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After Abbas

Last May, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president was rushed to the hospital for the second time in 24 hours. Suffering from pneumonia and on the brink of what Ynetnews called a “complete systems failure,” 83-year-old Mahmoud Abbas’s doctors feared for his life. Their concerns went beyond his well-being. Had Abbas died, millions of Palestinians would

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Peace Train Coming?

In 1971, Cat Stevens wrote a song called “Peace Train.” He confidently envisioned everyone riding a train bound for world peace. Fifty years later, the peace train seems to have barely left the station. But lately, hope for peace in the Middle East is picking up steam—and it comes on the heels of an initiative

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Busting the Apartheid Libel

Afrikaans is neither a common nor a widely spoken language. Outside the borders of South Africa, few are aware of the existence of the mother tongue of the Afrikaaner people. Yet regardless of its international obscurity, one Afrikaans word demands global recognition: apartheid. In 1948 the ruling white minority in South Africa began enforcing an

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The New “Normal” in Syria

Peace in the North Could Mean Danger for Israel There’s an old saying that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. What about a devil you used to know but don’t recognize any longer? That’s what has happened in Syria, where an old enemy—the regime of President Bashar al-Assad—was once

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Friend or Foe? Israel’s Complicated Relationship with Russia

Twenty-three minutes. It took less than half an hour for a crisis to raise tensions between Israel and Russia to levels not seen in years, perhaps decades. It started at 9:42 p.m. on September 17—when Israel first launched a strike on weapons bound for Hezbollah in Syria as detailed in Israeli journalist Amos Harel’s recap

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EU Bites the Hand that Feeds Israel’s Bedouin

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has had it with the European Union’s (EU) flagrant interference in Israel’s internal affairs, and he is certainly not alone among Israeli politicians. The source of this current frustration is the EU’s reaction to Israel’s plans to relocate the illegal Bedouin herding village of Khan al-Ahmar in Judea and Samaria. Europe

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In Search of a Safe Haven: Jewish Aliyah after World War II

In the wake of the Holocaust, surviving Jews were faced with the harsh reality that life could never go back to the way it was before the tragedy. Sadly, the atrocities committed against the Jewish people did not end when the concentration camps were liberated, and anti-Semitism was still alive and well in post-war Europe.

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Coming Home to the Jewish Quarter

At the tender age of 18, Esther Weiss prayed a strange prayer. The year was 1968. Months earlier, Israel had liberated the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordanian rule. The divided city was newly reunited. The Jewish people had just regained access to their holy sites and could finally return to the decimated Jewish Quarter.

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Behold How Good and Pleasant It Is

…When Jews and Christians Stand in Unity As the old adage says, nothing remains constant but change itself, and a few years ago, the world’s prognosticators began to fill cyberspace with predictions that 2017 and 2018 would prove it. Politically, economically and socially, the world would change dramatically, they projected, and the past two years

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The Taylor Force Act Combats “Pay-for-Slay”

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been literally getting away with murder. And until now, Western nations have unknowingly been aiding and abetting that dangerous situation. “Pay-for-Slay” Fund The PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, have long been perceived by Western audiences as partners in peace with Israel. But actions speak louder than words and legitimate

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