Will the West Bank Become the Next Islamic Emirate? by Khaled Abu Toameh, GATESTONE INSTITUTE Hamas continues to operate in the West Bank under the cover of hundreds of Islamic charities and organizations. An Israeli pullout from any part of the West Bank, under the current circumstances, will undermine the Palestinian Authority and most likely lead to its collapse, paving the way for radicals to seize control. Those who think that Hamas and other Islamic groups do not have a strong presence in the West Bank are completely detached from reality. By MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s selection of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate earlier this week has shaken up the race for the White House. With his youthful demeanor, impressive command of policy, and affable personality, the Wisconsin congressman’s appeal extends far beyond the traditional Republican base. Indeed, initial polls indicate that it has already given Governor Romney a boost, with the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll released on Tuesday now giving him a 3-point lead over President Obama. The addition of Mr. Ryan to the ticket has also helped Mr. Romney in some key battleground states such as Ohio, where the race is tight and every advantage, however slight, can ultimately tilt the balance. More importantly, as a leading spokesman for greater fiscal discipline and tackling America’s national debt, Mr. Ryan is well-positioned to highlight to the electorate the Obama administration’s signal failure to tackle these crucial issues. Election-year politics make for difficult call amid complex civil war If killing Osama bin Laden, untangling U.S. forces from Iraq and fighting a bare-knuckle drone war against al Qaeda are the Obama administration’s foreign policy triumphs, its biggest stumble may be its failure to produce an international solution to what has become an all-out civil war in Syria. Many foreign policy analysts agree that the Obama administration has done little either to effectively plan for or to prevent the violent sectarian bloodbath likely to follow if, as they predict, the power base around Syrian President Bashar Assad begins to crumble. The diaspora is undergoing a Jewish leadership crisis. In the United States where the vast majority of Jews outside Israel reside, the key professionals dominating the leadership scene are close to retirement, yet failing to groom successors. With a few notable exceptions the situation in most of the other smaller Jewish communities is even worse. In most of these communal umbrella bodies, professionals occupy a lesser role than in the US and talented younger people are even more averse to accepting leadership responsibilities. The Obama administration’s support for its Islamist allies means lack of U.S. support for their enemies, or, more properly, victims—the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs: According to Pete Winn of CNS: The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that itreleased on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports. The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role. For the first time ever, the State Department simply eliminated the section of religious freedom in its reports covering 2011… (emphasis added). (Read more…) 
Hamas has a major presence in Judea and Samaria
(Read more…)Ryan: The View From Israel
(Read more…)Obama vs. Romney on Syria policy
By Guy Taylor, The Washington Times
(Read more…)Billionaires and the Looming Jewish Leadership Crisis
(Read more…)Obama Administration’s War on Persecuted Christians
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Friday, 17 August 2012
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