Just days after the Israeli media reported earlier this month that Iranian military forces were being withdrawn from Syria, Israelis learned that Iran had sprung a nasty surprise on Israel. Iran, Israel’s most formidable enemy, had launched a cyberattack on Israel’s water and sewage facilities. Channel 12 broke the news on May 9, but the actual […]
Twenty years ago today, Israel withdrew unilaterally from its self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon, ending a lengthy occupation that the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, described as a “tragedy.” Under cover of darkness, Israeli armored personnel carriers, trucks, jeeps and tanks rolled into Israel, accompanied by several thousand troops from the South Lebanon […]
Israel’s year-long political crisis, the worst in its statehood, officially ended on May 17 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national unity government was sworn in. Netanyahu will retain the premiership for 18 months, until November 17, 2021, and then switch roles with Benny Gantz, the alternative prime minister and defence minister. The formation of a power-sharing […]
Reports emanating from Israel of late suggest that Iran, Israel’s arch enemy, is gradually withdrawing its forces from Syria and that pro-Iranian militias there are also pulling out. If these reports are true, a major source of tension in the Middle East will have been removed and Israel will have scored a major victory over Iran, […]
Much to its credit, Germany has finally cracked down hard on Hezbollah. Seven years after branding its armed wing as a terrorist organization and banning it in Germany, the German interior minister, Horst Seehofer, went one step further by effectively outlawing its civilian wing and prohibiting all its activities inside Germany. Seehofer made this announcement […]
One hundred years ago this month, the map of the Middle East was radically redrawn by the major powers at a long-forgotten summit in a pretty resort town in northwestern Italy. The San Remo Conference, which took place in 1920 between April 19-26 at the Villa Devachan, officially ratified the breakup of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire […]
Israel and the Palestinians are at odds over key issues, but as the coronavirus pandemic develops, the Israeli government has been offering tangible assistance to the ruling Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations, Israel is helping the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, […]
It would appear that Iran is cynically using the coronavirus crisis to exert pressure on its arch foe, the United States, to suspend or cancel the crippling trade sanctions that have all but throttled its oil-based economy. Iran, the leading Shi’a power in the Middle East, has been devastated by the pandemic, having recorded 87,000 […]
Israel’s worst political crisis since the advent of statehood in 1948 was defused on April 20 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz, broke a year-long impasse and agreed to form an emergency government for the next 36 months. A day later, the leader of the […]
Once again, Hamas has displayed a blatant disregard for the basic fundamentals of democracy. Hamas, the undisputed ruling authority in the Gaza Strip since its violent coup in 2007, recently arrested seven peace activists who participated in a video conference with their counterparts in Israel. The Palestinian detainees were members of Skype With Your Enemy, […]