The following is a JTA report issued this afternoon:     UN Security Council  Source: Getty Images U.N. Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood resolution fails NEW YORK (JTA) — A Palestinian-backed U.N. resolution setting a deadline for a peace deal with Israel failed ...Read More...

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani  at Gulf Cooperation Council summit  Doha 12-9-14   Source: Associated Press Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published an intriguing analysis by Yaroslav Trofimov of the of Qatar’s apparent withdrawal from being a broker in the murky world of Middle East ...Read More...

NPR Morning Edition host with President Obama December 17, 2014 President Obama held a year end  interview with NPR’s  Morning Edition host  Steve Inskeep on December 17, 2014 that aired today. During the interview Obama  was questioned about possible normalization of relations with Iran. He coyly ...Read More...

Source: Americans for Peace and Tolerance   At 10:03 PM Saturday, December 27, 2014  Americans  for Peace and Tolerance (AP&T) sent an email containing  a petition requesting the President of Brandeis University, Frederick Lawrence and the 29 university trustees,  to protect the free speech rights ...Read More...

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                                                    (2004)                                 (2014)   Michael Weiser, Esq      We’ve seen this movie before. In October 2004, the satirical comedy-action movie Team America: World Police was released in theaters. The film, acted out through marionettes, ...Read More...

Hayley Nagelberg Hayley Nagelberg is a 17 year old Jewish activist who hails from New Jersey.  Last week, she attended the 64th International Conference of United Synagogue Youth of the Conservative Movement held  in Atlanta last week.  She was there with 700 teen age members who came from congregations ...Read More...

  We wrote about the significant  prospects of Israel’s development of offshore natural gas  in the Levant Basin in the Eastern Mediterranean in a December 2011 NER article, Will Israel Win the Energy Prize in the Levant Basin?, We  cautioned about the regulatory risks given recommendations of the ...Read More...

Professor Raphi Israeli (ret.) Hebrew University Islamic and East Asian History and author, Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology Last week in the aftermath of the Islamikaze Jihad  at Sydney’s Lindt Cafe, Raphael Israeli, Retired Hebrew University Professor of Islamic and East Asian ...Read More...

"No Hatred, No  violence, No Koran”  sign at Pegida rally in Germany, Source: Al Jazeera Yermi Brenner Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands is being investigated for the second time in five years by Dutch prosecutors for  alleged hate speech during  his March 2014 local ...Read More...

Swiss Ambassador Paul Fivat Source: EPA   If the EU court rulings on Hamas and the European Parliament vote on “in principal” recognition of a Palestinian state weren’t enough ‘gifts’ on Hanukkah for Israel, there was  the third calumny. That was    the approval of a declaration by the Geneva ...Read More...

  Yesterday, marked the  beginning of the eight days of Hanukkah-the Jewish Festival of Lights . The holiday commemorates the Maccabees’ victory over their Syrian Greek oppressors who denied these ancient Jews their  liberty and religious freedom.    Following the recital of the braches (blessings) ...Read More...

Lindt Café victims in Sydney Australia Neither the late Katrina Dawson, 38, mother of three and a rising star in the Sydney bar  or regular patrons thought anything out of the ordinary having a morning coffee at the Lindt Café in Martin Place, the heart of the city’s business financial district.  ...Read More...

  Australian hostages in Lindt Cafe holding Islamist Shahada flag against window Source AP/Channel 7 Here is the latest report from Fox News on the Islamist hostage taking at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place in the heart of Sydney's business district, "Sydney siege: Police in contact with ...Read More...

Hon Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) March 19, 2014.   The words Orwellian, Kafkaesque appear inadequate to describe the trammeling of the Hon. Geert Wilders’  free speech by Dutch prosecutors at the Hague in The Netherlands.   We write this with the imagery of the fictional ...Read More...

Tsafrir Ronen z"l 1955 to 2008 In memory of Tsafrir Ronen by Ted Belman publisher of Israpundit I recently posted an article by Mordechai Kedar about the work of Tsafrir Ronen titled the Killing Tsafrir Ronen again. My friend Jerry Gordon who used to blog with me on Israpundit and ...Read More...

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Qatar’s Ambassador to Washington  H.E. Mohammed Jaham Al-Kuwari is a veteran diplomat with 32 years of service to the small gas rich wealthy Arab state on a peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia.  American educated at the University of Portland, Oregon with graduate work at the University ...Read More...

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius smiling during National Assembly Debate on Palestine Statehood resolution December 2, 2014, Source AP. In a majority vote today, the French National Assembly passed a  resolution  for symbolic recognition of Palestine statehood.  This adds France to a list ...Read More...

Dr. Harold Rhode We interviewed Dr. Harold Rhode about his seminal role in rescuing the Babylonian Jewish archives in Baghdad in 2003.  They were ultimately brought to Washington and through public and private resources restored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). They were ...Read More...