Last week, three young Israeli Yeshiva students (two 16-year-olds and a 19-year-old) were kidnapped. They were tremping in the West Bank. Tremping is easily translated into English as hitchhiking, but it typically lacks the questionable connotations which that word can conjure in America, at least after “the Summer of Love.” The story is ongoing and […]
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a prominent Middle East scholar at Bar Ilan University, told an audience at the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel that the United States made a great mistake by not dividing Iraq into three states, one Kurdish, one Sunni, and one Shia. He believes that this mistake led to a situation […]
With the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) pressing now toward Baghdad, Iraq’s only hope in the chance of a more inclusive government is to move toward a coalition embracing all of the country’s religious and ethnic groups. But with suspicion and hatred in Iraq running deep, it’s easier said than done, and […]
I have been recently asked by LinkedIn to contribute writing for the professional social networking site. So, for my first piece I decided to write the following on the worsening situation in Iraq. The piece can be accessed in its entirety here. The crumbling of government authority in Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq under the alarming onslaught […]
By now, everyone has heard about the abduction of three Israeli teenagers on Thursday night in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank. Everyone has heard the reports about one of the kidnapped teenagers calling Israeli police shortly after being kidnapped to ask for help and the slow response of the Israeli police. Everyone […]
The current crisis in Ukraine is a game changer for Europe. While it has reignited a necessary public debate about collective measures to ensure Europe’s security, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) immediate neighborhood has witnessed a considerable worsening of security conditions for some time.
As a former detractor who has not been a fan of the Obama administration’s foreign policy toward Somalia, it is an overstatement to say that I watched Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman’s speech on June 3 with certain level of skepticism. Of course, nothing more than that healthy dose necessary in […]
Levana Zamir, the head of the International Association of Jews from Egypt, stressed that Sisi is bringing Egypt in a more cosmopolitan and less hateful direction. She believes that it is good for everyone that he is Egypt’s President. Levana Zamir, the head of the International Association of Jews from Egypt, told the Foreign Policy […]
While no road to democracy is smooth, Libya has seen its fair share of upheaval since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 helped bust open the Arab Spring. Discord has escalated in the last month, threatening rule of law and the transitional government’s legitimacy. Let’s go back to May 4, 2014, when Libya’s General […]
One might think that Libya could have a greater chance of succeeding at the Arab Spring, given its tiny population and vast oil resources. The OPEC nation is spared the economic woes of cash-strapped Tunisia, the heterogeneity of war-torn Syria or the demographic challenges of Egypt. But the country has been mired in unrelenting violence […]
It appears that when the world was praising the BRICS nations a few years ago, that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were seen as the countries that would dominate the world economy in the future, and that any opportunity to link a company or organization to these mega-economies would pay off without any […]
Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian Palestinian political dissident journalist who aspires to overthrow the Hashemite Monarchy and personally establish a Palestinian majority democracy in Jordan, has condemned the Fatah-Hamas unity deal. He called for a Palestinian majority democratic state in Jordan to serve as an alternative to Hamas-Fatah totalitarian rule. Zahran, while condemning the Hamas-Fatah unity […]
Ever since the events unfolded on Sep. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the U.S. has focused an exorbitant amount of resources to ensure that similar attacks, targeting Americans, are prevented. This means identifying areas that could become breeding grounds for future radicals that are […]
During Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land, the Palestinians utilized Christian symbols in order to demonize Israel. No official Palestinian source took advantage of the opportunity to make a peace gesture towards Israel. Pope Francis recently visited the Holy Land in an effort to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He made a […]
Is the crisis in the Central African Republic a “clash of civilizations”? A recent report entitled “Behind the Headlines: Drivers of Violence in the Central African Republic” from Enough, a Washington-based project of the Center for American Progress whose goal is to end genocide and crimes against humanity, is particularly revealing. Comments by the author […]