As yesterday’s story following Osama Bin Laden’s death indicated, security officials in Europe don’t foresee the demise of the al Qaeda leader sparking an immediate flurry of retaliation terror strikes by his followers. The logic behind that thinking doesn’t under-estimate the desire for revenge jihadists everywhere are doubtless …
Middle East
In a Zero-Sum Relationship, Obama’s bin Laden Bump is Bibi’s Loss
Few if any nations follow American domestic politics more avidly than Israel, so reaction here to the death of Osama bin Laden arrived laced with worried warnings to Bibi, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is universally known. So strained are relations between his government and Barack Obama that the American President’s political …
Could Bin Laden’s Death Speed The End To The Afghan War?
As accumulating press reports confirm, intelligence agencies, security officials, and independent experts around the globe agree the death of Osama Bin Laden in no way lowers the curtain on his al Qaeda organization, nor extinguishes the myriad radical groups and individuals sharing its ideology of international jihad. But if there’s …
Miffed by Palestinian unity, Israel stands on the money hose
As it does when a Palestinian government makes a move Israel doesn’t much like, the Jewish state is withholding millions in tax revenues ordinarily passed along as a matter of course. In this case, the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding back $89 million from the faction that runs the West Bank, Fatah, because it …
Would a Palestinian Unity Government Preclude Negotiations With Israel?
Anyone paying a modicum of attention to Israeli-Palestinian issues knows that the reason there’s little prospect of progress in negotiations between the two sides is not the decision by President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party to form a unity government with Hamas. Negotiations have been deadlocked because of the chasm between the two sides …
In Libya’s West, Battles Rage Along the Tunisian Border
The battle for Libya spilled across the border on Friday as forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi clashed with Tunisian troops after chasing rebel fighters through the mountainous border areas. They also fired shells into the Tunisian town of Dahiba, wounding one resident. The fighting erupted nearly a week after the rebel forces had …
The Other Shoe? Egypt Moves to Ease Gaza Siege
Egypt’s announcement that it will open its border crossing with the Gaza Strip — loosening the siege of the Palestinian enclave Egypt has helped Israel carry out — has the sound of the other shoe dropping. Coming one day after word that the post-Mubarak government had brokered a tentative unity accord between rival Palestinian …
The Aghast List: Guess Who’s Not Coming to the Royal Wedding
Tomorrow’s wedding—yes, that one—is termed a semi-state occasion. And it seems that the House of Windsor and Her Majesty’s Government have got themselves into a semi-state about it. Hear that screeching? It’s the noise of palace machinery being thrown into reverse as representatives of dodgy regimes are disinvited, while Tony Blair …
Why Palestinian President Abbas is Bucking the White House
The current priority of the Obama Administration’s Middle East peace policy is to prevent the Palestinian leadership seeking UN recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over all of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But evidence is mounting that the Administration will fail, because even the moderate Palestinian Authority President …
Wael Ghonim at the TIME 100 Gala
Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google exec turned revolutionary, spoke at last night’s TIME 100 Gala, beginning with a moment of silence to mark those killed in protests around the Arab world. Watch his full speech here:
The Palestinian Reconciliation: A Shotgun Marriage
Fatah and Hamas, the leading Palestinian factions that parted ways amid much bloodshed four years ago, are announcing a tentative agreement to form a unity government. If it holds up, the reconciliation would mark a dramatic shift in the Israeli-Palestinian equation, in which the Palestinians move away from endless rounds of largely …
Syria: There Will Be (Lots More) Blood
Unable to assuage their grievances with empty promises of reform, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad this week adopted the “Tiananmen Model” of dealing with a popular protest movement. Like the Chinese authorities in 1989, Assad on Monday sent in the tanks and thousands of troops to reclaim the streets of Deraa, where the rebellion began …
Why Americans Care More Than Brits Do About the Royal Wedding
A quick glance at the news from the real world and it’s not hard to see why the media-consuming public of the United States appears willing to lose itself in the fantastic miasma created by saturation coverage of the Disney-for-adults spectacle of a British royal wedding.
There’s nothing new about the decline of the erstwhile empire …