A strong plurality of Palestinians would select as president Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah-linked terrorist currently serving five life sentences for coordinating attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, over current Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in presidential elections: These are the results of the...

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Palestinian human rights groups are blasting Hamas for banning several members of the rival Palestinian Fatah faction from traveling outside the Gaza Strip. The Iran-backed terror group has controlled the territory since it expelled most Fatah officials from it in a bloody 2007 battle. The Fatah officials who stayed inside the...

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The rockets fired this morning on Sderot from Gaza should not come as a shock to either Israelis or Palestinians. It’s the quiet that has prevailed in southern Israel since November’s Operation Pillar of Defense that is far more surprising. President Barack Obama’s visit brings with it ample opportunities for...

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All sides are maneuvering in anticipation of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel, where he will seek to improve the mood between the White House, Ramallah’s Muqata, and the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Expect a lot of symbolic gestures without perhaps too much substance. The Syrian and Iranian portfolios,...

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Turkey has appointed former Ramallah Consul General Sakir Ozkan Torunlar ambassador to the “State of Palestine,” the latest in a long line of diplomatic gambits which have put Ankara at odds with Israel. The announcement comes days after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism a “crime against humanity”...

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Hamas is complaining over a February arrest sweep in the West Bank, conducted by the Palestinian Authority, that netted 66 of the Iran-backed terror group’s operatives. Those detained included 32 who had once been held in Israeli prisons. An additional 38 Hamas members and supporters had been summoned for interrogation....

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The Palestinian Authority today expressed condolences to Venezuela over the death of its election-rigging, terror-promoting, Iran-boosting president Hugo Chavez. Palestinian officials described Chavez — whom observers have blasted for pushing “staggering and undeniable” hatred of Jews, and who oversaw an “unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism throughout Venezuela” — as a “loyal friend”:...

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Israeli analysts and security officials are working to understand the calculations of senior Palestinian officials – including those calling on Palestinian Authority figures to “fight and even die” against Israel – who appear to be flirting with, if not encouraging, a potential third Intifada in the West Bank. Israeli Home Front Defense...

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The Palestinian Authority government is again facing criticism for suppressing civil liberties in the West Bank. David Keyes, executive director of Advancing Human Rights, has described the Western-backed government as becoming “worryingly similar” to the Iran-backed Hamas government in the Gaza Strip that “shuts down social media conferences, represses women, tortures dissidents...

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has again launched an attack on the “Judaization” of Jerusalem, calling on Islamic countries to wage a “fierce and brutal” campaign against Jewish control of the Jewish state’s capital city: He also called on these countries to invest in various projects in east Jerusalem and...

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