On July 24, just days after the Knesset passed legislation officially defining “the land of Israel” as “the historical homeland of the Jewish people” and “the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went ballistic. Responding to the nation-state bill,” Erdogan warned it would cause “blood, […]
Good- news stories rarely emerge from the Middle East these days. Syria is bogged down in a civil war that has cost the country very dearly, and Israel is bombing Iranian bases there. Israel and Hamas are fighting again and might yet go to war for the fourth time in a decade. Iran, Israel’s chief […]
Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, but 13 years on Gaza remains a tinderbox and a bone in Israel’s throat. Israel had hoped that its pullout from Gaza, conceived and implemented by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, would bring a measure of prosperity to its generally impoverished Palestinian inhabitants and […]
On the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, pressure is building on Iran to withdraw its contingent of advisors and troops from Syria. Israel and the United States have demanded Iran’s pullout, as have Sunni Arab nations ranging from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. Even […]
Syria’s current offensive to recapture Daraa province from anti-regime rebels is giving Israel cause for concern. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began sending reinforcements to southwestern Syria in mid-May in a bid to stamp out the last embers of the rebellion there. On June 19, the Syrian army, assisted by Russian airpower, Iranian advisers, Hezbollah ground troops […]
Conspiracy theories in the Muslim world are as common and as popular as vanilla ice cream and apple pie in the United States. Arabs and Turks, in particular, have an insatiable appetite for this variant of fake news. As Abd al-Hamid al-Majjali wrote in the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour last year, “The Arabs seem to believe […]
Just weeks after ferociously labelling Israel “a malignant cancer” that must “be removed and eradicated,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dialed down his rhetoric. In a series of recent tweets from his official website, he wrote that Israel’s protracted struggle with the Palestinians should be resolved peacefully rather than through war. “To define Palestine’s […]
For about the past two months, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip have turned to a new yet primitive weapon, incendiary kites, to harass and harm neighboring Israel. Comparatively small in size, cobbled together with transparent plastic wrapping and carrying flammable materials, they set fire to nearby agricultural fields, grasslands, and nature reserves. By Israeli Defence Minister […]
Hard on the heels of the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Germany, France and Britain this week in an attempt to persuade them to pull out of the landmark accord. Acknowledging that Iran had complied with the agreement, but complaining that Tehran had violated its […]
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres performed a valuable public service recently when he urged Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political party, to cease military activities and disarm. As well, he called upon Lebanon and the Lebanese armed forces to prohibit Hezbollah from acquiring weapons and building a military capacity outside the framework of the […]