As Arab leaders gather in Kuwait this week, the Palestinian delegation will seek support for their rejectionist stance on the American-brokered peace talks with Israel, hoping to convince them to reinvigorate the Arab peace initiative as an alternative to the American track. The Israel Project’s Regional Analyst Paul Shindman believes Palestinian leader...

The Israeli military’s discovery of an underground “terror tunnel” stretching from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip deep into the Jewish state has deepened concerns that a U.S.-backed initiative to secure a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians may be deeply complicated – if not rendered untenable – by the...

Arab League officials over the weekend predicted that the bloc’s upcoming meeting in Kuwait will revolve around “rifts” dividing the Arab world, with both international wires and regional outlets using the phrase. Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy gave comments on Monday that – even under interpretations that have the various...

Turkey watchers spent much of last Friday piling on the country’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) for their decision late Thursday to ban Twitter – Erdogan’s exact phrase was that he was going to “eradicate” the microblogging service – amid widespread and successful...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday described the Holocaust as “uncertain” and blasted Israel’s long-standing demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people in the context of any comprehensive peace agreement, the latest in a string of statements from the top Iranian figure that align uneasily...

Analysts continued late last week to gauge the degree to which nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 global powers might be affected by the crisis in Crimea, with Washington-based energy expert Nicholas Cunningham rounding up analysis that broadly converged on the conclusion that “Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the retaliatory steps...

Iran reacted angrily on Sunday to a Canadian court ruling ordering the seizure of millions of dollars of Iranian property and bank assets. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the ruling had “no legal value,” with the Iranian news agency Tasnim explaining A court in Canada’s Ontario has recently...

Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam condemned the latest armed clashes to erupt on the streets of Beirut as increasing numbers of factions and individuals get their hands on weapons, threatening the stability of country and trying to drag Israel into the regional conflict. There is little or no central security...

In a move certain to deepen concerns about the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to reaching a peace agreement with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly told American negotiators during his visit to Washington last week that he would not accept an “end of conflict” clause in any deal. The report,...

Though the boycott-Israel movement remains mostly on the fringes of American life, serious efforts are under way to put it firmly in the mainstream, with a heavy focus on fighting the battle for college campuses. Last year the  American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker group relentlessly hostile to Israel, teamed...