Educators and counselors from Jewish Israeli youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and the Arab Israeli youth movement Ajyal soon will embark on a joint voluntary mission to set up a community center and school for Syrian refugee children on the Greek island of Lesbos. The first delegation of two from each...

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Israel’s Borders Heat Up Towns on Israel’s northern and southern borders came under attack this week. On Monday, three rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, leading the Israel Defense Forces to strike three Hamas targets in in response, including a naval base. It still isn’t clear who fired the rockets...

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Up to 13,000 people were secretly killed over five years in a notorious Syrian prison run by the Iran-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad, Amnesty International revealed in a report on Tuesday. Saydnaya Prison, located some 30 miles north of Damascus, is the site of a “campaign of mass hangings and extermination,” complete with...

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Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem Could Help Bring About Peace—But Will It Happen? The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1995, mandates that the United States must move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which three successive presidents have avoided by signing...

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The Middle East is the birthplace of many things, some positive, others less so. Amongst the region’s primary creations has been the postmodern idea that there is no real objective truth—simply competing “narratives” with equal claim and validity. But every so often the truth makes itself clear in the most...

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Israel on Wednesday decided to grant refugee status to 100 children orphaned during the Syrian civil war, granting them temporary residency with a path to staying in the country permanently, Israel’s Channel 10 reported. The policy, which follows a decision made by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, will allow the children to become permanent...

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More than 450 Palestinians were tortured to death in Syrian prisons since the outbreak of that country’s civil war, with 1,100 others remaining in regime custody and thousands fleeing abroad, veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh reported on Monday. Abu Toameh observed that while numerous foreign journalists are eager to report...

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Iran is repopulating Syrian territory from Damascus to Homs with Shiites families from elsewhere in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, turning the area into “zones of influence” that Iran “can directly control and use to advance broader interests,” The Guardian reported earlier this month. Calling the Iranian controlled process “a historic shift...

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Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stands to be the main beneficiary of economic agreements recently signed between Tehran and Damascus, Reuters reported Wednesday. Syrian Prime Minister Emad Khamis signed five memorandums of understandings on a visit last week to Iran, including phosphate mining...

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The strike last Friday on a military airport near Damascus was likely the latest salvo in Israel’s attempt to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining highly-accurate Iranian surface-to-surface missiles, Ynet military analyst Ron Ben Yishai wrote Tuesday. The targeted airport is a known drop-off point for missiles delivered from Iran by cargo planes,...

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