Qatar’s support for radical Islamists across North Africa and the Near East was at the root of a “blunt” exchange between President Barack Obama and Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani during an April 23rd meeting. Bloomberg published details of the meeting yesterday. The President is not the...

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Egyptian media outlets are again linking Hamas to violence in the country stretching back to the 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring. Earlier this week Egypt’s former interior minister floated the suggestion that Hamas had a hand in fomenting unrest during the revolution, which saw the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak...

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An Egyptian newspaper has published accusations linking Hamas to a spate of violence in Egypt stretching back to the country’s Arab Spring revolution. The allegations come from former interior minister Mansour al-Essawy. Essawy served in the Hosni Mubarak government which was overthrown during that revolution. So while he has a...

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The Israeli Air Force carried out an air strike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday against a terrorist who was affiliated with a range of jihadi groups, and who had been involved in an April 17 rocket attack from the Sinai Peninsula on the Israeli city of Eilat. Hithem Ziad...

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Qatar and Turkey are playing key roles in boosting hard line Islamic groups across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Jordan are trying to support groups which are relatively more moderate. The Obama administration is, as a result, finding its regional posture being… complicated: The regional divisions, described...

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Another wave of resignations has hit Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked government, with high-ranking justice and finance officials announcing in recent days that they were quitting. Egypt’s justice minister recently resigned over Islamist efforts to “cleanse” the Egyptian judiciary of judges seen as opposed to the country’s Brotherhood-linked president Mohammed Morsi: Ahmed...

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Egyptian Islamists who control the country’s parliament are pushing ahead with controversial legislation aimed at forcing the retirement of judges inside Egypt’s relatively secular Egyptian judiciary. Opposition figures and foreign analysts have long feared that Morsi and his allies were aiming to intimidate or purge judges who have served as checks on...

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The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is facing criticism after journalists uncovered a post on the group’s official website that counsels families to tell daughters “wash your courtyards and don’t be like the Jews and the Christians.” The story is bound to deepen concerns over Muslim Brotherhood anti-Semitism. It comes a week after...

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Scores of people were injured in weekend clashes in Cairo after opposition activists clashed with Islamists who were rallying on behalf of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked President Mohamed Morsi. At stake are efforts by the Egyptian judiciary to limit and block a series of power grabs by Morsi designed to centralize...

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In the corridors of power in Jerusalem and Cairo, this week’s fire of two Grad rockets on Eilat came as a surprise to no one. Last week Israel deployed an Iron Dome battery to the Red Sea resort city after intelligence warnings of impending rocket attacks from Sinai. An additional...

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