Middle East & North Africa

See All Press
Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Frozen (For Now)
May 2, 2014 3 min. read

The end of April marked the passing of United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s set deadline for negotiating an extension of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry told reporters during a press conference in Addis Ababa that for now the peace process is on pause and he hopes both sides will come back […]

Read more
Candid Discussions: Kenneth Pollack on U.S. Policy in the Middle East
April 26, 2014 22 min. read

  Kenneth Pollack is a former CIA intelligence analyst and currently a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Pollack’s expertise is on Middle East politics and military affairs with particular emphasis on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Gulf States of the Persian Gulf region. He previously served […]

Read more
ANALYSIS: There is No Difference between Fatah and Hamas
April 25, 2014 4 min. read

Western claims that Abu Mazen was a peace partner for Israel have turned out to be a delusion, in the wake of the recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement. When it comes to Israel, Fatah and Hamas see eye-to-eye. Israel presently has no peace partner. The official peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have officially collapsed, as […]

Read more
Reaffirmation of Islamic Philanthropy: a reflection
April 24, 2014 5 min. read

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” ― Albert Pike   A few years ago, while wearing a different hat, I was invited to speak at an event hosted by U.N. Millennium Development Goals guru Jeffrey Sachs and Columbia […]

Read more
U.S., Israel Denounce Palestinian Unity Deal
April 24, 2014 4 min. read

On Wednesday, April 23, the Palestinians announced that rival political factions Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization reached a reconciliation deal and are discussing plans for a unified government. The proposed deal would unite Hamas, the Gaza-based radical political group that both the United States and Israel call a terrorist organization, with the moderate leaning […]

Read more
Learning From Barbarian Underdogs
April 21, 2014 10 min. read

“I have no forts, no houses, no country. I have no cultivated fields, no silver or gold for you to take — all you can get from me is war, nothing else. I have met your men in battle and have killed them. We are greatly pleased about this. Our men who have fallen in […]

Read more
Extending the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
April 21, 2014 3 min. read

  A notable poll of Palestinians was published a month ago that did not receive much attention. The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Policy and Survey Research Center (PSR) in Ramallah, found that a majority of Palestinians support extending the peace talks with Israel past the April 29th deadline if Israel partially halts settlement construction […]

Read more
The Pollard Chess Match
April 18, 2014 4 min. read

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard has been a thorn in the sides of U.S. and Israeli administrations for 25 years. Since his conviction of sending classified information to Israel when working for the U.S. Navy, the Israeli public and politicians have repeatedly called for Pollard’s release, with their request falling on deaf ears at the White […]

Read more
Abbas Wants to Talk Borders as U.S. Led Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Resume
April 17, 2014 3 min. read

Israeli and Palestinian negotiation teams are expected to meet today with United States Special Envoy Martin Indyk in Jerusalem to arrive at a formula for extending the talks past the April 29 deadline. The meeting was delayed 24 hours, with media outlets reporting different reasons for the one-day postponement. Israeli officials would neither confirm nor deny reports […]

Read more
Erdogan stays in control – for now
April 14, 2014 3 min. read

In September 2011, on the heels of the Arab Spring upheaval, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, visited Cairo. In the shadow of the chaos of the Arab Spring, he took the opportunity to point out that “the Turkish state is in its core a state of freedoms and secularism.” Two and a half […]

Read more
Was Assad Not Responsible for the Chemical Weapons Attack Last August?
April 14, 2014 6 min. read

The journalist who broke the story of the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal believes that the al Nusra Front backed by Turkey, not Assad, was responsible for the chemical weapons attack last August. Numerous Turkish commentators disagree with his assessment. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the My […]

Read more
Military Post Attacked Outside Yitzhar
April 14, 2014 2 min. read

Earlier this week, there was an attack on an Israeli military outpost outside of Yitzhar, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. It started with stones being thrown at the soldiers’ quarters. The site was then ravaged by hundreds of rioters. They slashed tents, destroyed a water tank, a heater, a toilet and other military […]

Read more

Popular from Press