Middle Orient

Hamas is preserving its forces in Rafah rather than engaging the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), likely because Hamas does not believe Israel’s Rafah operation will be decisive.[i] Israeli journalists traveling with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Rafah reported that Hamas fighters are avoiding becoming decisively engaged, and that Hamas’ …

Latest Developments Hezbollah warned Cyprus on June 19 against helping Israel in any future war in Lebanon, signaling that the Mediterranean island nation could also face a terrorist attack. Amid expectations that more than eight months of Hezbollah provocations against northern Israel could soon spiral into full-blown war, the Iran-backed …

A drastic escalation of tensions between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon over the past week has brought the prospect of an expansion of war across the Middle East ever closer. Following Israel’s assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander and a retaliatory rocket barrage fired on northern Israel, The …

Israeli military triumphs and exploits often produce battlefield victories that fail to garner political gains. The Gaza war has changed that paradigm. It has produced neither a military nor a political victory. Adding fuel to the fire, Israel has abandoned the notion that soft power is as important as hard …

The sudden death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian regime’s president, in a suspicious helicopter crash will disrupt the constructed succession plan for the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This disruption will not necessarily favor Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, as many might assume, but will instead create opportunities for …

As Jonathan Tobin writes at Commentary: The Khamenei Palestine book is important not in and of itself but because the regime’s obsession with Israel is a key to its foreign policy. Iran constitutes a grave threat to Neighboring Arab countries that are at least as angry about the president’s embrace …

Latest Developments The State Department designated an Iran-backed Iraqi militia — Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya (HAAA) — on June 17 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. State also designated HAAA’s secretary general, Haydar Muzhir Ma’lak al-Sa’idi. The designees are part of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq (IRI), an umbrella …

La décadence d’Israël génèrera lassitude et indifférence. Il ne lui restera que l’escalade de la sauvagerie, la torture et la violence assassine contre des civils désarmés Lorsqu’Israël aura réussi à décimer Gaza – Israël parle de mois de guerre se prolongeant au moins jusqu’à la fin de l’année – il …

Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting …

This past week Hezbollah claimed responsibility for 80 attacks on military and civilian targets in northern Israel, compared to 52 attacks the previous week. Attacks escalated in response to the killing of Taleb Sami Abdallah, the commander of the al-Nasr unit and a long-time Hezbollah operative. Hezbollah increased its use …