More than half a million Syrian refugees are crammed into camps in Jordan. The need to house and feed them is just one of the ways in which the Syrian conflict is devestating the Jordanian economy: “Jordan’s economy has been devastated because of the lack of trade toward Syria going...

Major natural gas reserves off Israel’s coast – some of which are already online – promise to redraw the geopolitical map in the Near East. The Washington Post colorfully explains: The huge reservoirs of natural gas discovered off the coast of Israel now flowing toward shore have the potential to...

In a move that is bound to reinforce concerns over creeping Islamism in Egypt, the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked government had announced that it will be issuing sharia-compliant bonds in an attempt to stabilize Egypt’s teetering economy: Egypt’s upper house of parliament, which has assumed temporary legislative powers, approved the law...

Islamists and relative moderates are fighting for control of, and prominence within, the Syrian opposition. The Islamists – led by the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra front – have among other things attempted to impose Islamic law on areas they capture. The relative moderates are backed by the West. The momentum...

Israeli intelligence sources dismissed today a new sensational account, broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), regarding the fate of an Australian-born Jew who immigrated to Israel and became a Mossad agent, and who was eventually found dead at the age of 34 in a high-security Israeli prison cell on...

Analysis of Friday and Sunday air strikes on Syria, which were widely attributed to Israel, is converging on the signal of “strategic clarity” sent by whoever ordered the strikes. Foundation for Defense of Democracies research fellow Tony Badran notes that there has been “confusion in some of the media commentary” regarding the...

“Syria has largely disappeared from the internet.” So said services such as Google and Umbrella Security Labs (a component of OpenDNS Inc.), which both documented a “significant drop in the traffic from Syria” around 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.  As of 3pm Wednesday, some activists reported connectivity is beginning to be restored....

Iran is one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedoms, according to a recent report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.  The report identifies Iran as a “tier 1 country of particular concern” when it comes to persecuting people of faith. Already poor religious freedom conditions...

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on Wednesday announced that it will be withdrawing from an observation post in the Golan Heights, where the force is stationed. The announcement comes after the abduction Tuesday of four observers by Syrian rebels. The fear yesterday was that the U.N. would react to...

U.S. officials have evaluated Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in the Syrian conflict, and find themselves concerned: Hezbollah fighters joined Syrian government forces in the siege of a rebel-held town inside the war-torn country on Monday, local residents said, deepening the Iran-backed group’s involvement in Syria’s civil war and raising alarm among...