An Israeli Bedouin places a note in the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City August 12, 2009 during a mass prayer calling for the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Mideast-Conflict/ss/events/wl/080601mideast/im:/090812/ids_photos_wl/r1257036139.jpg/ (Note that Yahoo have removed the incriminating picture of the patriotic Bedouin with a few pictures of Israeli "atrocities" and anti-Israel protests.)  

This is very interesting. The former chief of the human rights council in Kurdistan has started a magazine that advocates a return of Iraqi Jews to Iraq. Iraqi Jews left Iraq in the 1930s and 1950s because Iraq allied with Nazi Germany at the time and then declared war on Israel. A majority of Jews from Arab countries in Israel are from Iraq. (And Jews from Arab countries form the majority of Jews in Israel.) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090812/wl_mideast_afp/iraqkurdsisraelmediajudaism ...

Text of the letter sent by fax to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by President of the Republic of Somaliland Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. Republic of Somaliland The Presidency Our Ref: SLR/PO/ISPMI/7/95 Your Ref: ....................... 3 July 1995 Hargeisa His Excellency The Prime Minister of Israel Mr Yitshak Rabin Hakirya, Fax No. 972 2 513 950 Jerusalem, Israel. Your Excellency Establishing Strategic Partnership with the State of Israel In my capacity as t...

I favour a one state solution. But it would be different and not very much like the "Isratine" solutions that float around. And I think that such one state solutions would solve many problems in the middle east and North Africa. Basically, the one state solution I envision, not just for Israel but for other countries in the region too, would be a nation state for a local people that simply has a large minority (or even a majority) of Arab nationals. In the case of Israel, the country wo...

Nigeria's Christians and Animinists are fighting against a recent (last few years) surge in violence due to attacks by "Muslims" who have little tolerance for western (or African) values. Now Nigeria's army strikes back: Troops killed about 100 militants by an AP reporter's count, half of them inside the sect's mosque. Soldiers then launched a manhunt, and Yusuf was reportedly found in a goat's pen at the home of his in-laws. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=8207924...

Fantasy: The Zionists planned a war against several Arab countries when Jews were a minority in "Palestine" in order to invade "Palestine" and expel "Palestinians" to replace them with Jews.   Truth: The Zionists didn't want war, didn't want to risk war, and while the invading Arab armies ordered Israeli Arabs to leave the country Jewish officials, like the mayor of Haifa, begged Israeli Arabs to stay and help defend the country against the Arab invaders.   http:...

http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/iranian-street-scene.html I keep wondering why Israel never gets away with that sort of thing. One reason is, of course, that Israel is not shooting at or imprisoning protesters, only terrorists.   It is also interesting to note that the western left have been left behind by history happening. Obama is trying to find a crompromise between America and an Iranian regime that Iranians reject. And the left who enthuastically supported Hizbu...

Hamas has lowered its profile in the West Bank out of fear its men will be captured by the Palestinian Authority and the IDF, and is operating a number of terrorist cells in every major city that are completely compartmentalized to ensure survivability, according to the latest military assessments. The Islamist group has been severely weakened in the West Bank in recent years, with the IDF conducting almost daily operations in Palestinian cities that began after Operation Defensive Shield i...

An Islamic court in Shiraz, Iran has just convicted two men of being infidels. Their crime? Converting to Christianity. The possible sentence? Death. Not too far away in Saudi Arabia, an outraged father recently hacked his own daughter to death for the same “abomination.” In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news, there is one story of historic proportion that goes nearly unreported: the persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest...

Over the next few days I am planning to write about the Assyrians, the Christians of Iraq, descendants of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, and other Christians in the middle east. The Assyrians are Iraq's indigenous population, having lived there before the Arabs and before even the Kurds. Their major population centres are now in Arbil and Mosul. They speak the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic (not to be confused with the extinct Assyrian language). Let's look at their relationship with ...

Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader. "Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200907...

German n-tv.de has apparently decided that there isn't enough anti-Semitism in Europe, so they are warming up the story about the two soldiers who have accused the IDF of war crimes again. Of course, the story is not reported as those individuals "accusing" Israel of something but of them "breaking their silence", which is the usual term employed when somebody accuses Israel or Jews of something.* I figure it will take a few days before their pro-Israeli columnist can write an article expl...

Residents of dozens of unrecognized Bedouin villages in southern Israel unimpressed by government's repeated promises to amend infrastructural neglect plaguing their communities. ... Members of the communities making up the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) – an independent body which represents some 80,000 residents of the Negev's unrecognized Bedouin villages – are used to empty promises. They are still living in communities lacking proper health ...

At least 40 people have been killed in a suspected US missile strike in north-west Pakistan, local officials say. ... Army spokesman, Major-General Athar Abbas, told reporters: "We have credible information that Maulana Fazlullah has been injured... But it is not possible to confirm whether he is alive or not." Maulana Fazlullah is a radical cleric who commands the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat Valley. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8139739.stm T...