Israel’s former Military Intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, says that the appointments of John Kerry as U.S. secretary of state and of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense are “a bad signal for those who believe in” U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Speaking within the context of his previously-held position that Obama…
Eric Cantor, the combative second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, launched a major rebranding of his party on Tuesday, saying he hoped Republicans and President Barack Obama could “set differences aside” in the interest of helping ordinary Americans. While not endorsing comprehensive immigration reforms backed by Obama, he did express openness on the…
President Barack Obama plans to visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this spring, the White House said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a new U.S. push to restart long-stalled Israel-Palestinian peace efforts. Obama’s trip, his first to Israel since taking office, signaled that he intends to make the volatile Middle East – where…
Wide-eyed and smiley, Elay-Gabriel seems utterly unaffected by the French media’s sudden interest in him. A dozen French journalists have visited the 18-month-old in recent months because he is trapped in a sort of legal limbo: He cannot obtain citizenship because the state does not recognize children born to surrogates abroad as French, even if…
Bulgaria accused Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah on Tuesday of carrying out a bomb attack on a bus in the Black Sea city of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last year. The conclusions of the Bulgarian investigation, citing a clear connection to an attack on European Union soil, might open the way for the EU…
Israeli-born Jewish author Tuvia Tenenbom is in trouble in Germany for raising his arm in the Hitler salute, which is banned in the country. Tenenbom told the Magdeburg Volksstimme newspaper he had made the gesture toward a group of 900 neo-Nazis demonstrating there on Jan. 12 in order to provoke them. He was accompanied by…
Two individuals with links to Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah were involved in a bomb attack on a bus in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last July, Bulgaria’s interior minister said on Tuesday. The conclusions of the Bulgarian investigation may open the way for the European Union to join the United…
Portugal’s Olympic committee has banned a female windsurfer for life for concealing she was pregnant but attending the London Games anyway to see her Jewish sailor husband. Carolina Borges travelled to Britain as part of the Portugal team but then sent an email during the Games in July saying she was quitting before her RS-X…
Dozens of anti-Semitic messages were left on the Facebook page of the best-selling French rapper Booba, who vowed to “avenge the victims of the Holocaust.” The pledge featured in a new song titled “Master Yoda” by Booba, the stage name of 36-year-old Eli Yaffa, born in France to a Muslim father from Senegal. The song…
The Venezuelan human rights group Espacio Anna Frank says its goal is to promote tolerance by teaching the life story of the teenage diarist murdered by the Nazis. But is there something sinister lurking behind the organization’s benevolent facade? SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence service, seems to believe so. According to a dossier attributed to SEBIN,…
Senator John McCain said on Monday he opposes using a procedural hurdle to block a vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary, a stance likely to boost White House confidence that Hagel will win Senate confirmation. “I do not support a filibuster,” the Arizona Republican told reporters at the Capitol. “I don’t think…
