Iranian ex-pats living in Israel have evaluated claims suggesting that the Islamic republic’s newly inaugurated president Hassan Rouhani will moderate Iran’s foreign and domestic policies. “Deeply skeptical” is how the Jerusalem Post described their reactions: Salome Worch was born in Iran, grew up and spent most of her adult life...

Analysts and journalists continued today to chew over recently posted footage showing Iranian president Hassan Rouhani boasting that he used negotiations with the West during the 2000’s to stall for time while Iran locked in its nuclear infrastructure. The Times of Israel, which brought renewed attention to the video, also...

Analysts have worried for months that the decline in Turkey’s regional and global position will heighten the frequency and intensity of diatribes by the country’s Islamist prime minister Recep Erdogan. In September Erodgan lambasted Jews for orchestrating the overthrow of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked president Mohammed Morsi, after Ankara had sought...

Recent weeks have seen Egypt expanding its campaign to uproot jihadist infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula, seeking to stem a wave of violence that has targeted security forces and civilians, and which now seems to be expanding to the territory’s tourist-heavy southern areas. Meanwhile the army-backed government has doubled down...

Videos uploaded yesterday to YouTube by Syrian opposition groups showcase jihadist infrastructure and document heavy fighting close to the Israeli-Syrian border. The footage comes amid new Israeli evaluations that predict the Jewish state may have to fight a multi-front war against elements drawn from extremist Sunni groups that have increasingly...

The next round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 are scheduled for next week in Geneva. While an ongoing charm offensive by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has been praised for changing Iran’s tone toward the West, it has been criticized for offering zero new concessions that might move negotiations forward....

Palestinian diplomats last year launched a diplomatic campaign to gain non-member statehood status via the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), brushing aside calls from President Barack Obama to put aside the campaign and triggering automatic U.S. sanctions that endangered the financial viability of the organization. U.S. lawmakers specifically expressed concerns...

On Sunday at least 53 people were killed in clashes between supporters of opponents of Egypt’s former Muslim Brotherhood-linked president Mohammed Morsi. Today at least eight Egyptian security officials were killed over three specific attacks targeting Egyptian security forces. The New York Times described the recent attacks as indicating a...

The murders of two Israelis last week – one by a Palestinian coworker and one by a Palestinian sniper – had already deepened fears that incitement by official Palestinian organs was driving a spike of violence in the West Bank. This weekend a nine-year-old Israeli girl was shot and wounded...

The Pew Research Center has reemphasized polling describing the global community as deeply skeptical of Iranian intentions, both in general and as regards what is widely suspected to be the Islamic republic’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Late last month Jacob Poushter, a research associate at the Pew Global Attitudes...