Saudis, Gulf states on war alert for early US-Iran clash

BY DEBKAFILE— The armies of Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states stood ready Thursday Jan. 5, for Washington to stand up to Iranian threats and send an aircraft carrier or several warships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. Riyadh has been leaning hard on the Obama administration not to let…

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Intro to the Middle East

BY YORAM ETTINGER, ISRAEL HAYOM— In the pursuit of peace, alliances and interests, Western policy-makers have tended to sacrifice the perplexing realities of the Middle East on the altar of oversimplification and wishful-thinking. Yet their attempts to implement unsubstantiated policies often have served to inflame rather than extinguish regional fires. Lebanese-born professor Fouad Ajami, the…

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Mythomaniacs and the Arab-Israel Conflict

BY RICHARD BOOKER— An excited crowd of 5,000 Christian Zionists attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem leaped to their feet with thunderous applause when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked them to join Israel in their historic struggle to present the true story of Israel and the Arab world. Israel has certainly been losing the…

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Constraining Iran in the Straight

BY ILAN BERMAN, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE— The past two weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in Iran’s war of words with the West. Last Wednesday, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, that new economic pressure currently being contemplated by the West would come at a steep cost. According to Rahimi,…

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Why US won't be center stage in new Israeli-Arab talks

BY HOWARD LAFRANCHI, CSMONITOR The United States won’t take its usual center-stage position when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet today for their first direct talks in more than a year. The talks, set for Amman, Jordan, are designed to explore the potential for a return to formal direct peace negotiations, which collapsed in October 2010.…

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Israel, Palestinian envoys to hold talks in Jordan on Tuesday

BY REUTERS— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal emissary Yitzhak Molcho and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat will meet in Amman on Tuesday in a bid to restart stalled Middle East peace negotiations. The meeting will be hosted by Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. Judeh and representatives of the Middle East Quartet – the United States,…

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The World Council of Churches’ Anti-Israel Policies

By DR. MANFRED GERSTENFELD — ARUTZ7– Christian Media analyst Dexter Van Zile: Only Israel is condemned, while Copts are killed in Egypt, Arab Christians persecuted in Muslim countries. WCC has two bodies working to end the “occupation”. “The World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization for 349 Protestant and Orthodox churches founded in 1948, has…

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Fatah Exposes Plan to Kill Ariel Sharon

BY ELAD BENARI, ARUTZ 7— Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement exposed on Sunday a video which shows the former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s military wing, Khalil al-Wazir (who was known as “Abu Jihad”), plotting to kill Ariel Sharon who then served as a Cabinet minister, Channel 2 News reported. According to…

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