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Time Warner Cable customers could be watching Al Jazeera America before they see CBS again. TWC spokesman Eric Mangan confirmed a Huffington Post report Monday that the company was in "active discussions" with the new cable news network, which is scheduled to start broadcasting next week.

Iran’s new defense minister is behind past terror attacks against Americans and Israelis, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported on Monday. The Islamic Republic’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has appointed Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan as the new defense minister. Dehgan, according to a report by Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, a senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was responsible for attacks against U.S. and Israeli forces in Lebanon in the 1980s. …

Hamas has finally admitted that it is the Egyptians, and not Israel, who have turned the Gaza Strip into a “big prison.” … Why haven’t the “pro-Palestine” activists been sent to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to voice solidarity with the residents of the “big prison”? The answer is obvious: First, the activists’ main goal is to condemn Israel and hold it solely responsible for the miseries of Palestinians. The activists do not care about the Palestinians’ suffering as much as they are interested in advancing their anti-Israel agenda. They devote most of their energies and efforts...

<p>This year's Ramadan was the most violence since 2007, with 671 people killed. Police said the deadliest of today's attacks took place when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a residential area in the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding dozens. "My shop's windows were smashed and smoke filled the whole area," says a shoe shop owner, who survived an attack near his store in New Baghdad. "I went outside of the shop and I could hardly see because of the smoke. ... At the end, we had a terrible day that was supposed to be nice because of Eid."</p>

A wave of bomb attacks hit Iraq over the weekend, as people celebrated the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, with more than 60 reported dead. The BBC reported that 11 bombs targeted both Shiite and Sunni areas of the capital, Baghdad, hitting cafes, markets and restaurants in at least nine different districts. A bomb also killed at least 10 people in Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital. This Ramadan in Iraq is thought to have been one of the deadliest in years, with more than 670 people killed. Most of the violence in the past six months...

Fresh clashes erupted Saturday between groups of Hindus and Muslims in the Indian portion of Kashmir, wounding three people, police said. The rival groups also burned some homes in Paddar, a village about 50 kilometers (40 miles) north of the town of Kishtwar, where clashes between Muslims and Hindus during Muslim holiday celebrations Friday killed at least two people and injured 24. Police rushed to Paddar on Saturday to control the situation, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. …

Muslims in Ethiopia protested in the capital Addis Ababa during Eid al-Fitr prayers on Thursday, as part of a two-year-old campaign against what they say is government interference in their religious affairs. … Demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar” and hoisted banners that read “respect the constitution”, referring to allegations that the government has tried to influence the highest Muslim affairs body, the Ethiopia Islamic Affairs Supreme Council. Ethiopia, long seen by the West as a bulwark against militant Islam in the Horn of Africa, denies the claims, but says it fears militancy is taking root in the country. …

A former Danish Islamist who seven years ago traveled the Muslim world fueling the uproar over newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad is back in the headlines in Denmark after doing an about-face on the issue. Once a leading critic of the Danish cartoons, which sparked fiery protests in Muslim countries, Lebanese-born Ahmad Akkari now says the Jyllands-Posten newspaper had the right to print them. His unexpected change of heart has received praise from pundits and politicians in recent weeks, though some question his sincerity. It has also disappointed some in the country’s Muslim minority who were deeply offended by...

she was sold to Azam Khan, 34, who allegedly raped her three times and assaulted her twice while keeping her prisoner. He denies the charges. Nusrat, 40, and Mashrafat Khan, 61, of Colne Road, Burnley, also deny charges of trafficking a person for exploitation under the Asylum and Immigration Act. They are accused of having signed wedding documents at the fake marriage ceremony. . .. . It is also alleged the victim, who comes from a Romany gipsy community in eastern Slovakia, was forced into a sham marriage with Azam Khan at the mosque in Brougham Street. The court was...

Alarmed at the fresh targeting of Egyptian Christians since the military takeover, 16 human rights groups on Wednesday condemned both sides in the continuing standoff—Islamists for inciting violence against the religious minority and the state for not providing adequate protection. … As Egyptian Muslims prepared to mark the end-of-Ramadan Eid holiday on Thursday, their Orthodox Coptic compatriots have little to celebrate. Attacks against Christians have increased over the past month, with churches, homes and stores targeted, a Coptic priest shot dead, and several other Christians killed—including a shopkeeper in the Sinai who was kidnapped and beheaded. Last weekend in a...

Guards were preparing to serve the first in a series of special meals Wednesday to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to mark the end of the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, which this year brought a lull in a long-running hunger strike. The military planned to serve lamb, bread, dates and honey as the last daylight fasting period of Ramadan ends, followed by three traditional holiday dinners on Thursday, said a spokesman for the prison, Navy Capt. Robert Durand. There will also be a special hour-long prayer for the holiday known as Eid al-Fitr in addition to the five daily prayers....

A bill introduced in the U.S. House would move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Capital of the State of Israel Act is sponsored by a bipartisan group of five representatives, the Israeli news agency Ynetnews reported Saturday. They say the move would show U.S. support for Israel and would save money. The bill recommends the United States convert the Tel Aviv Embassy to a consulate or sell it. The sponsors are Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Brad Sherman, D-Calif., Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., Gene Green, D-Texas, and Juan Vargas, D-Calif. They cite both political and religious reasons...

...Those who talk about a durable peace are by definition giving up on Palestine...

A little over two years ago, on July 8 2011, a convoy carrying the then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford made its way through army checkpoints to the besieged city of Hama, then the center of protests against the rule of the Assad regime. The surprise visit was seen as the first concrete sign of US support for the Syrian opposition. … But these days, the veteran US diplomat is being showered with invective and diatribe—on Twitter. The latest social media campaign against Ford was sparked by media reports over the weekend that US Secretary of State John Kerry...

Unrest in Egypt could turn into “all-out bloodshed” in coming days if efforts to find a political solution fail, U.S. Senator John McCain warned on Tuesday during a visit to Cairo. “Oh my God; I didn’t know it was this bad. These folks are just days or weeks away from all-out bloodshed,” McCain said during an interview in Cairo with “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.” McCain and fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham met with Egypt’s new rulers as reports said the country’s military-installed government could soon announce that foreign efforts to mediate a peaceful end to the country’s political...

The Egyptian government is set to declare on Wednesday that foreign mediation efforts to end the political crisis in the country have failed, Reuters reported Tuesday night, citing the Al-Ahram newspaper. … It would also declare that Muslim Brotherhood protests against the army’s overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi were non-peaceful—a signal that the government intends to end them by force. The report appeared hours after two senior U.S. senators on a mediation mission said they considered Morsi’s removal to have been a military coup—causing an uproar in the Egyptian media and drawing a strong riposte from the acting president. The...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said there is “no question” that al-Qaeda is on the run, even though U.S. outposts remain closed due to terror threats throughout the world. “We do stand by that,” Carney said on Tuesday when asked if he stands by his previous comments that al-Qaeda has been weakened despite the recent threat, according to the pool report. “There's no question that core al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been severely diminished,” he said. …

Two Republican senators said Tuesday that they´ve personally urged the Egyptian government to release Muslim Brotherhood prisoners, after hosting meetings with top officials in Cairo as part of an Obama administration-sanctioned visit. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is in Cairo along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-.S.C., made clear that the two U.S. lawmakers are representing the views of Congress and "do not speak for the White House." Still, they are among the most prominent U.S. representatives in the country this week, as a wave of international mediators tries to nudge the country´s military-backed government to resolve the standoff

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Who can forget Hamas’ answer to Mickey Mouse, Farfur, who together with his co-host Saraa, preached antisemitism and encouraged children to take part in terrorism? … Now, the Egyptian voice of Donald Duck has illustrated how such hatred goes far deeper than a pre-written script, adding his voice to the chorus of hate by tweeting a distinctly non-child-friendly message. Wael Mansour, who on his profile claims to be an “Egyptian Singer, TV & Radio Host… Official voice of Donald Duck in Disney Middle East,” tweeted yesterday that “I truly wish #Israel is demolished, I hate Zionism, I have so much...

Despite pledges by US President Barack Obama and key congressional leaders to shield the Israeli Iron Dome from sequestration cuts, Israel has offered to waive funding protection, reports Defense News, which says Israel has been “insisting it should bear its share of the burden.” “Our position is we must bear the burden that our American friends are bearing,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, told the website in an interview to be published in an upcoming edition. Sources from both countries told the website that this is “a painful, yet pragmatic price for the goodwill to be generated among longtime...

<p>FORT COLLINS, COLO. – Police in Fort Collins, Colo., are alerting religious organizations to a self-described "Islamist jihadist" who is threatening the demise of Mormons and Catholics at sites across Arizona and Colorado.</p>

A French government agency responsible for maintaining the country’s secular values has recommended banning university students from wearing religious symbols such as crucifixes, Jewish skullcaps and Muslim headscarves. In a report seen by French daily Le Monde on Monday, the High Council for Integration (HCI) said it was alarmed by “growing tensions in all sectors of university life” that were undermining the country’s secular values.

A polarized Egypt will likely remain enveloped in violence because the Muslim Brotherhood lacks incentive to rejoin the political process, a regional expert said Monday. Almost 300 people have died since Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader, on July 3. Morsi’s authoritarian rule prompted secular Egyptians and others to back the military’s actions, but supporters of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood argue that the country’s first democratically elected leader should be reinstated. The Muslim Brotherhood has refused to “swallow the reality” of Morsi’s exit, despite pleas from international diplomats and an offer by the military...

A prominent leader of the Muslim community in Toronto took advantage of the Al-Quds Day rally in the city’s downtown to incite against Israel and wish for the end of Zionism, Shalom Toronto reports. … Zafar Bangash, a noted Islamic movement journalist and commentator and a leader of the Muslim community in Toronto, spoke at the rally and stressed the importance of focusing on the struggle to “liberate” the Al-Aqsa mosque, according to Shalom Toronto. … He described a vision “for the future of Palestine” as the establishment of a state not based on ethnic cleansing, but one which treats...

Why are we on high alert today, after al Qaeda was ‘beaten’? Because US inaction and massive jailbreaks have freed thousands of terrorists We may be winning the War on Terrorists, but increasingly we’re losing the terrorists we’ve captured on the battlefield, dooming us to fight them all over again. The metric the Obama adminstration uses to measure success in the war is the number of al Qaeda operatives and other high-value terrorists killed or captured. “Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat,” the president said last fall, “and Osama bin Laden is dead.” Obama also said the upper...

The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday expanded its list of West Bank settlements eligible for government subsidies, a decision that came just days after the resumption of long-frozen peace talks and drew quick Palestinian condemnation. The Cabinet approved a range of housing subsidies and loans for more than 600 Israeli communities deemed “national priority areas,” expanding an earlier list. The list includes poor towns in Israel’s outlying areas, but also dozens of settlements. The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem—lands Israel captured in 1967—and renewed talks are to draw Israel’s borders with such...

It is a ritual that has become part of the political scenery. As Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiators gear up for “peace talks” with their Israeli counterparts, and as the Israeli government prepares to make “good will gestures” which include releasing 104 convicted murderers, the PA’s own TV stations continue to broadcast programs which appear uninhibited by such feelings of “good will.” A recent Ramadan TV competition (video below), exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, offers PA Arabs $100 if they guess the correct answers in a quiz about the geography of “Palestine”—which includes Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Ashdod and Meron,...

BURLINGTON, Vt. — A Bosnian immigrant accused of lying to U.S. immigration authorities by denying involvement in war crimes during the conflict in Bosnia two decades ago pleaded not guilty on Friday. Prosecutors allege Edin Sakoc, who has been living in Burlington, the state's largest city, was involved in war crimes against a civilian Bosnian Serb family in 1992. An indictment says he raped a Serb woman and aided in the killing of the two elderly people she was caring for and the burning of the house they were staying in. ... Vermont has a sizable Bosnian community. Between 1993...

Wielding a high-powered pistol and crying “Allahu akbar!”, (Major Nidal Hasan) shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 others at the Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas, on 5 November 2009. Hasan, who proudly admits to carrying out the attack, is due to stand trial from Tuesday for 13 counts of murder and 32 of attempted murder. He faces a potential death sentence. Survivors, however, remain furious that even as he grew more openly radicalized, Hasan was left untroubled by military authorities who have still not been held to account for failing to prevent his massacre. Despite warning classmates...

Over the weekend a memorial was held at the Treblinka concentration camp to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1943 uprising at the camp. Roughly 875,000 people were murdered in Treblinka during the Holocaust, nearly all of them Jews. In 1943 prisoners rebelled. While most were killed, several hundred managed to escape, and the uprising damaged the camp badly enough to slow the mass murder at the site. Deputy Minister of Education Avi Wortzman represented Israel at the ceremony. In his speech, he spoke about the horror of the Holocaust, and also replied to an Arab-Israeli MK’s recent claim, in...

Tunisian authorities say a suspected religious extremist blew himself up while making a bomb in a home he was renting near the capital. … Separately, the interior ministry says an “extremist” was arrested on Friday after he blew off his hand while handling explosives in Menzel Bourguiba, 43 miles from Tunis. …

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry backed away Friday from his candid comments that seemed to signal American support for the Egyptian military coup and the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi. The U.S. has tried hard not to appear as if it is taking sides in the crisis. But when Kerry said Thursday in Pakistan that the Egyptian military was “restoring democracy” in leading the July 3 coup, it left the impression that the U.S. backed the military action. Kerry moved quickly to defuse the flap, saying on Friday that all parties—the military as well as pro-Morsi demonstrators—needed to work...

With a possible Iranian nuclear breakthrough looming despite sanctions and covert action by the West, U.S. officials are hoping a more moderate incoming president will offer a unique opportunity for an accord on the issue. Hassan Rowhani will be inaugurated Sunday, ending the contentious eight-year presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. U.S. officials are already watching as he assembles his foreign policy team, hoping to get an idea on what direction nuclear policy will take. The concerns are heightened by a study released this week by the respected Institute for Science and International Security, saying that by mid-2014, Iran is expected to...

Many French citizens have traveled in Israel as part of their annual holiday, but this week a few hundred of them landed at Ben Gurion Airport—forever. Three flights arrived from Paris and another one made its way from Marseilles. On the aircraft were new immigrants who said they were fulfilling a dream. “I feel I’ve arrived home; making aliyah is a dream come true,” said Sabrina Kozirov, 40, who came from France with her husband and two teenage daughters. … Kozirov said, “The situation in France had become unbearable. There is a large Muslim community and harsh political criticism of...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the Egyptian army, which deposed President Mohammed Morsi, had intervened at the request of millions to protect democracy and had restored it, AFP reported. Kerry made the remarks in a interview in Pakistan, where he earlier congratulated the new government on an historic transition of democratic power in a country long dominated by the military. …

British Foreign Secretary William Hague signalled on Wednesday that Britain was open to improved relations with Iran on a “step-by-step” basis, following talks with his counterpart in Tehran, reported the Daily Telegraph. … A Foreign Office statement quoted by the Daily Telegraph said Britain and Iran could explore improved ties in the face of the need for “urgent progress” to resolve the West’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. …

Author Reza Aslan believes that Jesus probably lacked the education to read a book like the Bible. Or the Torah, or any other written text for that matter, no matter the language. Aslan’s new book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” is a revisionist take on the life of Jesus, arguing that his message of love was aimed more at a Jewish audience than a global one, that his attitude toward violence was “far more complex” than is generally thought, and that he was “very likely” illiterate. All of these claims appear to be directly contradicted by...

Israelis who believe the Temple Mount should remain in Israeli hands must take urgent action, Likud MK Moshe Feiglin warned Thursday. Feiglin, who heads the Jewish Leadership faction of the Likud party, visited the Temple Mount on Thursday despite knowing he would find it locked to Jews, as a display of protest. In an “unprecedented” move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists...

“The study of antisemitism,” admits Bruno Chaouat, a professor of French in Minnesota, “can be tedious.” This admirably candid confession appears relatively early in the pages of Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives, a collection of nineteen new essays edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, the distinguished director of Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and author of several major books about the Holocaust. Chaouat is right, of course: while a single anecdote about irrational hate can breed sorrow, anger, and/or shock, a thick book consisting entirely of such material is more likely to be, quite simply, numbing. It is...

Two city bus passengers helped police catch a man accused of spitting on a bus driver and clobbering him with a rock Sunday afternoon, Albuquerque police said. About 1:30 p.m., bus driver Robert Gallegos was driving a bus north of Montgomery on San Mateo when 37-year-old Michael Fisher got on the bus, spat in Gallegos’ face and whacked him with a large rock, causing a head injury, according to Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Simon Drobik. Gallegos was taken to Presbyterian Hospital for observation and required either stitches or staples for a wound that drew blood, he said.

Israel will consider tightening its gun control laws this year, in response to a heightened rate of criminal incidents involving firearms. Over the past several months there have been a number shooting attacks unrelated to terrorism. … Public Security Minister MK Yitzchak Aharonovitch (Likud-Yisrael Beiteynu) … plans to change the guidelines for issuing gun permits, so that applicants will have to receive approval from a psychologist in order to receive a license. If they fail that test, they will have to receive the approval from a psychiatrist. …

In an “unprecedented” move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists for a mass-protest on 7th August, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul. Temple Mount activists had complained that for the past three days the Temple Mount—the holiest place in Judaism—remained inexplicably closed to non-Muslim visitors. The only “explanation” offered was a bland sign which simply read “Today the Temple...

Plumbing new depths in the battle for television ratings, abandoned babies are being given away on a controversial prime-time game show in Pakistan. TV host Aamir Liaquat Hussain presented baby girls to two unsuspecting couples during his show, which is broadcast live for seven hours a day during the month of Ramadan. … The baby girls given away on the show were found by an NGO, the Chhipa Welfare Association, which says it receives up to 15 abandoned babies a month. … “Pakistan wake up,” Shamim Mahmood wrote on the NGO’s Facebook page. “Babies are not trophies to be handed...

Christians in Nigeria are an endangered species, according to Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Oritsejafor met this week with U.S. lawmakers, pleading for help in combating the Islamist groups, which have mercilessly attacked Christian communities for the past several years—making Nigeria one of the most dangerous places in the world for Christians. …

Pakistani lawmakers elected a textile businessman who briefly served as the governor of southern Sindh province as the country’s next president Tuesday, the election commission chief said, a result that was widely expected. The election of Mamnoon Hussain, nominated by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N party, followed a late night attack by 150 Taliban militants on a prison, illustrating one of the major challenges facing the new president. The fighters freed more than 250 prisoners, including 38 suspected militants, and killed 14 people, including guards and Shiite Muslim prisoners, officials said. … Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will remain the most...

The Haifa District Court has found four Arabs guilty of attempted manslaughter in the lynching murder of Eden-Natan Zada, a Jewish soldier who murdered four people on a bus because of his anti-Arab sentiments. The four are Basel Hatib, Naaman Bahous, Basel Kadari and Jamil Safouri. A mob of Arabs was awaiting the decision outside the court and threatening violence if the accused are convicted of murder. Two other accused men, Arkan Kurbazh and Fadi Nasrallah, were convicted of aggravated assault, and a seventh, Munir Zakout, was exonerated. The murders took place on August 4, 2005, during the Terror War...

Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas presented a racist and hateful vision of a future Palestinian state when he spoke to reporters in Cairo Monday. “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli—civilian or soldier—on our lands,” he told a group of reporters, most of them Egyptians, on Monday. … Even now, Jews are not permitted to live inside the PA-controlled territory, and the sale of land to Jews is punishable by death. …

Turkish Airlines’ Israeli office is currently being investigated for alleged tax evasion amounting to over 1.5 million shekels ($418,000), the Justice Ministry said Monday, according to the Israel Hayom daily. The newspaper quoted a statement published by the Ministry which said that the Tel Aviv District Prosecution’s Taxes and Economics Department is considering pressing criminal charges against the company as well as the head of its local office, Fatih Dogan, for failing to meet Israel’s Tax Authority guidelines for foreign companies operating in Israel. … The Tel Aviv District Prosecution believes that between 2006 and 2010 the airline filed false...

The White House condemned on Monday the “bloodshed and violence” in Egypt but took no immediate steps to suspend U.S. military assistance to the country, Al Arabiya reported. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the weekend violence, in which 80 people were killed in Cairo, sets back the process of democratization in Egypt and does not square with the interim government’s pledge to swiftly return to civilian rule. … Asked, however, if the violence would prompt the United States to suspend aid to Egypt’s military, Earnest said, “I don’t have any change in our posture to report to you today.”...