In a far-reaching deal with the potential to unite Iraq in the face of a Sunni insurgency, the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi agreed on Tuesday to a long-term pact with the autonomous Kurdish region over how to divide the country’s oil wealth and cooperate on fighting the extremists of the Islamic State. The […]
Arab FMs set to call for U.N. Security Council vote on Palestinian state
Arab foreign ministers met on Saturday to agree a draft resolution setting a deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state and to agree on a date to present it to the United Nations Security Council for a vote. In October, the Palestinians informally shared a draft resolution with Arab states and some council members, […]
Israel set to make Arabs second class citizens
AFTER an angry debate, the Israeli cabinet has endorsed a controversial bill declaring the country a Jewish state, a move that will alienate the Palestinian minority further and push the government closer to early elections. The bill affirms that Jewish law should inspire the Israeli legal system, and reserves other “national rights” for Jews, including […]
Palestinian home torched, owner blames Israeli settlers
A Palestinian home was torched in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and “Death to Arabs” daubed on a wall in Hebrew, in an attack that its owner blamed on Jewish settlers. No one was hurt in the fire that gutted the home in the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, near the Palestinian city of […]
Jerusalem violence: Fear of deadly ‘religious war’ between Jews and Muslims
JERUSALEM —Israelis and Palestinians expressed fear Wednesday that their decades-old conflict was moving beyond the traditional nationalist struggle between two peoples fighting for their homelands and spiraling into a raw and far-reaching religious confrontation between Jews and Muslims. The threat — perhaps more accurately the dread — of an incipient but deadly “religious war” was […]
U.N. Urges Arab World to Denounce Islamic State
The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the Muslim world to denounce the “monstrous” crimes of the extremist group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, calling its actions both a violation of international law and Islamic tenets. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a member of the Jordanian royal family […]
Sharp decline in Muslim fertility rates
Something startling is happening in the Muslim world … it is not the Arab Spring or the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. A sharp decline in Muslim fertility rates and a “flight from marriage” among Arab women.
Arabs, Tuaregs in Mali face hostility, report
MOPTI, Mali — Bawba Mint Baba Ahmed’s sewing teacher singled her out in front of the class, telling her: “You look like a rebel.” Others threatened to slit her throat, she says, drawing a finger across her neck. Now the 29-year-old has dropped out of school and spends her days hiding inside her mud-walled home
Israel wants fleeing Palestinians to renounce right of return
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried to get Israel to let 150,000 Palestinians fleeing war in Syria resettle in the West Bank, but dropped the request after the Jewish state demanded they first give up their right of return, he said.
Food truck to promote Mideast peace
An Egyptian- American is trying to use food to promote peace in the Middle east between Arabs and Jews because he thinks if they can reconcile their falafel differences, they can make peace ”