FC Barcelona – one of the world’s greatest soccer teams, led by Argentinean soccer divinity Lionel Messi – traveled this week through Israel and through Palestinian controlled territories in the West Bank. When they played in Israel’s Jaffa, Israeli officials invited 400 to 500 Palestinians to watch the game. When...

Several developments in Turkey over the weekend and stretching into early this week have observers fearing that the country’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party is tightening its grip on the country’s armed forces. In the legal arena, the first convictions came down in a years-old campaign against former top...

A security sweep in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula this week resulted in 10 killed and 20 arrested, after a month in which jihadists killed at least 30 people and injured over 150 in the territory. Attacks on Egyptian soldiers and civilians are now occurring daily, and the Washington Post this week raised fears that an...

The official Twitter feed of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei today lashed out amid renewed peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials, emphasizing instead that Israel must be destroyed to make way for a Palestinian state. Any operational plan 4 Palestinian cause should be based on “All #Palestine for...

Israeli officials this week expressed broad hopes that relaunching negotiations will enable a final status agreement that would see the creation of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Jewish state. Tzipi Livni, Jerusalem’s chief negotiator, acknowledged skepticism toward the talks and explained why it might be overcome: “There is a lot...

Iranian state media reported this week on statements made by Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi in which the powerful Iranian official – Naqdi is the commander of the Basij paramilitary force – explained the sources of regional instability and how to solve them. A lot, it turns out, hangs on the Jewish...

Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip have evaluated renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), and are declaring themselves displeased: Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah said the PA had relinquished many of its initial preconditions to the negotiations in order to revive the way of the Oslo Accords,...

Recent months have seen a percipitous decline in Hamas’s strategic and diplomatic standing. The Arab Spring and the Islamist governments that it empowered were seen as a boon to the Iran-backed terror group, but various dynamics in the region – including the Syrian conflict and the deterioration of security in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula...

President Barack Obama on Monday extended a freeze on the assets of individuals who are linked to activities that undermine Lebanese stability. The extension lasts for one more year. The president’s reasoning was candid: In a letter addressed to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the...

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been criticized in the past for declaring that a future Palestinian state would be cleansed of all Israelis. According to reports, including from Reuters, those criticisms have not taken hold: “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single...