Daybreak: Thousands of Syrians Flee to Turkey, Giffords Faces Her Shooter,...
• Nearly 8,000 Syrians fled to Turkey overnight, as Syrian president Bashar Assad insisted the country was not in a civil war. [Reuters] • Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark...
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• The shelling of a rebel-held border town near Turkey and the firing of mortars into Israel by the Assad regime in Syria has made the expansion of the Syrian conflict seem likely. [NYT] • All in the...
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• As it turns out, France of all good countries has recognized the Syrian rebels waging a 20-month-long war against the Assad regime in Syria. They are considering arming the rebels as the government...
View ArticleThe Specter of Syrian Chemical Weapons
Jon Lee Anderson has the bad news: Whatever the regime’s real intentions with regards to its chemical weapons, the next chapter in Syria will be an ugly one, and before it is all over, many people are...
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• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov gave an unusually candid and grim prognosis of Bashar Assad’s chances in the 21-month-long civil war. In announcing a plan for the evacuation of...
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• According to senior members of Fatah, Hamas–goaded by Iran–is aiming for a takeover of the West Bank similar to its conquest of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Shin Bet analysts have agreed with their...
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• In what’s being viewed in some circles as pre-election political maneuvering, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked the Jewish Agency to look into finding a way for...
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• Fears of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime in Syria have prompted another meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. According to the report,...
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• In its last act before the new term begins, the House of Representatives passed a deal that avoids sharp tax increases on many Americans, prevents drastic spending cuts, and ensures that unemployment...
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• AIPAC, the influential pro-Israel lobbying group, is reported to be staying out of the fight over Chuck Hagel’s nomination for secretary of defense. [Daily Beast] • Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s...
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Fighting between French troops and Islamist terrorists in Mali is intensifying. Following an aerial bombardment by France last week, French President Francois Hollande is fortifying ground troops to...
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• The Women of the Wall had their biggest prayer service at the Kotel to date, with hundreds of participants, including former IDF paratroopers. In addition to ten arrests made following the service,...
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• Julio Acevedo, who was reportedly involved in a hit-and-run in Brooklyn that killed a Satmar couple and their unborn baby, was arrested by police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania today. [Reuters] • A...
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• Gal Beckerman writes smart on why President Obama’s Jerusalem speech was historic. [Forward] • An influential imam named Mohammad Said Ramada al-Bouti was killed in the bombing of a mosque in central...
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• According to the Times, Turkish authorities say that al-Qaeda plots against a synagogue in Istanbul as well as the American Embassy in Ankara were foiled. In a raid in February, 12 alleged members...
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• Supporting findings by French and British authorities, an Israeli general claims that Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime has repeatedly been using chemical weapons against Syrian rebels in the last...
View ArticleToday's Round-Up of Syria News
• Two shells reportedly hit a municipality building and a school in Jaramana, a pro-Assad suburb of Damascus, killing 7 and wounding scores more. In Damascus, an electricity minister was killed by a...
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• Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Obama administration is reconsidering arming the Syrian rebels, the highest administration official to say so. [AP] • Bomb threats against two synagogues in...
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• According to reports, Israeli planes repeatedly struck chemical missile sites (or “research facilities”) in Syria over the weekend, causing significant damage to military installations and killing a...
View ArticleWhat You Should Know About Those Israeli Strikes on Syria
As you may have heard, Israel is being blamed/credited with two airstrikes over the weekend on what’s believed to be Syrian missile sites. For some context, there is a civil war in Syria and, in late...
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• According to a report, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that he would impose a freeze on West Bank settlements until mid-June. [JTA] • Rabbi Andy...
View ArticleShould Israel Back a Side in the War in Syria? And If So, Which One?
The civil war in Syria has led to a keen debate among the professional echelon tasked with advising policymakers in Israel. This debate has been reflected in a more subdued public conversation and...
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• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have his work cut out for him as he attempts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin not to give Syrian dictator Bashar Assad anti-aircraft...
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• Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plea to not delivery a sophisticated air-defense system to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, it’s...
View ArticleDozens of Hezbollah Fighters Killed in Qusair
It’s being reported that as many as 30 Hezbollah fighters along with 20 other troops loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad were killed in battle today in Qusair, a rebel-held city that was taken back...
View ArticleHow John Kerry Is Messing Up in the Middle East
Secretary of State John Kerry says that’s it’s now or never for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on a two-state solution. Interestingly, neither Israeli nor Palestinian officials have any...
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• The first shipment of Russia’s powerful anti-aircraft missiles have arrived in Syria following a much-condemned arms deal between Russia and embattled dictator Bashar Assad. [NYT] • Alice Walker, who...
View ArticleOfficials Deny Assad Received Powerful Russian Missiles
Following Syrian reports that embattled Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had received his first shipment of powerful S-300 air defense missiles from Russia, missiles that could change not only the...
View ArticleWhat Should Be Done About Syria?
Just minutes ago, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, made one proclamation: The United States should set up a no-fly zone in Syria to protect rebel training camps and...
View ArticlePlans Build for a Possible Military Invention in Syria
Following reports of a chemical weapons attack last week in Syria–reports supported by no shortage of grisly evidence–the chatter began to build around the possibility of a long-sought Western...
View ArticleIsraelis Getting Gas Masks After Lethal Chemical Attack In Syria
Horrifying pictures and videos of victims of a chemical weapons attack are pouring out of Syria, where Bashar Assad’s regime is believed to have gassed its own people. Doctors Without Borders has...
View ArticleIsraelis Debate How Syria Strikes Would Affect US Action in Iran
Amid the killing in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt—three of Israel’s four borders—one senior security official recently likened Israel to a “coffee shop in the middle of a slaughterhouse.” The US has widely...
View Article'There Are So Many Other Threats to Israel:' Jewish and Arab Israelis...
Images of Israelis flooding post offices for gas masks and coming to blows over them is in direct opposition to the feel of the streets of Jaffa’s Old City this week, where a calm prevailed over the...
View ArticleThe Latest News From Syria
If there’s ever a good time to announce that you’re considering a very unpopular military intervention in a foreign conflict that would theoretically put you on the same side as Al-Qaida, then the...
View ArticleIsraelis Assail U.S. Inaction on Syria (Except for Shimon Peres)
If you had a luxurious Labor Day, then count your blessings. In Syria, embattled dictator Bashar Assad was busy talking to the press. It was the first time he’d been interviewed since the the United...
View ArticleA 'Syrious' Plan on Assad's Chemical Weapons?
Surreal doesn’t quite describe yesterday’s goings on with Syria, the United States, and, apparently, the international community’s new white knight: Russia. In short, as President Obama appeared on six...
View ArticleObama Asked AIPAC to Support a Potential Strike on Syria. Now Everyone's...
Who is driving Obama to war against Bashar Al-Assad? I’ll give you three guesses. I bet you didn’t need the other two. As Andrew Sullivan has asserted, the answer, of course, is the Jews. AIPAC is...
View ArticleReport: Syria to Declare Chemical Weapons Arsenal
Update, 2:51 p.m.: Latest word is that the United States will pursue a diplomatic track to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons through the United Nations. Meanwhile, a congressional resolution to...
View ArticleThe East River, East Room, and Middle East
Shortly after midnight, Bill de Blasio, strode out onto the stage at the Bell House, a dance-club-cum-concert-venue within scent range of the toxic Gowanus Canal and industrial Brooklyn, to declare...
View ArticleDiscarded Draft of Vladimir Putin’s 'Times' Opinion Piece on Syria
Yesterday evening, the New York Times ran an opinion piece penned by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Entitled “A Plea for Caution from Russia,” the column immediately went viral, (ironically)...
View ArticleUnited Nations Experts Confirm Chemical Weapons Use in Syria
Though short of a mandate to actually implicate anyone, United Nations inspectors announced this afternoon that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons had been used in an...
View ArticleToday's News: Two IDF Soldiers Killed This Weekend; Egypt Bans Muslim...
• Two Israeli soldiers have been killed since Friday by suspected Palestinian gunmen, acts which the United States condemned in a statement. [Reuters] • The second vistim was 20-year-old sargeant...
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Hezbollah already immediately denied that it is leaving Syria, where for months, the group has been wreaking havoc upon the rebel forces trying to ouster Syrian dictator Bashar Assad from power....
View ArticleReport: Israel Attacked Syrian Military Base
Syrian rebels, a U.S. official, and an Israeli official have all more-than-gently suggested that a massive explosion at a Syrian base earlier today was the work of an Israeli Air Force strike. The...
View ArticleSyrian Rebels Allege Assad Used Poison Gas
It’s been a particularly violent day in different hotspots in the world. First, out of Syria, the forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad are being accused of using poison gas in Syria’s nearly...
View ArticleThe Middle East’s Winners and Losers of 2013
With the end of 2013 comes the end of the American era in the Middle East. To call the last 40 years a “Pax Americana” would probably be overstating the case because, this being the Middle East we’re...
View ArticleWith Hezbollah's Help, Syrian Forces Seize Rebel Town Near Lebanon
Syrian government forces, backed by Hezbollah, have taken control of the Syrian town of Yabroud after driving out rebel fighters, Reuters reports. As an influx of militants from Syria into Lebanon...
View ArticleTed Cruz Exposes Christian Bigotry Against Jews In the Middle East
Cracks in what is normally represented as a tight alliance between Jews and Christians in Washington D.C. over Middle East issues were highlighted by Senator Ted Cruz’s dramatic and courageous...
View ArticleMeet the Syrian Sugihara, the Diplomat Who Secretly Helped Rebels Escape Assad
One of the many deeply depressing aspects of the Holocaust is that many of its victims could have been saved, if only others had given them safe harbor. Across Europe, Jews attempted to escape the Nazi...
View Article'Ambassador Samantha Power Lied to My Face About Syria,' by Kassem Eid
One day after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Saturday demanding a truce in the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta to allow for aid access and medical evacuations,...
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