Middle Orient

Latest Developments • Turkey Calls for Halting Weapons Shipments to Israel: Turkey submitted a letter — cosigned by 52 countries, among them Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia — to the United Nations calling for a complete arms embargo on Israel on November 3. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has …

The Israeli Defense Minister emphasized that Iran is “pouring everything [it] can” into the West Bank, indicating that Iran will very likely attempt to pursue a different strategy when rebuilding Palestinian militias to fight Israel again.[1] Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Iran is looking for additional routes to …

Ever since Iran launched an unparalleled large-scale attack against Israel on 1 October, using a barrage of nearly 200 ballistic missiles, the Middle East has been holding its breath in anticipation of a swift and crushing Israeli retaliation. Iran said its long-awaited attack was in response to Israel’s assassinations of …

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq finally held its long-overdue parliamentary elections on October 20, two years past the original due date. Final results announced by the Iraqi electoral commission on October 30 showed that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) won 39 and 23 …

Une société de renseignement privée liée au Mossad est accusée d’avoir piraté des données du gouvernement italien à des fins de chantage et d’extorsion. Une société italienne de renseignement privé qui aurait piraté des bases de données gouvernementales pour collecter des informations sur des milliers de personnalités, notamment des politiciens, …

I am always leery of hubris. It may be true that all people of good now want ‘the fall’ of Israel, after a century of lies, deceit, killing and more killing, first by the British and European Jews, then by the US and European Jews, now by Britain-US-EU-Israel and European …

One day after his surprise appointment as Hezbollah’s new secretary-general, Naim Qassem delivered his inaugural speech from that post—his fourth speech since Hassan Nasrallah’s assassination. Qassem’s latest speech was virtually identical in tone and content to his previous three speeches, seeking to justify Hezbollah’s war effort and the suffering it …

Lebanon could well turn into a quagmire for Israel, and its belief that it can achieve “total victory” is premature. However, there can be no doubt that Iran and Hezbollah are on the back foot. “We are winning.” That’s the unwavering refrain from senior Israeli officials when asked about where …

The ideology of resistance is a distinct feature of powerful armed groups in the Middle East. It is time to introduce a new concept and, probably, a new term. So-called Shia militias account for a major part of the Syrian regime’s firepower in the ongoing conflict, and are the subject …

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has been unusually quiet about Israel’s conflict with multiple nations in the Middle East. But the weekend’s Israeli attacks on Iran could force him to open a new front in the conflict. Last weekend, more than 100 Israeli fighter jets bombed targets in Iran. But the …