Throughout 2012 senior Palestinian leaders – Fatah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – called for Palestinians to launch a third Intifada and resume violent attacks against Israel.  And as predicted, recent months have seen an uptick in orchestrated demonstrations and public violence among Palestinians targeting Israelis, including lynching attempts that reminded Israelis and observers...

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Sources in the Free Syrian Army, the main armed group fighting to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad, are announcing that its soldiers have bombed two Hezbollah compounds, one in Syria and another in the Lebanese town of Hermel. If confirmed the development may mark a critical turn in Syria’s...

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Nigerian officials have arrested three members of Iranian-backed terrorist cell who were gathering intelligence about potential U.S. and Israeli targets in the country and plotting to murder military and religious leaders. The cell’s 50-year old head Abdullahi Mustaphah Berende, a prominent figure in a local Shiite sect, has already confessed...

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Israeli media outlets are reporting statements by Israeli Home Front Command Minister Avi Dichter calling on the European Union to formally blacklist Hezbollah as a terror organization. Speaking to lawmakers in France – where fears of Hezbollah retaliation have driven officials to resist E.U. designation of the Iran-backed group –...

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A defendant on trial in Cyprus for plotting terror attacks against Israeli tourists has admitted to being a member of Hezbollah, a confession that promises to deepen pressure on the European Union to heed U.S. calls and formally designate the Iran-backed group a terrorist organization. The admission by Hossam Taleb...

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Foreign policy analysis suggesting that Hezbollah has morphed from being an Iranian proxy into being a Lebanese national movement has not held up well in recent months. There are the overarching dynamics that situate the group within intra-Iranian politics and put them on one side of the regional Sunni-Shiite divide....

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Egypt is sending a security delegation to Israel this week to discuss a range of security issues including the ongoing implementation of the Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas that ended last November’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The Israeli campaign came after weeks of escalatory rocket and missile fire by Hamas-led...

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The Gulf Cooperation Council has announced a “total rejection” of what GCC head Abdellatif Zayani is describing as another Iranian attempt at “interference in the internal affairs of Arab states.” The criticism comes in response to a proposal made by Iran’s Deputy Minister for Asian Affairs Abbas Araghchi, conveyed through Iranian media, proposing...

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Egypt has seized two tons of explosives headed toward the Sinai Peninsula just days after military forces began flooding tunnels that connect the strategic area and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The operation will deepen concerns over the extent to which smuggling remains prevalent on the Peninsula. Israel and Arabic analysts have expressed concerns that...

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Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai, the doyen of Israeli war correspondents, sat down with a top Hezbollah expert to unpack the likely tactics that the Iran-backed terror group will use in its next war with Israel. Extrapolating from three assumptions – (1) that Israelis are largely resiliant to rocket and missile...

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