Middle East politics - Page 13

The Palestinian Constitutional Court, a body set up months ago by President Mahmoud Abbas, ruled on Sunday that he can revoke the parliamentary immunity of lawmakers, a move that effectively allows him to sideline rivals.

Lebanon’s president asked Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri to form a new government on Thursday after he won the support of a majority of MPs and the endorsement of the influential parliament speaker.

A senior Iranian military official welcomed Thursday what he said was the “strong decline” of the United States, during celebrations marking the start of the 1979 US embassy siege.

Saudi Arabia’s parliament on Monday struck down a bill to allow women to drive. The Shura Council, the kingdom’s legislative body voted against a proposal to instruct the Labor and Interior Ministries to look into the matter, 65 to 62. In order to gain approval, the bill had to secure 76 votes.

The gruesome death of a fishmonger in Morocco last week has triggered the country’s largest protests in years, stirring memories of the death of a Tunisian vendor in 2010 which is often regarded as the spark that set the Arab Spring in motion.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s top internecine rival, Mohammad Dahlan, often mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed the 81-year-old leader, said Sunday he will not run for president in future Palestinian elections.

Lebanon’s newest president, a retired general who is firmly allied with the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah, threatened Israel in his inaugural address in Beirut on Monday, The Times of Israel reported.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Sisi came under fire for telling a group of young Egyptians, in a discussion about the country’s flagging economy, that his “refrigerator was empty for 10 years.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a rare meeting with the heads of rival party Hamas in Qatar on Thursday, in direct talks aimed at ending years of hostility between the two movements.

Top Palestinian newspaper Al Quds has come under fire for publishing an extensive interview on Monday with Israel’s new defense minister, the ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman.

Oil prices were mixed in choppy trade on Tuesday as disagreement flared within producer cartel OPEC on who should cut how much production in a planned coordinated reduction to prop up prices.

Iraqi security forces on Monday ended an attack by the Islamic State group in Kirkuk city, killing at least 74 jihadists in three days of clashes, the provincial governor said.

Secular Iraqis woke up feeling hungover on Sunday, after a surprise parliament vote they claim is unconstitutional and shows that dominant religious parties have their priorities wrong.

The Gaza military court has sentenced R.A. to twenty years of imprisonment and forced labor after he was convicted of passing information to Israeli “occupiers.”

Lebanon’s powerful ex-premier Saad Hariri is expected to endorse Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun for president, a post that has been vacant for almost 30 months, a senior politician said Wednesday.

Jordanian citizens have asked Islamic clerics whether, following the national power company’s multi-million gas deal with Israel, taking electricity off the central grid would not be considered stealing, the local media reported.

A West Bank hospital official says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will undergo a heart test after being hospitalized.

The Palestinian government decided on Tuesday to delay the first municipal elections in a decade, originally scheduled for October 8, by several months.

Shimon Peres, former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, died on Wednesday aged 93. Here are key facts about him:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not run for president in next year’s Iranian election, he said on Tuesday, bowing to the wishes of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said his candidacy would increase divisions in Iran.

Iran’s supreme leader has told former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) not to stand again in next year’s elections, state media reported on Monday, effectively eliminating a major challenger to pragmatist incumbent Hassan Rouhani.

Hamas welcomed a European prosecutor’s statement last week that the movement should be taken off the European Union’s terror list.

Iraq’s parliament voted on Wednesday to remove the country’s finance minister, who was questioned over corruption allegations last month, lawmakers said.

Patriotic music and songs praising Jordan’s King Abdullah II boom from a white tent pitched in Amman by candidates standing in Tuesday’s parliamentary election.

An Arab Israeli lawmaker has caused an uproar after describing ailing Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres as covered “head to toe” in Palestinian blood.

A columnist for Egypt’s official state media has implied that the September 11 attacks and recent terrorist attacks in Europe were not carried out by Islamist terrorists, but rather they were the work of Western intelligence agencies.

JAFFA, Israel – A Palestinian court decision to suspend next month’s local elections in the West Bank were the result of grave concerns among Fatah that they may lose to Hamas, a top Fatah official told Breitbart Jerusalem.

Senior Facebook officials are in Israel to meet with government representatives and civil servants in an effort to jointly stem the online incitement that the Israeli government says leads to terror activities.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said Turkey had a duty to defeat the Islamic State extremist group, adding its operation inside Syria was a first step towards this goal.

Hamas’ leadership is poised to decide on Ismail Haniyeh as leader of the group’s political bureau, replacing Khaled Meshal, a Hamas source in Gaza has confirmed to Breitbart Jerusalem following several Arab media reports on the matter.

Citing Iran and its proxy terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, as the greatest existential threats to Israel, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head and current chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Avi Dichter, said the Middle East is undergoing “tectonic movements.”

Former Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh is likely to replace Khaled Mashaal as head of the Hamas terror group’s politburo in upcoming elections, according to Arab media reports Monday.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside of a peace festival featuring Jewish and Arab Israeli performers in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, calling out to those entering the venue, “Your tickets are covered in Palestinian blood.”

Palestinian political parties began registering candidates for municipal elections on Wednesday, the first step in years toward a democratic vote but one that threatens to re-inflame tensions between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements.

TEL AVIV – Intelligence agencies in several Arab states suspect the Turkish regime may attempt an assassination campaign against people affiliated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s arch enemy Fethullah Gulen as well as other opposition figures that Erdogan believes may have been involved in last month’s failed coup attempt, an Arab intelligence source told Breitbart Jerusalem.

Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for its former international football star striker Hakan Sukur in the probe over the failed July 15 coup aimed at unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a report said Friday.