Forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah have laid siege to roughly 40,000 people near Madaya, a predominantly Sunni town near Syria’s border with Lebanon, leading to widespread starvation and a severe deterioration in living conditions, the Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday. Residents of Madaya,...

The American Nasdaq stock market announced a joint venture with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) to help nurture Israeli startups, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) on Wednesday. The collaboration aims to boost Israeli startups by granting them greater exposure to foreign investors on a new exchange. In...

North Korea’s recent claim that it detonated a hydrogen bomb has led experts to question the regime’s ties to Iran and its nuclear program, as well as the sustainability of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Pyongyang said that it successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb – a more powerful weapon, which...

Bahraini authorities say they have broken up an Iran-backed cell that was planning to carry out multiple terror attacks on its territory, Reuters reported on Wednesday. “A secret terrorist plot aided by the so-called Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Hezbollah terrorist organization was foiled,” Bahrain’s BNA state news agency reported....

Can Jews, Muslims and Christians live side by side peacefully in Israel? It’s a question many people ask themselves. But they can, and they do, in cities such as Haifa and in less well-known Lod, whose slogan is “A mosaic of cultures.” The municipality is working hard to raise the...

Iran is facing increased political isolation as fallout from its escalating feud with Saudi Arabia, regional experts say. The tensions between the nations were sparked by the execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi Arabia, and the subsequent torching of the Saudi embassy in Tehran. David Andrew Weinberg, a senior fellow at the...

One year after the terror attack at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the publication’s editor wrote in a commemorative issue that while the massacre led to global shock and a wide-ranging debate on free speech and religion, no one seemed surprised that jihadists also killed four people at a kosher grocery store. “We are so used...

Just as it did in October, Iran has broadcast images of its arsenal of ballistic missiles on state television, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The broadcast, which showed an underground depot with the same precision-guided missiles that were tested by Iran in October, was a “defiant move” meant to “irk” the...

A bill introduced in the California legislature on Monday would ban the state from doing business with companies that engage in boycotts based on nationality—preventing the state from partnering with entities that participate in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. “California strongly opposes discrimination,” Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), who introduced...

In the wake of this weekend’s escalation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Washington seems to be increasingly favoring Tehran over Riyadh, Josh Rogin and Eli Lake reported for Bloomberg View on Monday. After Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr was executed in Saudi Arabia on terrorism-related charges on Saturday, Rogin and Lake...