Following Wednesday reports that Tehran is pouring assets into Iraq, analysts are raising concerns that Iranian efforts in the country, which in recent weeks has seen Sunni extremists overtake portions of the country, could complicate U.S. moves aimed at restabilizing the Iraq. Ephraim Kam, a senior research fellow at the...
Continue Reading >>
A leading scholar of the Middle East has proposed that the key to understanding how the middle east affects U.S. interests lies less in Al-Qaeda and its affiliates and more in the expansionist efforts of the Iranian regime. Lee Smith, author of The Strong Horse and a senior editor at The...
Continue Reading >>
On Wednesday the the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act of 2014. The Jerusalem Post reports: The Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act of 2014, introduced by US Representatives Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), includes a provision to sanction foreign financial institutions that knowingly...
Continue Reading >>
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro visited the parents of 16-year-old Naftali Fraenkel, the Israeli high school student who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists along with two other Israeli teenagers. The Fraenkels hold dual Israeli-American citizenship. Shapiro said he “offered the strong support of the US government, our people, and...
Continue Reading >>
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon vowed on Tuesday to make Hamas “pay a heavy price” for the kidnapping of teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel. The Times of Israel reported on the defense minister’s comments: “Hamas in Judea and Samaria will pay a heavy price for the kidnapping,”...
Continue Reading >>
In Terrorists and Kleptocrats: How Corruption is Eating the Palestinians Alive, featured in the June 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Aaron Menenberg describes his two years serving in the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Civil Administration. Menenberg’s job, as he describes it, was “to ensure aid projects funded by foreign governments...
Continue Reading >>
Ha’aretz reported Tuesday that the government of Norway has cancelled a conference of donor countries to the Palestinian Authority, which was scheduled for next week. Norway agreed to postpone the conference, which was to focus on economic development for the PA, after the kidnappings of three Israeli teenagers by the terrorist...
Continue Reading >>
On Wednesdsay, the United Nations General Assembly selected Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa, a vocal anti-gay activist, as the international body’s president for the 2014-2015 session, set to begin in September. Bloomberg News reports: The former lawyer and politician defended Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s February enacting legislation that toughened punishments for gay sex...
Continue Reading >>
On Monday, a spokesman for Hamas called upon members of the terrorist organization to carry out terror attacks in the West Bank. The Times of Israel reported: “We call on the men of resistance in the West Bank, primarily the Al-Qassam Brigades, to fulfill their duty in protecting the prisoners...
Continue Reading >>
David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy released on Friday an analysis of recent Palestinian public opinion polls, which held some surprising conclusions with important implications for the region. Pollock notes that despite the apparent contradiction, most Palestinians favor a unity government between Fatah and Hamas, while at the...
Continue Reading >>
