Mid-East News

Op-Ed: When the Going gets Tough, EU Just Leaves UNIFIL!

Just as Syria’s crisis is escalating tensions, rumors of an EU withdrawal from Beirut are heard and Hizbullah begins applying pressure.

From Il Giornale, sent to Arutz Sheva in translation by the writer.
By Hon. Fiamma Nirenstein

It really would not be a good sign if UNIFIL, the UN Peace Force on the border between Lebanon and Israel, pulled out now, while tensions have heated up due to Syria’s tragedy and all that goes with it.

UN lookout at the Quneitra Crossing between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights – Photo: AP

The EU is apparently threatening to withdraw its soldiers (it nonetheless denied it after a Kuwaiti newspaper disclosed the news) and these rumors were extremely detailed.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: EU, Hezbollah, Hezbollah terrorism, UNIFIL

Why Do Muslims Slaughter their Victims?

Why were Daniel Perl, a British soldier on a London street & the Fogel family in Itamar all butchered? An endless list of Moslem girls & women can be added to those who were similarly slaughtered. Where does this behavior come from?

By: Dr. Mordechai Kedar

What is common to Daniel Perl, Nick Berg, a British soldier on London street, the Jews of Hebron in 1929 and the Fogel family in Itamar? They all were butchered. They were not simply stabbed to death, but were killed by an act designed to decapitate them or to cause fatal bleeding by severing their carotid artery. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Culture

One comment

The Disintegration of Mid-East Borders

The only boundary in the Mid-East that Western diplomats have become rigidly obsessed with, despite the far more profound changes that are occurring across the region, is not even formally an int’l border under int’l law, but only an armistice line from 1949 — what is inappropriately called the 1967 border. While a solution to this territorial dispute must be addressed, the final borders drawn between Israel and it’s neighbors will have to take into account the current dramatic strategic shifts.

By Dore Gold

A common theme running through much of the leading commentary on the Syrian crisis is the idea that the principal borders of the modern Middle East, created by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, are about to be fundamentally altered if not erased completely. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: borders

Israel 4th from bottom of BBC poll ranking best countries

Israel ‘the better of 4 evils’ topping only North Korea, Pakistan and Iran.

Germany has the most positive influence on the world, according to a survey of 26,000 people in 25 countries.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

Israel placed near the bottom of a BBC poll released Thursday ranking the world’s most positively viewed countries.

BBC Photo: REUTERS

Some 26,000 people from 25 countries around the world were asked if they viewed a list of 16 countries and the European Union as having a “mainly positive” or “mainly negative” influence in the world.

Germany topped the list with 59 percent of respondents viewing it positively, followed by Canada (55%), the UK (55%) and Japan (51%).

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: BBC, poll

White House appoints Gen. John Allen the U.S. security envoy for peace talks

Former NATO forces commander in Afghanistan has been appointed to formulate U.S. security policy in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

By Barak Ravid

Gen. John Allen has been appointed special U.S. envoy on security issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He will not mediate between the parties; his work will almost exclusively involve contacts with Israel. Allen will deal with the U.S. position on Israeli security needs and the security arrangements that would accompany the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

Gen. John Allen – Photo: Reuters

Senior U.S. and Israeli officials note that while U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the appointment it was coordinated with U.S. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, Middle East peace, Palestinians

Kerry Suggests Yet Another Freeze for Negotiations to Begin

U.S. Sec. of St. suggests Israel freeze construction if Israel seriously wants peace talks with the PA.

By Maayana Miskin

United States Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly proposed that Israel freeze construction east of the 1949 armistice line if it wants to hold talks with the Palestinian Authority.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State, John Kerry – Photo by Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO

Kerry met Thursday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

It was not clear if Netanyahu responded favorably to Kerry’s suggestion of a new construction freeze. Israel formerly froze construction for several months in an attempt to bring the PA back to the negotiating table. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, peace talks

PA maintains preconditions to end settlement construction, release prisoners.

Large protest rally outside PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s office in Ramallah to demonstrate Washington’s perceived ‘Israel bias.’

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Ramallah Thursday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and discussed with him ways of resuming the peace talks with Israel.

Palestinian protester holds a poster with a caricature of John Kerry in Ramallah May 23, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday reiterated his demand for a full cessation of settlement construction and the release of Palestinian prisoners before returning to the negotiating table with Israel. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: John Kerry, Mahmoud Abbas, peace talks

In the Theater of the Absurd: Syria charges Israel for health violations at UN

At an official UN’s World Health Organization conference, Syria accuses Israel of conducting medical experiments on Syrian prisoners, burying nuclear waste on Golan Heights, placing “nuclear land mines” on cease-fire line and some more craziness.

Israel: It’s absurd how the U.N. is being cynically abused.

By Amir Mizroch

In an act of macabre political theater, Syria presented a report to the U.N.’s World Health Organization on Monday slamming what it says is the “deterioration of the health conditions of the Syrian population in the occupied Golan as a result of the suppressive practices of the Israeli occupation.”

The Quneitra Crossing between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights – Photo: AP

In a report to the WHO’s 66th World Health Assembly, Syria’s Health Ministry said that Syrians were being deprived of medical treatment for rejecting Israeli citizenship, and there was an “acute shortage of primary and tertiary health care services owing to the lack of integrated medical centers in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: anti-Israel Propaganda, Syria, UN, WHO

8 comments

Senate vote unanimously passed calls US to back Israel in case of Iranian strike

Senate Vote passes 99-0 on resolution favoring US support to Israel if it were forced to defend itself from an Iranian nuclear threat.

By REUTERS

WASHINGTON – The Democratic-led Senate voted 99-0 – with one senator not present – on Wednesday night, on a resolution that the United States should support Israel if it were forced to defend itself from an Iranian nuclear threat. The measure also urged Obama to strengthen enforcement of existing sanctions on Iran.

US Senate

Earlier Wednesday, a US House of Representatives committee approved legislation seeking to impose tighter sanctions on Iran, the latest congressional effort to slow development of the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: US Congress, US Israel, US Senate

NYT: Israel conducts intelligence activity in Syria & works with local villagers

A New York Times report claims Israel has dropped the idea of a buffer zone in Syria as it would be seen as an invasion & spark confrontation with Assad’s forces, but is not eliminating use of a ‘proxy’ force in the country.

By Haaretz

Israeli forces are “maintaining intense intelligence activity” in Syria and have “quietly” begun working with villagers there unallied to either the rebels or President Bashar Assad’s regime amid increasing fears that the Syrian civil war will spill over its borders, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

A United Nations observation tower overlooking Syria is seen near the Kuneitra border crossing between Israel and Syria, on the Golan Heights May 8, 2013.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Bashar Assad, Chemical Weapons, Hezbollah, Israel Syria

israelandstuffcom | May 22, 2013

Germany backs UK’s proposal of blacklisting Hezbollah’s military wing

The UK submitted application to the EU on Monday to blacklist, the military wing of Hezbollah.

The Netherlands along with Israel, Bahrain,U.S. & Canada have banned Hezbollah’s entire organization

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, YONAH JEREMY BOB

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle decided Wednesday to support listing Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization in the European Union, according to German diplomatic sources.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle – Photo: Reuters

“In the light of discussions we have had with our partners following the terrorist attack in Burgas, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle supports listing at least the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the EU,” the officials said.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: blacklist, EU, Germany, Hezbollah

israelandstuffcom | May 22, 2013

IDF plans launch statewide drill while ministers turn up the ‘war rhetoric’

Home front minister says exercise is intended to prepare civilians for war because it’s not a question of ‘if’ but rather, ‘when’ missiles fall on our cities.

By Yoav Zitun

“There is no longer a question whether missiles will be launched at Israel’s major population centers, only when it would happen,” Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan said Tuesday ahead of a nationwide drill.

Erdan (second from left) beside IDF chief Gantz – Photo IDF Spokesperson’s Office

The civil war raging in Syria and ominous Israeli promises to prevent advanced weapons from landing in the hands of terrorist organizations are only part of the background for the annual national emergency exercise set to be held next week. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News |

israelandstuffcom | May 21, 2013

Two Saudi princes accused in UK of laundering for Hezbollah

Princes seeking to extricate themselves from London legal battle saying: “We deal with whoever we want to deal with, whether it’s Hezbollah, the Mafia or even the Jews,”

By REUTERS

LONDON – Two Saudi princes on Tuesday sought to extricate themselves from a London legal battle with a Jordanian businessman who accuses them of laundering money for Hezbollah, an allegation their lawyer called “fanciful”.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah supporters chant slogans and hold flags – Photo: Reuters/Khalil Hassan

Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a brother of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, and his son Prince Abdulaziz bin Mishal, had previously argued they had sovereign immunity from suit but the courts rejected that stance.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Courts, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, UK

israelandstuffcom | May 21, 2013