Reactions to Wednesday’s decisive vote of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to reject the candidacy of confrontational J Street to join the body varied from predictable to petulant, after the president of the synagogue branch of the Reform movement, himself a strong supporter of J Street, declared his outrage that the...

While many diplomats in the European Union are hailing the unity agreement between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas as a necessary step for peace, the EU’s Ambassador to Israel qualified that praise with a stark reminder of the nature of Hamas. In remarks made to the Israeli news site Walla...

Israel’s internal the security agency, the Shin Bet, announced the arrests of seven men in a Hamas terror cell for planning attacks within Israel. The arrests, which were made in recent months, were announced this week. The cell was based in the Palestinian city of Qalqilya, which borders the Israeli...

A diplomatic spat between Turkey and Germany over the human rights policies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government escalated on Wednesday, as Turkish outlets conveyed critical remarks directed at Erdogan by German President Joachim Gauck regarding the behavior of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Gauck had...

Egyptian outlets on Tuesday carried reports that Saudi Arabia would – per a writeup in the English-language Egypt Independent – “announce a large aid package to Egypt if former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wins the elections,” a scenario that analysts broadly if not universally anticipate will play out. Saudi...

Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday reported on what the outlet described as a “massive show of force” by Hamas in the Ramallah stronghold of the rival Palestinian Fatah faction, a development likely to deepen emerging analyst concerns that a recently announced unity agreement between the two organizations may end...

Reuters on Tuesday described the emergence and effects of a “golden loophole” in what had been Western efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, with the outlet conveying the contents of a Turkish police report outlining how Turkish channels were used to implement ‘an audacious, multi-billion-dollar scheme involving bribery and suspect food...

In a recent analysis for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Ambassador Dore Gold writes that often when the profile of Hamas rises, “there is an effort undertaken to repackage Hamas as a moderate organization.” However, Gold argues, that Hamas’s record – in word and deed – shatters those efforts time and...

Islamist fighters in Syria took their barbarism to the next level with the publication of graphic photographs of two men said to have been executed and then crucified. The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced it had executed seven prisoners in its bastion in northeastern Syria...

The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad has once again missed a deadline in the process of ridding itself of chemical weapons. As of April 27, Syria was still in possession of roughly 7.5 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile. April 27 was the date Syria had agreed to have removed all...