The six Arab states that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council have issued a joint communique condemning “continuing Iranian interference” in their internal affairs as well as Tehran’s growing nuclear program. “Politically, (there is) lots of meddling in the affairs of GCC states; an environmental threat to our region from the...

Israeli diplomats are suggesting that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, having secured non-member U.N. statehood status for the Palestinians, is committed to leveraging that status to “incite a confrontation with Israel no matter what.” The Palestinian Authority announced Thursday that, should Israeli voters choose the Likud Party to lead the next...

Fighting is breaking out across Egypt as Egyptians wind down voting on a deeply divisive constitutional referendum. Saturday will mark the final stage of voting on the new constitutional draft, which was hastily rushed through Egypt’s Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly in the midst of a political legitimacy crisis. The new constitution,...

The UK Huffington Post is criticizing Europe and America for “dangerous complacency” regarding the risk that Syria’s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists. The Syrian conflict is a three-way proxy war between Sunni-backed rebels, the Iran-backed regime in Damascus, and Kurdish groups. The...

Jordanian officials are lashing out at Turkey over Ankara’s role in funding and arming the increasingly hardline Islamist rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Suggesting that Syria may devolve into a “black hole that sucks Jihadists from around the world,” the Jordanian officials blasted Ankara for...

Washington, December 21 — Turkey is trying to coerce Israel by essentially holding the country’s Jewish community hostage, according to foreign policy experts and Turkish Jews living beyond the country’s borders. The warnings come in the aftermath this week of an announcement that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) was opening...

Iranian calculations that it can weather Western efforts to isolate Tehran may have been boosted this week as a Russian destroyer docked in Iran on Wednesday morning. The event deepened concerns that Moscow’s military cooperation with Tehran is undermining the West’s efforts to pressure the Islamic republic, and comes in...

A clear view of Israel’s electoral landscape has yet to emerge, even as the country speeds toward the upcoming January 22 election. While polls have been consistent in describing the race’s broad contours — a strong center-right Likud and a fractured political left — the composition within those blocs continues...

Al-Qaeda linked forces in Syria are gaining momentum as the country’s nearly two-year-long conflict approaches a critical juncture. The al-Nusra Front, which the U.S. last week designated as a terrorist organization, is seeing its profile and power rise as opposition forces close in on their goal of removing the Bashar...

A top American diplomat and foreign policy veteran has called 2013 a “decisive year” for resolving the standoff between the Iranian regime and countries seeking to reduce opacity around Tehran’s atomic program. Dennis Ross, who has served prominently under every president since Bill Clinton, told an audience at the Jerusalem...