The United Nations investigation into the August 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-controlled Damascus suburbs more or less conclusively demonstrated that the regime was behind the launch. The rocket trajectories led back to Syrian army positions. The chemical components point to Syrian army sophistication. Pentagon sources were even able to...

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The Wall Street Journal over the weekend evaluated the prospects for the Syrian chemical weapons disarmament deal struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The odds of success are, per four distinct scenarios unpacked by the paper, not great: But the road map unveiled...

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Reuters reports Syrians are growing increasingly aware of extensive Israeli efforts to treat victims of the two and a half year conflict raging inside the Arab country. Israel set up a field hospital early in the conflict. Within a few months Syrians were being transported to regular Israeli hospitals –...

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Israeli officials reemphasized today that Jerusalem would enforce its long-established “red line” against any Syrian efforts to transfer advanced weapons, including portions of Damascus’s chemical weapons arsenal, to the Bashar al-Assad regime’s Hezbollah allies: “Our red lines have not changed,” said an Israeli official. “Assad should understand already that he...

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More than one faction within the Syrian opposition has committed to attacking Israel, and fears have only deepened as jihadists moved to seize areas near Israel’s border with Syria. A Syrian opposition activist stationed in Europe, however, is suggesting that there might be a different future for Israeli-Syrian relations should...

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Analysts are expressing a range of concerns regarding a proposed Russian-facilitated plan designed to defuse the crisis surrounding what is widely believed to be the mass use of chemical weapons by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, a day after President Barack Obama declared that Washington would carefully examine the plan. It’s too early...

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The United Nations Human Rights Council has a permanent agenda item to discuss and criticize Israel, making the Jewish state the only U.N. member marked in that way. The body has found time in recent months to distribute anti-Semitic images and to defend the anti-Semitic rhetoric of employees. What it...

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Hezbollah has for the last several months attempted to interfere with the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is expected to enter its trial phase in January 2014. The tribunal will try four Hezbollah members in absentia on charges related to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister...

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Confusion swirled throughout the day as to the nature and scope of a series of Russian-facilitated deals designed to defuse the international crisis triggered by what is widely suspected to be the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al-Assad regime. NBC News reported that by day’s end Damascus “appeared...

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The Syrian conflict has driven tens of thousands of refugees into neighboring countries, triggering both general regional instability and country-specific crises in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. American and U.N. diplomats have described the displacement of literally “millions of people. Sectarian strife locked in by the conflict had already as of...

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