A NATO initiative to bring together Israel and six Arab states situated along the Mediterranean has been scrapped after Turkey and Egypt raised objections. Turkish diplomats scrambled to deny that their moves had anything to do with ongoing anti-Israel diplomacy being conducted by the Islamist Justice and Development party of...

Officials from the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) are blasting Turkey’s announcement that a date has been set for a visit to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which PA officials have lobbied the U.S. to stop: The PA believes that Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza...

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Muhammad Abbas’s aturday evening decision to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad came as a result of political jockeying and amid intense international diplomacy. Fayyad met this evening with Abbas in a session that lasted just twenty minutes, after which news leaked of the resignation. On Thursday Reuters reported...

Arabic media sources are reporting that President Mahmoud Abbas has accepted the resignation of Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, after the two met briefly late in the day Saturday. The resignation comes in the aftermath of a public spat between the two officials over the departure of Finance Minister Dr....

Slowly, quietly, the new divided Egypt – divided between the Muslim Brotherhood and its opponents – is changing the space where Egypt meets the Gaza Strip. While the smuggling of goods through the Rafah tunnels has begun returning to its old patterns, the scope of that smuggling has dropped off...

A foreigner to entering Egypt earlier this week might think he had reached some sort of Middle Eastern paradise. On Wednesday, Egyptian news sites and TV stations devoted extensive coverage to the joint press conference between Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani and his Egyptian counterpart Hesham Kandil. Al-Thani...

Syria’s air force has again bombed Lebanese territory, this time hitting the Lebanese town of Arsal. The air strike marks the second time in 24 hours that forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime have targeted what they claim are areas used by Syrian opposition forces in Lebanon. Lebanese President Michel...

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, fresh off a two-week trip to the Middle East, has called on the European Union to designate Hezbollah, which he calls “a grave threat to security and stability in the Middle East and beyond.” Designating Hezbollah in Europe would severely impact the terror group’s fundraising...

A Friday attack in Syria on the mainly Christian and Kurdish town of Qamishli is deepening fears that the country’s conflict will become a protracted, sectarian war that extends past the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Al Qaeda-linked forces targeted the airport in the area. Qamishli had existed under...

Egyptian security forces operating in the Sinai Peninsula have seized several caches of weapons and explosives this week, which officials believe were destined for use against both Israel and Egypt. Officials told the Ma’an News Agency that among the cache contained anti-aircraft shells, grenades, and anti-tank mines intended for the bordering...