Hamas officials are publically debating over a proposed penal code that would apply Islamic law to Gaza citizens. The new regulations would criminalize offenses that had previously not been offenses. It would also institutionalize floggings and hand amputations as punishments. Hamas officials are divided on whether it should be imposed...

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Controversy continues to swirl around comments made earlier this month by a prominent Fatah official who declared that the Palestinians are enemies of Israel and would use nuclear weapons against the Jewish state if they possessed them. Jibril Rajoub, a member of the Palestinian Fatah faction’s Central Committee, made the statements...

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Norway has been dubbed the West’s most anti-Semitic and anti-Israel country, but Naim Araidi – the Druze-Israeli poet who is Jerusalem’s ambassador in Oslo – says not to believe the hype. Bilateral relations are not without challenges, he admits, but neither are they destined for eternal hostility. “When I got...

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This week’s reactions from Arab and Muslim leaders to airstrikes on Syria, widely attributed by non-Israeli sources to Israel, reached new levels of hypocrisy even by the formidable standards of the Middle East. The Arab League, led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, condemned the strikes. Both of those nations supply...

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A new poll [PDF] by the Pew Research Group highlights stark differences between Israeli and Palestinian public sentiment on a range of issues, including on the need for a peaceful two-state resolution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israelis continue to believe in a peaceful two-state solution to the Middle East conflict,...

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Major natural gas reserves off Israel’s coast – some of which are already online – promise to redraw the geopolitical map in the Near East. The Washington Post colorfully explains: The huge reservoirs of natural gas discovered off the coast of Israel now flowing toward shore have the potential to...

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Israeli intelligence sources dismissed today a new sensational account, broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), regarding the fate of an Australian-born Jew who immigrated to Israel and became a Mossad agent, and who was eventually found dead at the age of 34 in a high-security Israeli prison cell on...

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Analysis of Friday and Sunday air strikes on Syria, which were widely attributed to Israel, is converging on the signal of “strategic clarity” sent by whoever ordered the strikes. Foundation for Defense of Democracies research fellow Tony Badran notes that there has been “confusion in some of the media commentary” regarding the...

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The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on Wednesday announced that it will be withdrawing from an observation post in the Golan Heights, where the force is stationed. The announcement comes after the abduction Tuesday of four observers by Syrian rebels. The fear yesterday was that the U.N. would react to...

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U.S. officials have evaluated Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in the Syrian conflict, and find themselves concerned: Hezbollah fighters joined Syrian government forces in the siege of a rebel-held town inside the war-torn country on Monday, local residents said, deepening the Iran-backed group’s involvement in Syria’s civil war and raising alarm among...

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