The White House’s Dec. 29 announcement of a $30 billion sale of 84 F-15SA fighter jets to Saudi Arabia came with a lot of subtext. The deal, part of an earlier $60 billion arms agreement between Washington and Riyadh, is slated …
Middle East
Egypt’s Islamists On the Verge: Will They Make Campaign Rhetoric Reality?
As Egyptians vote this week in the third and final round of elections for the lower house of parliament, the country prepares to usher in its first ever Islamist-led government, and the second Islamist parliament to be elected in …
Why the Damascus Bombing is Better News for Syria’s Regime Than for its Opposition
The twin suicide bombings that killed at least 30 people in Damascus on Friday are good news for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and bad news for the opposition protest movement. That’s because the regime’s narrative of …
At Christmas, a Maronite Christian Village in Israel Revives the Language Spoken by Jesus Christ
In the far north of Israel, in a stone church tucked onto a remote hillside, Christmas Mass will be recited, as it is every year, in the language Jesus Christ spoke. Aramaic remains the liturgical language of the Maronite Christians in the Galilee, where Christ grew up and a resilient congregation struggles to revive the language in …
Series of Bombings Rocks Baghdad
A wave of attacks kills dozens
Baghdad Bloodbath Threatens Sectarian Chaos in Iraq: Will Iran Stoke or Douse the Fires?
A series of deadly bombings across Baghdad that killed at least 63 people and wounded hundreds on Thursday underscored the political and security peril facing Iraq amid rising sectarian tension. Officials said four car bombs and …
Why Qatari Owners of Paris’ Soccer Team Hanker For Aging Englishman Beckham
Why does perennially under-performing Paris Saint-Germain of France’s anemic professional soccer league see hiring a fading star at over $1 million per month as vital to assuring its future? Because the aging player in question …
Don’t Mention the War? Brits Can’t Help Themselves
Schedule clashes are inevitable during the festive season, and on the evening of Dec. 19, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, held Christmas drinks at opposite poles of the city …
Iraq After the War: Maliki’s Attack on Sunni Leaders Suggests a Dark, Divided Future
It might seem that the dust had hardly settled on the tracks of the last U.S. convoy that rolled out of Iraq on Saturday before Shi’ite and Sunni politicians were at one another’s throats. That would be a misleading impression, …
Story Problem: Gingrich’s “Dead Jews” Textbook Example Doesn’t Exist
It made for dramatic television, Newt Gingrich’s screed against the Palestinians. Defending his earlier assertion that they are “an invented people,” the former House speaker kicked things up at notch at a Dec. 10 debate in Des …
Ten Grim Lessons Learned From the Iraq War
Despite the upbeat talk of the Obama Administration, the eight-year war that ended this week has done plenty of long-term damage to both Iraq and the United States. And it has bequeathed lessons worth considering ahead of future conflicts
Shyne-ing in Jerusalem: How One Rapper Saw the Light and Moved to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
Doing his time for firing that pistol in the nightclub with Puff Daddy and J. Lo a dozen years ago, the rapper known as Shyne experienced a jailhouse religious awakening. The faith he says changed his life involved embracing his …
How Not to Deal with Protesters: A Death in the West Bank
The weekend offered a hard lesson in the nature of what passes for calm between Israel and the Palestinians living in the territory its army watches over. It was a lesson in two parts, one exploding in the sandy soil of the Gaza …