Iranian officials appear committed to reinforcing the notion that, should the West strike the Iranian-allied Bashar al-Assad regime Syria, Israel would be attacked in turn. Iranian officials have longed issued explicitly genocidal threats against the Jewish state in the context of attacks on Syria. Hossein Sheikholeslam, the director of parliament’s...

Iranian media today carried statements by a top Syrian officer declaring that Syria will lash out at Israel in the event of Western strikes against Damascus. A top officer with the Syrian army told the Iranian news agency FARS that should Damascus be attacked, the Syrians will retaliated against Tel Aviv....

The West appears prepared to strike Syrian military infrastructure perhaps as soon as this week, amid threats by both Damascus and its Iranian patrons to respond to Western action by attacking Israel and with “surprises.”  Syria vowed defiantly to defend itself against any attack with “surprise” measures, while its close ally Russia...

The State Department this morning rushed to emphasize that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were ongoing – “sustained and serious” was Foggy Bottom’s exact language – after Palestinian negotiators reportedly called off a meeting between Jerusalem and Ramallah in the aftermath of an incident this morning in which three Palestinians were shot and killed in clashes...

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad today rejected widely aired allegations by Western intelligence agencies that regime forces had used chemical weapons in a mass attack last week. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had already said last Wednesday that “it was not the first time they used chemical weapons,” referring to previous...

Israel’s cabinet on Sunday approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s choice of Yossi Cohen, the outgoing deputy head of the Mossad, to be Israel’s new National Security Advisor. Cohen, 52 years old, made his career as a “case officer”: a spy-runner. Until Wednesday, under censorship restrictions, Cohen could only be...