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Is it the End of the World?

The Blaze has reported that the mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh, hopes for a most unusual Christmas gift: “Christmas inspires peace on earth and goodwill toward men (as written in Luke 2:14), so one might wonder why the mayor of Bethlehem used the launch of festivities at the birthplace of Jesus to compare Israel to…

The death of Christopher Hitchens causes me to reflect on his extreme dislike of religion. He was really such a gifted writer, and a great observer of human nature. Yet his own bias was never more evident than in his book, god is not Great. In the book, Hitchens let it be known what he…

Christians, especially conservative ones, often go out of their way to speak well of people who loathe them. I do think that sometimes this is done out of a conscious desire to appear likable and avoid being tagged as a boorish danger to the civilized world. So it is that many Christians have reacted to…

The current surging Republican candidate for president, Newt Gingrich, generated a firestorm of criticism today when he asserted in an interview that the Palestinians are “invented.” In answering a question about Zionism, he said: “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire.” This is factually true. Yet it…

Whenever I visit Israel, I see things not as a tourist, but as an…observer. It helps one discover the story behind the story. One afternoon, while visiting the Mount of Olives, I spent some time looking at the Seven Arches Hotel, which overlooks the slopes of the mountain, and the stark Jewish tombs in view…

My fascination with the Middle East leads me to extraordinary friendships. One such friendship—a new one—is with the folks at “Untold News” (www.untoldnews.org). Too often (okay, to be more precise: constantly), we hear only gloomy, depressing news from this troubled region. The Untold News staff is committed to making people aware of another story: good…

While walking through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this year, I noticed posters in the window of a sweets shop. I wondered how many tourists would understand what the posters are. As is popular in Palestinian culture, the posters are depictions of the “shaheeds,” or martyrs—those who blow themselves up in a…

Palestinians decry the Israelis’ security barrier, erected in the face of withering terror attacks. I am greatly disturbed by the condemnation of the barrier by Western Christians, who increasingly affirm the Palestinian narrative. Bottom line: the security barrier (called an Apartheid Wall by Palestinian supporters) has…SAVED LIVES. Terrorist are no longer able to murder Jews…

The title of this post is tongue-in-cheek. Many readers no doubt would think it overly sarcastic. Yet the Arab obsession with seeing everything Jewish in the Middle East as a disaster makes the title not too far off the mark. Several momentous calendar dates vie for the title of “The Catastrophe” for the Palestinians, but…

After the UN’s Partition Plan was approved on November 29, 1947, everyone knew hostilities had only just begun. Both the British and the French realized that trying to manage a blood feud between two peoples was a losing proposition, so both made exit plans. When the British Mandate in Palestine ended on May 15, 1948—the…
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