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Advice to Israelis: Endure the Slander

July 30, 2014  •  The Washington Times

Hamas wants to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. It's been doing all it can to achieve that objective, for example, launching missiles at Israel's international airport and constructing tunnels to infiltrate terrorists into Israeli communities for the purpose of slaughtering and hostage-taking.

Israelis want to kill as few Palestinian civilians as possible. They've been doing all they can to achieve that — no nation under attack has ever done more. For example, they warn noncombatants of impending strikes on military targets by phoning, texting, leafleting and even dropping dummy bombs.

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FAA hands Hamas a big win

July 23, 2014  •  USA Today

A colleague and I were waiting for an airplane at Ben-Gurion International Airport just outside Tel Aviv a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly, sirens sounded. We quickly, quietly followed escorts to a shelter.

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Barbarians at Jordan's gate

July 23, 2014  •  The Washington Times

AMMAN, Jordan | The terrorist army formerly known as ISIS has conquered about a third of Syria and much of western Iraq. What are these jihadists going to do next? Assuming they can't go to Disneyland — and, trust me, that's high on their bucket list — Baghdad would doubtless be their destination of choice. Still, despite a series of bombings last weekend that killed more than two-dozen people, the predominantly Shia capital is unlikely to fall easily as did such Sunni-majority cities as Mosul. So the question being asked is whether these warriors will turn their lethal attentions toward Jordan.

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Separating cause and effect in the Middle East

July 16, 2014  •  The Washington Times

JERUSALEM | "The Palestinian Rothschild" is just one of Munib al-Masri's colorful nicknames. A longtime adviser to Yasser Arafat, the now-deceased Palestinian leader, he is today an 80-year-old billionaire with interests in everything from telecommunications to construction to agriculture. The patriarch of a large and distinguished family, he lives in an elegant West Bank mansion inspired by Palladio's Rotonda in Vicenza, Italy.

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Murder and revenge in Jerusalem

July 9, 2014  •  The Washington Times

EAST JERUSALEM — "I think it goes to flames." Nuha Musleh, a Palestinian who earns her living as a "fixer" — a guide-translator-arranger for foreign reporters — stage-whispered that in my ear. We were standing on a sidewalk in Shuafat, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, watching a loud and angry demonstration in support of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the 16-year-old boy abducted and killed two days earlier. The demonstrators blamed Israelis — an act of revenge, they presumed, for the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers last month, crimes Israeli officials have linked to Hamas.

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