Latest Article from Clifford May

The case for deadline-triggered sanctions

January 21, 2015  •  The Washington Times

Experienced negotiators know this: The side most willing to walk away from the table generally wins. The side that seems desperate for a deal loses. Yet President Obama is telling the entire world that he needs an agreement with Iran's rulers more than they need an agreement with him.

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Latest Article from Soeren Kern

European 'No-Go' Zones: Fact or Fiction?
Part 1: France

January 20, 2015  •  Gatestone Institute

The jihadist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine known for lampooning Islam, has cast a spotlight on so-called no-go zones in France and other European countries.

No-go zones are Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off limits to non-Muslims due to a variety of factors, including the lawlessness and insecurity that pervades a great number of these areas. Host-country authorities have effectively lost control over many no-go zones and are often unable or unwilling to provide even basic public aid, such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services, out of fear of being attacked by Muslim youth.

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Latest Article from Jonathan Schanzer

The Turkey-Hamas Nexus

January 16, 2015  •  The National Interest

Last week, Israel's Foreign Ministry praised Qatar for purportedly expelling Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal from Doha. The announcement came shortly after CNN cited reports from a Hamas news agency indicating that Meshaal was to be expelled and was probably headed to Turkey. Within hours, however, CNN changed its story, issuing a correction on Twitter that read "sources close to Hamas—not news agency—say Qatar expelled Khaled Meshaal; Hamas official denies it."

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Latest Article from Michael Freund

The gall of the Gauls

January 13, 2015  •  Jerusalem Post

For the past few days, the world's attention has been focused on Paris, where a band of Islamic terrorists went on a rampage, attacking the offices of a satirical magazine and a kosher market and brutally snuffing out the lives of 17 innocent people. Millions of people took to the streets on Sunday, together with dozens of world leaders, in a "unity march," as cries of "we are not afraid" echoed down the avenues and boulevards of the City of Lights.

It was an impressive display, with all the theatrics and emotion of a Victor Hugo novel, and for a brief moment it appeared that perhaps, at last, France was awakening to the threat posed by Islamic extremism.

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Latest Article from Michael Rubin

New SecDef Must Address Eastern Mediterranean

January 2, 2015  •  Commentary

Ashton Carter, President Obama's nominee to be defense secretary, is expected to cruise through his confirmation hearings early this year. Unlike the controversial and inarticulate Chuck Hagel, apparently chosen because Obama felt camaraderie with him on a congressional trip and wanted to poke his opponents, Carter has broad bipartisan respect and clear mastery of the issues at hand. This is important not only because of the Pentagon's budget crunch—cutbacks exacerbated by the inflexible mechanism of sequestration—but also because of the rise of new challenges the world over.

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Latest Article from Tevi Troy

2015: The ObamaCare Crucible

January 2015  •  Commentary

The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, has had a tough run of it since being signed into law nearly five years ago. It has faced constitutional challenges, voters ousting congressional Democrats who supported it, and the disastrous rollout of its federal website in October 2013. This past fall, supporters launched a public-relations campaign dedicated to the proposition that things were finally going well for ObamaCare's 7 million sign-ups, but their campaign was derailed when the Obama administration admitted that it had added 400,000 dental patients to the roster of health-insurance enrollees to falsely claim it had reached the 7 million number.

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Latest Article from Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

State of war: The Iraqi Sunni actors taking on the Islamic State

November 2, 2014  •  IHS Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Monitor

The security situation in Iraq rapidly deteriorated following the fall of Mosul in June 2014 during an insurgent offensive spearheaded by what was then the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but has since been renamed the Islamic State. Since then, much discussion has arisen on how the group can either be contained or 'rolled back' by reducing its territorial holdings on a substantial scale and thus significantly weakening its power base within the country. However, for such an objective, a fundamental prerequisite is a local Sunni Muslim force on the ground that can contest the Islamic State's control of Sunni majority areas of Iraq, notably the provinces of Anbar, Ninawa, and Salaheddine, as well as parts of Babil, Diyala, and Kirkuk.

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Latest Article from Judith Miller

Was the 'Klinghoffer' Premiere an 'Operatic Kristallnacht'?

October 23, 2014  •  Tablet Magazine

You don't have to be Jewish or know anything about opera to have an opinion about whether Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb should have had his head examined for staging a new production of The Death of Klinghoffer. Judging by the outpouring of reaction to the opera's performance Monday night, few New Yorkers, Jewish or goyish, seemed indifferent to John Adams's 1991 opera about the 1985 hijacking, by Palestinians, of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, and their murder of a 69-year old, wheel-chair-bound passenger.

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Latest Article from Jeff Stier

Calling for a different approach to tobacco and nicotine regulation

August 24, 2014  •  EuroActiv

Cigarette smoking is the most harmful form of tobacco use. Alternatives to smoking that supply users with, yes, addictive, but not particularly harmful nicotine, are significantly less dangerous.

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Latest Article from M. Zuhdi Jasser

I was bullied for criticizing Hamas

August 23, 2014  •  AZ Central

What happens in Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Gaza has an impact every day right here in the Valley.

Even in America, leading Muslim organizations and clerics bully with threats of ostracism those Muslims who dare to dissent. Old-guard ideologues, too, used to monopoly control, make it crystal clear to their Muslim critics: Take us on and we will make an example of you as a traitor to the Muslim community (the ummah).

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Latest Article from Timothy Spangler

Dictatorial dynasty in the making?

August 22, 2014  •  The Orange County Register

A dynasty is in the works in troubled Zimbabwe, rather than the comprehensive change that is much needed. This week, the wife of long-standing President Robert Mugabe was appointed to a high-profile, senior position in the ruling Zanu (PF) party. Grace Mugabe was appointed secretary of the party's Women's League, which entitles her to a seat on the party's governing politburo. The women's group also endorsed her husband, president since 1987, as their preferred candidate for the 2018 elections.

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Latest Article from Steven Emerson

The President's True Colors Finally Revealed

August 17, 2014  •  Jerusalem Online

When I first glanced at the headline on today's Jerusalem Online and reports in the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers, I thought they must have been a satire: "Washington officials have told Egypt that the US will guarantee Israel's commitment to any agreement signed." But it was not a satire. This was deadly serious, confirmed by other Israeli newspapers and sources in Cairo.

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Latest Article from Asaf Romirowsky

Gaza: How we got here and what next?

August 15, 2014  •  YNet News

Despite the conviction in Israel that its military actions against Hamas in Gaza are justified, the notion that this third Gaza war in the past six years has been a consequence of the failure to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority is widely accepted across the globe.

For Palestinians, the argument continues, there is no choice but resistance and confrontation since diplomacy and non-violence have not ended the occupation. For that reason, many Palestinians claim that Hamas is fighting not simply to lift the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip but also to give them their freedom.

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Latest Article from Ilan Berman

Cutting The Caliphate Down To Size

August 14, 2014  •  National Review Online

Is America headed back to Iraq? On August 7, President Obama took the first step in that direction when he authorized the use of air strikes to prevent the further advance of the militant Islamic group once known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) and now known as the Islamic State. Since then, the U.S. military has commenced a limited bombing campaign against Islamic State detachments in northern Iraq and added 130 military advisers to the 300 already stationed in the country. The decision reflects a stark reality. In recent weeks, the Islamic State has cut a bloody swath across Iraq, capturing and holding territory at an unprecedented rate. As a result, the Washington Post reports, the group "now controls resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations." The current effort, however, appears to be as far as the White House is willing to go — at least for the moment. Having staked its political legitimacy on an exit from Iraq, the Obama administration is leery of doing much more. As a result, a true strategy for rolling back the Islamic State's advance is still sorely lacking.

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