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Facebook Fatwa: Saudi Clerics, Wahhabi Islam and Social Media
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has released the first-ever study of what radical Saudi Wahhabists are preaching to their followers about the United States and non-Muslims on social media sites.
Learn MoreAnalysis & Commentary - Jonathan Schanzer
How Iran Benefits From an Illicit Gold Trade With Turkey
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has arrived in Washington, D.C. for a much-anticipated summit with President Barack Obama. The timing of the visit -- amid reports of chemical weapons... more...
UN for Combating Terror Finance to Convene in Sudan, a State Sponsor of Terror
On Sunday, the leading experts on terrorism finance in the Middle East and North Africa will convene for a five-day conference. The Financial Action Task Force is essentially the United Nations... more...
The Slow Death of Palestinian Democracy
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Kuwait on Monday to raise the Palestinian flag over the Palestinian embassy in Kuwait City for the first time in 22 years. The move was long overdue... more...
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Resigning?
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad tendered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday, according to Reuters and other news sources. Fayyad’s office declined to comment... more...
Why is the West Doing Business with Sudan?
What does Canada have in common with the regime in Sudan, which perpetrated genocide in Darfur, while allying with Iran and providing weapons to the Palestinian terror group Hamas? more...
Hamas Leadership Selection: An Initial Assessment
After months of fits and starts, Hamas finally completed its internal leadership elections, news sources report. The head of the politburo will again be Khaled Meshal, who had previously expressed his intent to step down. more...
Now Obama Needs to Pressure Turkey
In a surprise development on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an apology to Turkish Prime Minister Yayyip Erdoğan over the ill-fated May 2010 flotilla conflict on the high seas between Israeli... more...
Israeli Leader Apologizes to Turkey for Fatal Ship Raid
Apologizing to Turkey should be seen as a concession by Prime Minister Netanyahu to President Obama because escalating tensions between Turkey, a NATO member, and Israel, America’s most reliable... more...
It’s Not an Intifada
Don't call it an intifada. Not yet, anyway. Sure, violence has erupted recently throughout the West Bank. The injuries and deaths of Palestinian protestors continue to make headlines. more...
Abbas Needs an Heir Apparent
President Obama's visit to the Middle East next month is widely billed as an earnest attempt to double down on diplomacy and revive the moribund peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. more...
Targeting Tehran’s Euros
The United States has blocked Iran from easily accessing greenbacks as a means to slow down the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. But those financial sanctions only go so far. With Iranian nuclear physics... more...
The Winds of War in Lebanon
Multiple sources suggest that the winds of war are blowing to Israel’s north, and that such a war could erupt very soon. Lebanese parliamentarian Jean Ogassapian of the Future Bloc issued a warning... more...
Turkey’s Terror Finance Problem
Last week’s suicide bombing outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara, carried out by a Marxist Leninist group known as DHKP-C, drew condemnation from across the Turkish political spectrum. more...
If Iran and Israel Fight, Lebanon Will Be the First Battlefield
“Do you remember South Lebanon? All of Lebanon is now South Lebanon.” These were the words of a senior Israeli official in a closed-door meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday, just hours before Israel warplanes... more...
Israel’s January Surprise
With all eyes on the expected rise of Naftali Bennett, the poster boy of the settler movement, it was centrist Yair Lapid, a former newscaster, who emerged as the rising star in Israeli politics following Tuesday's election. more...
Israel and Palestine Prepare For a Third Intifada
"We're no longer on the verge of a third intifada—it's already here,” one Israeli military official announced January 6. The invocation of intifada may have been intended to shock. more...
State of Confusion Over State of Palestine
Has the Palestinian-Israeli conflict finally entered the post-Oslo Accords era? In the Middle East, nothing is dead until it’s buried, but several troubling signs are pointing in that direction. more...
A Nasty Neologism
'The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends," President George W. Bush declared soon after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush's statement set the tone for the tumultuous decade to come, one in which... more...
After Abbas
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas went to the United Nations last month and brought his people one step closer to statehood. But amid all the fanfare, Western diplomats quietly conceded that the General Assembly... more...
How Israel Lost Europe
There was never much doubt that the U.N. General Assembly would overwhelmingly vote to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to the status of nonmember state on Nov. 29. more...