA and more recently the Real IRA, Irish terrorists have positioned themselves at the center of a network connecting revolutionary FARC rebels in Colombia, Hezbollah in the Middle East, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Taliban forces in Afghanistan currently fighting and killing American troops. The IRA and PFLP have trained together and coordinated attacks, weapons smuggling, and other...

The Hamas-affiliated newspaper Felesteen reported that the head of the UNRWA workers’ union in Gaza, Amir al-Mishal, said in his speech to the demonstrators that “the people who gathered here came to express their right to return.” He added that “rights are not received with supplication, but must be obtained by force.” Mishal called on the international community to assume its legal, moral and humanitarian responsibility for UNRWA until the return of refugees to their land, homeland and homes. He praised the Palestinian Arabs who will participate in “peaceful” demonstrations on Friday and in the so-called large-scale “March of the...

"As Pro-Palestinian Flotilla Activists Gather in NYC, Jewish Group Urges State Dept. to Probe Links to Terrorism" Thursday, June 17, 2010 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Tensions in the Middle East over the recent Gaza flotilla incident could surface in New York City on Thursday evening, when a pro-Palestinian group hosts flotilla activists at a public meeting Jewish activists have tried to thwart. An organization called Al-Awda (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition) is holding a meeting in a Brooklyn church featuring a leading official in IHH, the controversial Turkish organization behind the attempt to break Israel’s...

Opposition leader and Zionist Union chief Isaac Herzog agreed to far reaching concessions on the eve of the 2015 election, a report by Channel 10 on Sunday revealed. Herzog, who prior to the election was seen as a viable candidate for Prime Minister, signed a secret letter of understanding with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, agreeing to a number of long-standing Arab demands. Among the subjects covered in the letter are the division of Jerusalem, the future disposition of Judea and Samaria, and the so-called “right of return” for Arabs who left the country in 1948. According to the agreement,...

Opposition leader and Zionist Union chief Isaac Herzog agreed to far reaching concessions on the eve of the 2015 election, a report by Channel 10 on Sunday revealed. Herzog, who prior to the election was seen as a viable candidate for Prime Minister, signed a secret letter of understanding with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, agreeing to a number of long-standing Arab demands. Among the subjects covered in the letter are the division of Jerusalem, the future disposition of Judea and Samaria, and the so-called “right of return” for Arabs who left the country in 1948. According to the agreement,...

Hamas is rejecting the Arab Peace Initiative and calling on Arab countries to stop promoting it. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a member of Hamas' political bureau, on Thursday said the initiative is a threat to vital Palestinian interests. In an interview with the Al-Arabi Al Jadid newspaper, Zahar called on Arab countries not to promote the Arab Peace Initiative, explaining that it is merely a mechanism that will eliminate the idea of ​​establishing a Palestinian state, due to the fact that negotiations with Israel have proven to be a failure. The Arab peoples, Zahar continued, should first and foremost be concerned about...

Israel’s Right of Return also gives citizenship to spouses of the same sex when Jews choose to immigrate to Israel together, Interior Minister Gidon Sa’ar (Likud) decided Tuesday. According to Sa’ar’s decision, gay and lesbian Jews married abroad wishing to immigrate to Israel could do so—even if one of the partners is not Jewish—and both would receive Israeli citizenship. “The gates of Israel will be open to every Jew and his family without any discrimination against his lifestyle,” Sa’ar stated, in the precedent-setting decision. […] The landmark decision surfaces amid ongoing tension over what defines a “family” in Israel, and...

Over 20% of Israelis feel more “Jewish” than “Israeli,” a poll revealed Sunday, and the percentage rises among the younger and religious populations. BINA, an organization for Jewish identity in Israel, released the poll ahead of Israeli Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut). The organization polled 500 men and women from across the religious spectrum in Israel as a representative sample of public opinion, and aims to check the level of religious and national identity in Israel—both now, and for the future. More religious Israeli identify primarily as “Jewish,” according to the poll. 49.5% of the Orthodox community feels more “Jewish” than...

Muslims Demand "Right of Return" to Spain Muslim groups are demanding Spanish citizenship for potentially millions of descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain during the Middle Ages. The growing clamor for "historical justice" comes after the recent approval of a law that would grant Spanish citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. Muslim supporters say they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as Jews because both groups were expelled from Spain under similar historical circumstances. But historians point out that the Jewish presence in Spain predates the arrival of Christianity in the...

Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, condemned on Thursday a report by the Church of Scotland that questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel. Taub said the document “negates and belittles the deeply held Jewish attachment to the land of Israel in a way which is truly hurtful.” … The church paper, entitled “The Inheritance of Abraham,” which was published online by the Church and Society Council of the Church of Scotland just days before its May 18 General Assembly, selectively highlights scriptural and theological claims of Jews to the land, and rejects verses in...

Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s observation that “some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them,” on April 6th and 7th, Boston University will be hosting a Students for Justice in Palestine-run “Right of Return Conference,” yet another example of how purported scholarship about the Middle East is frequently biased and diluted by ideology. Most sentient observers of the Palestinian issue know that the “right of return” issue is a core tactic in rendering real peace, any viable Arab/Israeli solution, effectively impossible, that the prospect of some 5-7 million Palestinian refugees flooding into what is now...

The relationship between the Jewish community and the Church of England has taken a downward turn following its decision to strengthen ties with an anti-Israel group. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the Board of Deputies of British Jews has pulled out of meetings this week with Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the archbishop of Canterbury. A motion is also set to be raised at the board’s monthly meeting in which the deputies will call on the organization to sever all ties to the Church of England. At its General Synod in York on Monday, the Church’s highest legislative...

<p>BAIER: Charles, we are just getting word from the Associated Press that President Obama personally intervened to change the Democratic platform language on Jerusalem and God. That is crossing the AP wire. So, obviously, it was important for the Obama campaign to deal with this.</p>

Politicians need patience when they’re dealing with voters, shaking hands and kissing babies. But Herman Cain has never held political office before and there are signs he’s none too happy with some of the press coverage that comes along with his unlikely run for the GOP presidential nomination. At one point during a speech Friday to a ‘Right to Life’ convention in Jacksonville, Florida, he said some “nitpicky reporters” were going to call him out about his historical knowledge and then later he said during his speech “My challenge to you is, we cannot just push back, we have got...

Herman Cain, an official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, spoke at the RightOnline Conference on Saturday. The RightOnline Conference “brings together influential new media experts, representatives of conservative organizations, and hundreds of citizen activists to provide important leadership and grassroots training.” This year’s RightOnline Conference was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “You are here, because you care. You want to be informed. You are involved and you are inspired to take this nation back,” Cain told the crowd. A focus on the individual and his or her role in the 2012 presidential election has been a common bipartisan theme this...

“Israel was established by a UN resolution in 1947,” AP quoted Rajoub as saying. “I think our right is to go to the UN and ask them to implement the other birth certificate for the other state.” Referring to the possibility of a third Arab intifada, Rajoub said violence was “not on our schedule.” These comments are in line with ones recently made by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in April that the second intifada in 2000 was ‘disastrous’ for the ‘Palestinian nation’ and said he ‘would not accept’ a third intifada even if current peace efforts fail. One...

MINNEAPOLIS — About 15 bloggers got a rare glimpse at an angry Herman Cain, when the Republican presidential candidate’s temper flared briefly during an informal press conference Saturday. The normally genial Atlanta businessman became angry when Evan McMorris-Santoro, a writer for the liberal blog Talking Points Memo, asked whether Cain would apply “special precautions” in hiring Muslims. “If you’re trying to make me lose my cool, you’re almost succeeding,” Cain said, after McMorris-Santoro raised the question — one Cain had addressed at some length to begin the press conference — and when the TMP writer attempted to reiterate the question,...

Dear Mr. Cain, Many conservatives have been touting your candidacy for president as cause for great hope that they will be able to support someone who understands limited government and freedom. That’s why your answers to Wolf Blitzer’s questions on gun control (see sidebar video player at 3:04 mark) have raised concerns among right to keep and bear arms advocates. Specifically, you affirmed your belief that “states or local government [should] be allowed to control guns.” That's the same "home rule" position advocated by the Brady Campaign. Some in the conservative camp are trying to find excuses for you, telling...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michele Bachmann was campaigning just north of here, the Sarah Palin tour was rumored to be arriving soon, and Mitt Romney was on his way to announce his entry into the presidential race. Yet here was another voter swooning for Herman Cain. “I watched you at the Republican debate, and I have to be honest, I’d never heard of you, but ever since then ... ” said Nathan Lyons, 29, his voice trailing off wistfully. “You say it like it is.”Joan Silvernail, 68, shook Cain’s hand, then turned to her husband. “It’s his enthusiasm,” she said. “Wasn’t...