German law professor Christian Tomuschat, the anti-Israel and anti-American official heading the U.N. committee to enforce the Goldstone Report, has resigned. The biased U.N. probe now has no leader, and is in disarray.
This unprecedented resignation follows a global campaign by UN Watch that exposed Professor Tomuschat's egregious bias and breach of his obligation under international law to be objective and impartial:

It had not occurred to Protestant theologians who had been trying to "liberalize" and "modernize" Christianity...that they were thus undermining the very religion they were seeking to buttress "scientifically"….When the “protective covering” [of faith] is removed, no one should any longer be surprised to see [Christianity] quickly dry up.... -- Curtis Cate, Friedrich Nietzsche, page 189.

Recently, the Methodists in the UK passed a resolution to promote the boycotting of goods from what it considers illegal settlements on the West Bank/Judea Samaria.

It did so because, as I have previously reported:

The decision is a response to a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organisations, both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches. A majority of governments recognise the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegitimate under international law.

A factor up until now neglected in the Middle East strategic picture is Israel’s development of a strong, multi-level missile defense system aimed both against short-range rockets fired by Hamas and Hizballah as well as to guard against a future Iranian nuclear long-range threat.

Many, unconsciously perhaps thinking of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War balance, misunderstand this system’s effectiveness. Of course, they point out, even if one nuclear missile gets through that would still be catastrophic. But this neglects three factors.

Palestinians are trying to delegitimize Israel.
For more than 60 years, peace has eluded the people of Israel. The tranquility that would come from being able to awaken each day without fear of annihilation, without fear of an attack on one's children and without the need to continuously be aware that the next moment may require running to the nearest bomb shelter cannot seem to find its way to that troubled land.

The government of Canada will not participate in events next year at the United Nations commemorating the controversial 2001 Durban declaration on racism. Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the “government has lost faith in the Durban process. We will not be part of this event, which commemorates an agenda that promotes racism rather than combats it. Canada will not participate in this charade any longer. The government of Canada will not lend Canada's good name to the organized exercise in scapegoating the State of Israel] that is the Durban process."

The acts of recognition of a Palestinian state in 1967 borders by Brazil, Argentina, and possibly other Latin American states have no significance other than as a political expression of opinion.

The unceasing efforts among states by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority to attain recognition of unilateral statehood within the 1967 borders and thereby bypass the accepted negotiation process, runs counter to their commitments in their agreements with Israel, as witnessed and guaranteed by members of the international community.

Israel is the victim of a Palestinian – Arabic campaign to de legitimize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The main accusations are:
Israel is responsible for the continuing Israeli – Palestinian conflict because of the settlements built on Palestinian land.
The Israeli army is accused of war crimes against Palestinian civilians.
Israeli Jewish society is accused of racism towards Israeli Arabs.

In short, Israel is the cause of the troubles in the Middle East.

Often, small details give a tremendous insight into political realities. Such an example is the remark made by a high-ranking Palestinian official about the tragic fire in northern Israel.

When the fire broke out, 40 Israeli prison guards were rushed to a prison to evacuate the prisoners there in order to save their lives. The bus was trapped in the flames and all of these men, plus the driver, died.

The diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks earlier this week confirm that the key strategic process taking place in the Middle East is the push for regional dominance by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The documents show that the Iranian nuclear program is only the most worrisome element of a broader effort, as there is additional evidence of Iranian involvement and interference in political processes across the region.

The leadership of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) has been received by Pope Benedict XVI in private audience at the Vatican. WJC President Ronald S. Lauder, who was accompanied by WJC Secretary General Designate Daniel Diker and Deputy Secretary General Maram Stern, raised his concern at the growing political assault on Israel's legitimacy. Lauder asked Benedict to speak out against the delegitimization of Israel and especially the denial of Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall as well as the Tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem, which is holy to Jews and also to Christians.

Islamist student militia threatens to destroy Tomb of Queen Esther in western Iran.

If you want to understand how the debate goes in the Arabic-speaking world and the ways liberals there try to get across their message, there’s nothing better to read than Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed’s article, “Erdogan...Fulfill Your Promises.” It’s also very easy to misunderstand this kind of talk so let’s go through it together.

The US House of Representatives has unanimously adopted a non-binding resolution opposing any unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. The resolution was introduced by Howard Berman, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is critical of Palestinian efforts to push the international community to recognize a state and states that "true and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties."

IS "PALESTINE" the only "OCCUPIED TERRITORY" of MUSLIM WORLD? According to AL QUAEDA, the ANSWER is NO....

* Large parts of the Iberian Peninsula were under Islamic rule from 711 until 1492, with the final eviction of the Moors from what they called al-Andalus, and the memory of Islamic rule in Spain has become increasingly part of the discourse in radical Islam.

How do we resolve the dilemma of a peace agreement that includes handing over the Golan Heights to the Syrians, while facing the fact that Israel cannot be defended without the Golan Heights? The way around this was supposed to be the inclusion in any peace agreement of specific security arrangements. Yet this approach was based on a number of assumptions, all of them misguided.

Iran and today's Turkish government are engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street. Iran represents the Shiites and Turkey represents the Sunnis. The Arab world is largely Sunni, with the exception of many of the Persian Gulf Arab countries and Iraq.

Iran and the Turkish government are also working together against the non-Muslim world - most specifically against the U.S. and Israel.

The Palestinian leadership is fixated on attempting to press foreign governments and the UN to recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state within the "1967 borders." Indeed, this campaign appeared to have some initial successes in December 2010 when both Argentina and Brazil decided to recognize a Palestinian state within what they described as the "1967 borders."

A survey of attitudes has found that the populations of nearly all predominantly Muslim countries hold a negative attitude toward Jews. The Pew Research Center’s survey, which was carried out in mid-2009 in 25 countries, found that 98 percent of Lebanese, 97 percent of Jordanians and Palestinians and 95 percent of Egyptians hold an unfavorable view of Jews. However, only 35 percent of Israeli Arabs said they disliked Jews. In Turkey, the figure jumped from 32 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2009.

It is obvious that given the true balance of power in Lebanon, the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is largely a virtual exercise. As Michael Young pointed out in a column in the Beirut Daily Star this week, tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is currently on his end of year vacation and left without submitting draft indictments. This means that indictments cannot be issued before mid-January at the earliest.

Most diplomats and journalists repeat at will that Israel and the Palestinians need to address the “core issues” such as borders and refugees in order to make peace. Yet on both issues, historical and legal fallacies have become the conventional wisdom.

Abstract
The U.N.'s universal definition of a refugee :
"Any person who has been forced to abandon his permanent home in his natural habitat since time immemorial will be considered a refugee".
In only one instance has this definition been expanded upon, through the pressure of the Arab League. The broadened definition is as follows: "Every Arab who left Palestine-the Land of Israel in 1948, who had lived there for two years , will also be considered a refugee he and his descendants ". Why did the Arab countries bother to expand this definition?

How Western Institutions' Naivete (Or Incompetence or Ideology) Helps Terrorists

If I had to pick one sentence to show what's profoundly wrong with Middle East coverage in the Western mass media, this is the one I'd choose. It's in a New York Times article entitled, "Israel: Tensions Rise Along Gaza Border" by Isabel Kershner. I'll put the sentence in bold:

I Introduction

Einstein defined insanity as:

“Repeating the Same Experiment Time and Again, Expecting a Different Result”

The Middle East, a world set apart from the rest of the universe, has rules and standards of its own.

In the Middle East insanity is defined as:

“Repeating the Same Experiment Time and Again With the Certain Knowledge That the Result Will NOT Be Different”