* Jordanian Official: Hanukkah Rituals are a Direct Threat to Al-Aqsa Mosque In a Dec. 28, 2019 article in the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad, 'Abdallah Kan'an, secretary-general of Jordan's Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, wrote that the festival of Hanukkah is based on traditions relating to the "false" Jewish Temple, and therefore constitutes a direct threat to the Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem.
* In Iran, It Is a Crime to Be a Christian Three of the Islamist judges known to preside over the trials of Christians are Mashallah Ahmadzadeh, Mohammed Moghiseh, and Ahmad Zargar. The international community needs to consider imposing sanctions on them.
* Israel’s Military Chief: We’re Going it Alone in War Against Iran Head of the IDF, Aviv Kochavi leveled with the Israeli people on Wednesday explaining that Israel will be fighting against Iran implying his disappointment with both the US and Sunni Gulf states who are also at odd with Tehran saying: “It would be better if we weren’t the only ones responding to them [militarily]” reports TOI.
* Show of seapower by China, Russia, Iran starts China, Russia and Iran will hold joint naval drills starting Friday in the Gulf of Oman, Beijing said, at a time of heightened tensions since the US withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran.
* Libya's Political Instability Makes Room for ISIS to Regroup Turkey, which signed a military and economic accord with the Libyan government in November, could deprive Greece and the Greek Cypriots of large swaths of their oil and gas exploration areas and force Egypt and Israel to negotiate with Turkey over the construction of natural gas pipelines to Europe.
* Israel's Military Chief: We're Going it Alone in War Against Iran Head of the IDF, Aviv Kochavi leveled with the Israeli people on Wednesday explaining that Israel will be fighting against Iran implying his disappointment with both the US and Sunni Gulf states who are also at odd with Tehran saying: "It would be better if we weren't the only ones responding to them [militarily]" reports TOI.
* UN, UK Treating Persecuted Christians as "Enemies" "You have this absurd situation where the scheme is set up to help Syrian refugees and the people most in need, Christians who have been 'genocided,' they can't even get into the U.N. camps to get the food."
* Top Ten Prophecies of 2019 The signs clearly say, as so many rabbis and experts have confirmed, that we are living in prophetic times preceding the Messiah.
* Iran Warns Activating Trigger Mechanism 'Coup de Grace' to JCPOA The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says if the European signatories to the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), activate the 'trigger mechanism' to mount pressure on Iran, it will mean the demise of the deal.
* Netanyahu Hails Improved Relations Between Israel and Arab States Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Sunday, 22 December 2019), at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, made the following remarks: "Members of the government, yesterday we saw an additional public expression of the warming in relations between Israel and Arab countries"...
* Hamas, Thirty-Two Years Later The Palestinian Hamas movement this week celebrated its 32nd anniversary by reminding everyone of its main goal: the destruction of Israel.
* Star of Bethlehem: The astronomical explanations It might seem churlish to dissect such an enduring image of Christmas as the star of Bethlehem, but a quiet astronomical debate has been bubbling away for decades. Could some real cosmic event have drawn "three wise men" on a journey to find a newborn king?
* Moqtada al-Sadr: The firebrand cleric who could calm Iraq When the Americans launched the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and plunged Iraq into the violent chaos that continues today, few people outside the country had even heard of a little-qualified young Shia cleric called Moqtada al-Sadr.
* Star of Bethlehem: The astronomical explanations It might seem churlish to dissect such an enduring image of Christmas as the star of Bethlehem, but a quiet astronomical debate has been bubbling away for decades. Could some real cosmic event have drawn "three wise men" on a journey to find a newborn king?
* Are Israel and Iran preparing for war? While much of the international and domestic US media focuses on the Trump impeachment scandal, there are many signs that a major conflict could break out in the Middle East.
* Turkey's East-West Carpet Trading In addition, Turkey is in talks with Russia to purchase a second batch of the S-400 system, including coproduction and technology transfer options. If the S-400 system is operated in Turkey, Moscow could find a built-in cyber backdoor to spy on NATO assets.
* Iran Urges Muslim Unity against Big Powers President of the Islamic Republic of Iran has called for collective cooperation among the Muslims states, which he described as one family, to counter the hostile pressures from the big powers.
* The EU's proxy war against Israel They don't have to do the dirty, immoral work of opposing Israel's existence directly; no messy concentration camps. The EU pays others to do it (for specifics, see the website of NGO-Monitor).
* Hamas, Thirty-Two Years Later Now that Hamas has again - clearly - reminded the world that it has not changed and continues to seek the destruction of Israel, the question is: Why are some world leaders, governments and organizations continuing to embrace the leaders of the movement?
* NATO Must Survive The recent urgent push by NATO to provide a defensive framework to Poland and the Baltic states is by no means a false alarm intended merely to shore up a sense of common purpose during a period of crisis.
* Welcoming new lawmakers, PM Johnson vows a speedy Brexit British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will welcome 109 new Conservative lawmakers to parliament on Monday, promising to honour his election-winning pledges to get Brexit done as soon as possible and boost funding for the state health service.
* For Europe, The Brexit Battle Is Just Getting Started European leaders breathed a sigh of relief after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson swept to election victory on Friday, putting an end to over three years of uncertainty as to whether the U.K will leave the bloc.
* The Jerusalem Cable Car The Israeli interim government's approval of the contentious cable car plan that is set to dominate the sky-line on its route through ancient valleys, hills and sites that are so central to the historical and cultural heritage of Jerusalem - need be vociferously contested.
* Iran's Plan to Foil the Gaza Ceasefire The protesters are saying, in other words, that the Iranian people are fed up watching their country deliver hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups instead of improving the economic situation in Iran.
* Jersey City Shooters were 'Black Israelites': A Replacement Theology Cult The three civilians killed inside the grocery store in Jersey City were identified as 33-year-old Leah Mindel Ferencz of Jersey City, a Chassidic woman who owned the store with her husband, Moshe David; Moshe Hersch Deutsch, 24, of the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y; and Miguel Douglas, 49, an employee at the store.
* What Purpose Does NATO Serve? While the political class obsessed over act two of the House impeachment hearings while normal people ignored them, NATO met in London for an international photo-op and a celebration of the treaty's 70th anniversary.
* Is NATO Still Vital? Many additional countries who joined the alliance -- such as Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States, which had been Soviet satellites -- still consider post-Communist Russia an extremely disquieting potential threat. That is just one issue that has created friction among NATO nations.
* Europe No Longer Hides Its Hostility to Israel The European Union seems deliberately to fail to recognize that Israel, a sovereign state, is regularly under threat -- even extreme continuous rocket fire from Gaza and Syria -- and, for that reason alone deserves its full support.
* Jew-Hate in Germany Last month, a woman was attacked in Bavaria for being Jewish. A man heard her two sons speaking Hebrew and recognized them as being Israeli.
* Pope Francis Compares President Trump to King Herod In a report published on Thursday, it was reported that while on a recent visit to Buddhists in Thailand, Pope Francis addressed the issue of refugees, comparing the policy of building walls and detention centers to the acts of King Herod who killed Jesus.
* Trump got it right on Jerusalem On December 6, 2017, President Donald Trump made history. In a bold and courageous decision, he proclaimed what many knew in their hearts: that Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel.
* Europeans rap Iran for working on nuclear-capable missiles Ambassadors urge UN chief to probe Tehran's inconsistencies with Security Council resolution endorsing 2015 nuclear deal, citing footage posted on social media in April of previously unseen flight test of new Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile variant.