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Israel

For three days in Tel Aviv, a group of innovators and makers recently took part in a unique marathon geared to producing affordable and cutting-edge products that will significantly improve the lives of people living with disabilities. The TOM:TLV make-a-thon brought together technologists, designers, therapists, and people with disabilities who...

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Diplomacy

The Palestinian Authority has denied that an Israeli move to unfreeze the PA’s tax revenues was part of a deal to get the Palestinians to halt their bid to have Israel prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) Ha’aretz reported yesterday. The report cited an anonymous senior Palestinian official. “We continue to...

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Diplomacy

The concessions built into the deal currently taking shape between the P5+1 and Iran in Lausanne, Switzerland may be so extensive as to undermine the possibility of long-term monitoring, and fail to stretch Iran’s breakout time to a year, according to former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deputy director Olli Heinonen....

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Diplomacy

An Iranian journalist who served as a media advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defected to the West over the weekend, protesting that he could “only write what he was told.” Reuters reported that Amir Hossein Motaghi was on the team that helped Rouhani win the 2013 presidential elections. “My conscience would...

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Israel

Though coalition negotiations are not yet complete, members of the 20th Knesset, including 39 first-timers, were sworn in in a ceremony today. President Reuven “Ruby” Rivlin exhorted the legislators “to attend to the needs of the nation, saying ‘the time has come to return to the main players — the...

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Featured

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the commander of Iran’s Basij militia, said in an interview that “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable,” The Times of Israel reported today. Naqdi’s comments were made public as Iran and six world powers prepared Tuesday to issue a general statement agreeing to continue...

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Diplomacy

The P5+1 global powers and Iran will issue a “general” statement to close the latest round of nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, according to an Associated Press (AP) report today. According to the AP, the statement would “[allow] the sides to claim enough progress has been made thus far to merit...

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Diplomacy

Attacks on Houthi targets by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen intensified Monday. CNN reported that the Saudi-led coalition targeted Houthi military position and weapons depots in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The Saudi-led forces also struck a camp for internally displaced refugees as speculation grows that a ground invasion...

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Diplomacy

In an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Monday, David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, disputed the idea that the only alternative of the deal being negotiated with Iran was a war. The relevant segment of the interview is embedded below. When Mitchell asked...

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Diplomacy

Top analysts, including a former top official at the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, are calling into question basic assumptions about the wisdom of the deal currently being hammered out in Lausanne, Switzerland between the P5+1 global powers and Iran. At stake is whether the administration’s publicly-expressed goal for the talks—that...

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