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MYTH “One million Palestinians were expelled by Israel from 1947–49.” FACT The Palestinians left their homes in 1947–49 for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders’ calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle.Many Arabs claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1947–49. The last census taken by the British in 1945 found approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine....

The International Criminal Court has begun considering whether to investigate alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Hague-based ICC said on Friday it had "opened a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine". It is an automatic step taken by the court upon a referral. The Palestinians have asked the ICC to investigate Israeli "crimes" since June 2014. Israel and the US have strongly criticised the Palestinians' move. After the Palestinians applied to join the ICC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they had chosen "a path of confrontation" and that Israel would "not sit idly by". Israel...

With the arrival of approximately two million people from around the world in Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage, there are a group of pilgrims who were not welcomed. The Saudi government has banned the entry of travelers from three countries currently dealing with the Ebola epidemic: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The decision to reject visa requests from these countries has affected 7,400 people, according to the Associated Press. Hospitals in Saudi Arabia are also preparing in the event of an outbreak by setting up isolation and surgery units as well as dispatching medical staff to airports. Despite...

For the second time on Tuesday evening, a rocket was launched at central Israel from the Gaza Strip. An Iron Dome battery intercepted a projectile over the greater Tel Aviv area. Sirens sounded in various cities in central Israel on Tuesday night and blasts were heard in Tel Aviv. The air raid siren was activated in cities including Rishon Lezion, Bat Yam, Holon and Bnei Barak, but not in Tel Aviv. Earlier on Tuesday evening, the Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted a projectile near Tel Aviv over the city of Rishon Lezion, as air raid sirens sounded in central...

obama-is-a-terrorist-A recent Gulf News report sheds some light on how and why the United States helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies to power, followed by all the subsequent chaos and atrocities in the Mideast region. Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context: Dubai: For the past decade, two successive US administrations have maintained close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya, to name just the most prominent cases. The Obama administration conducted an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 and 2011, beginning even before the events...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) publishes a weekly webzine, The Islamic State Report. The latest issue is headlined “Smashing the Borders of the Tawaghit.” (“Tawaghit” are non-Muslim creations.) ISIS, citing the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 between the British and French, boasts that it is destroying the “partitioning of Muslim lands by crusader powers.” That may seem like a quixotic task for a relatively small band of irregulars, but in trying to redraw the map of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has hit upon a weak link in the chain holding the nations of the Middle East together. It...

The Obama Administration has led America down the wrong road.An article at Front Page Magazine presents two excellent YouTube videos. The first video knits together the multiple kerfuffles in the Middle East -- Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and, indeed, the entire Middle East. The discussion of Iraq begins at 00:08:00. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUz9-fhF9uw] Video link President Obama discusses the Middle East with His chief military adviserThe second video suggests why libruls make themselves dangerously unaware of the evils of Islam. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn0km52dCIg] Video linkWhy do librul feminists tend to ignore female genital mutilation? Do they lack compassion or simply hope to ignore what is...

Blessed are the peace makers. But don’t confuse peace makers with peace processors. The latter think they can persuade the lion to lie down with the lamb. The former are realistic enough to grasp how perilous that is unless the lion has just had a big dinner and a couple of stiff drinks. Sad to say, Secretary of State John Kerry has proven to be a peace processor, one loath to acknowledge that the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have come to a very dead end. Actually, they never moved off the starting blocks. Let’s stipulate that Kerry is...

The weekend ended with the first tangible sign of a nuclear deal with Iran, after more than three decades of hostility. Then on Monday came the announcement that a conference will convene in January to try to broker an end to the civil war in Syria. The success of either negotiation, both long sought by President Obama, is hardly assured — in fact the odds may be against them. But the two nearly simultaneous developments were vivid statements that diplomacy, the venerable but often-unsatisfying art of compromise, has once again become the centerpiece of American foreign policy. But it also...

A historic deal was struck early Sunday between Iran and six world powers over Tehran's nuclear program that freezes the country's nuclear development program in exchange for lifting some sanction while a more formal agreement is worked out. The agreement -- described as an "initial, six-month" deal -- includes "substantial limitations that will help prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dick Cheney said Sunday that Republicans need to look to a new generation of leaders as the party deals with poor approval ratings following the government shutdown. The former vice president said Republicans have faced challenges before and it’s healthy for the party to work to rebuild. The GOP “got whipped” in the 2012 presidential campaign, when President Barack Obama won re-election over Mitt Romney, and the party needs to build its base of supporters and find “first-class” candidates and turn to a new generation of leaders, Cheney told ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s not the first time...

Dick Cheney said Sunday that Republicans need to look to a new generation of leaders as the party deals with poor approval ratings following the government shutdown. The former vice president said Republicans have faced challenges before and it’s healthy for the party to work to rebuild. The GOP “got whipped” in the 2012 presidential campaign, when President Barack Obama won re-election over Mitt Romney, and the party needs to build its base of supporters and find “first-class” candidates and turn to a new generation of leaders, Cheney told ABC’s “This Week.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From Saudi Arabia to Israel, traditional U.S. allies in the Middle East are beginning to ask: Is America turning its back on us? President Barack Obama's diplomatic overtures to old foe Iran and his last-minute refusal to attack Syria have officials in Israel, the Gulf countries and Turkey wondering if Washington is deliberately neglecting them to avoid being dragged into a Middle East facing deeper sectarian strife and concerns that Tehran may be seeking a nuclear bomb. Media reports that the U.S. National Security Agency may have spied on the leaders of Germany, Mexico and Brazil have...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Southern California doctors and health officials will be on the lookout for Muslim pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia with flu-like symptoms in the wake of a reported outbreak of a SARS-like virus in the Middle East, according to a report. L.A. County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Jonathan Fielding told the Los Angeles Times severe coughs or other similar symptoms could signal the arrival of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, to the Southland. While MERS-CoV has so far only been reported in the Mideast and Europe, doctors and emergency departments will be...

<p>The Syrian diplomatic and political debacle was bad enough, but last week at the UN President Obama embarked on a campaign for "progress" with Iran that will prove much more dangerous for American interests.</p> <p>Just as Vladimir Putin had played him for a fool over Syria, Barack Obama was initially snubbed by Iranian President Hassan Rowhani despite frantic White House efforts to produce a handshake.</p>

With the recent decision to arm the opposition fighting Syrian President Assad, the United States has effectively declared a proxy war on Syria’s indigenous Christians — a proxy war that was earlier waged on Christians in other Mideast nations, resulting in the abuse, death, and/or mass exodus of Christians. Ironically (if not absurdly) this proxy war on Christians is being presented to the American people as a war to safeguard the “human rights” and “freedoms” of the Syrian people. Left unsaid by the Obama administration is the egregiously inhuman behavior these jihadis visit upon moderate Syrians in general and Christians...

CAIRO (AP) -- In a case that ruffled feathers in Egypt, authorities have detained a migratory bird that a citizen suspected of being a spy.There, officers and the man puzzled over the electronic device attached to the suspected winged infiltrator...Instead, they discovered it was a wildlife tracker used by French scientists to follow the movement of migrating birds, said Ayman Abdallah, the head of Qena veterinary services.

The 14th and the 15th Escort Taskforces of the Chinese Navy break sailing formation at the Gulf of Aden, Aug. 26, 2013. The 14th and the 15th Escort Taskforce of the Chinese Navy broke the sailing formation and started their mission respectively after accomplishing the joint convoy mission.

WND examines some of Obama's proposed aid for regionContradictory claims of total dollar figures for U.S. foreign aid circulate around the Internet, containing oft-repeated figures that may or may not reflect reality. In response to those conflicting claims, WND has compiled a list of significant U.S. aid totals based on a review of congressional and Obama administration documents and databases. As the debate often focuses on whether the U.S. receives, in financial parlance, an adequate return on its investment, WND decided to first focus on arguably the world’s greatest hot spot, the Middle East/North Africa, or MENA, home to three...

Coup or not a coup? That question bedeviled the Obama White House in the immediate aftermath of the military-led sacking of the Egyptian government led by the nation's first democratically-elected president, Mohammed Morsi. Members of Congress branded the ouster of Morsi a coup and urged the White House to suspend $1.5 billion in military and non-military aid in accordance with federal law. The administration said repeatedly it would study the "complex" facts in Egypt and render a verdict. Now it has. Never mind. The White House will not make a determination on whether Egypt's tumultuous change of government constitutes a...