By David Bedein.. This week, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he will use his visit to the Middle East to implore the Palestinian Authority to return to peace talks with Israel.
Here is a suggested 10-step process for how the Hon. John Kerry could, indeed, conduct an inquiry about the readiness of the PA to assume a posture of peace. (more…)
By Zach Pontz.. The U.S. State Department has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Americans who claim U.S. aid money helps fund Palestinian terrorism. The 24 Americans now living in Israel who are the plaintiffs in the case filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for Washington, DC in November claiming that the State Department had ignored congressional safeguards and transparency requirements which govern financial assistance to the PA. (more…)
By Israel Today Staff.. Israel on Sunday (April 7, 2013) revealed that its security forces recently captured a Hamas terrorist cell operating out of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The five-man cell had been behind a string of recent stone and firebomb attacks on and around the Temple Mount. Nine Israeli police officers were wounded last month in one of the firebomb attacks. Materials to make the firebombs were smuggled onto the Temple Mount by Arab children, whom the terrorists knew were less likely to be searched by Israeli security. (more…)
Last week international computer hackers operating under the umbrella group Anonymous threatened to “erase Israel from the Internet” in a massive coordinated attack scheduled for today. By mid-morning Sunday, that attack had largely failed, and Israeli hackers had scored some blows of their own against the foreign assailants. (more…)
By Raymond Ibrahim.. The year 2013 began with reports indicating that wherever Christians live side by side with large numbers of Muslims, the Christians are under attack. As one report said, “Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest.” Whether in Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, or Tanzania—attacks on Christians are as frequent as they are graphic. (more…)
By Israel Today Staff.. It’s no longer only Israel that is concerned that the Syrian civil war could cross borders. Now UN officials, too, are warning that the bloody conflict might spill into the Jewish state sooner rather than later. ”The members of the [UN] Security Council expressed grave concern at all violations of the Disengagement of Forces Agreement” that created the demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. (more…)
By Israel Today Staff.. Israel has reportedly established a large field hospital in the northern Golan Heights to treat Syrian’s wounded in their country’s ongoing civil war. In recent weeks, 11 Syrians have crossed into Israel after being wounded in fierce gun battles between rebels and those forces still loyal to dictator Bashar Assad. Until now, the wounded have all been taken to Ziv Hospital in the northern town of Safed. (more…)
By Anne Bayefsky.. There are a hundred and ninety three countries in the United Nations today. Of these one has been singled out as an especially egregious offender of the organization’s mandate to preserve and enhance human freedom and tolerance. Can you guess which it is? It has about seven million citizens of whom a fifth are Arab. The government is vibrantly democratic, its press wide open and religious freedom fully respected, women have equal rights and gays live openly. The answer is: Israel. (more…)
By Simon Plosker.. Referring to the impact of Israeli air strikes on Gaza during November 2012′s Operation Pillar of Defense the BBC’s Wyre Davis wrote: “In the BBC Gaza office, that feeling was most tangibly felt on the first day of this conflict when Omar, the 11-month-old son of our cameraman Jihad Misharawi, was killed when a missile hit his home. It was a pointless, terrible tragedy that deeply affected Jihad’s colleagues who live and work here in these testing conditions.” (more…)
By Rev Willem Glashouwer.. In Matthew 24 Jesus speaks about the final days. He talks about wars and famines and lawlessness and false prophets and so forth. But Jesus also mentions two positive signs. One positive sign is in verse 14: “And the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.” Not the end of the world but the end of this phase of world history. And then the next phase will start. So, the Gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth. (more…)
