National Security Advisor John Bolton is making the rounds in the Middle East to try and salvage what’s left of the long-standing plan to balkanize Syria and overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in the wake of President Trump’s announced troop withdrawal. What began as a political Hail Mary for Trump has morphed into a foreign policy quagmire for…
A senior member of the Hamas Political Bureau said on Monday that “the worst is still to come” as far as the Gaza Strip is concerned. Mousa Abu Marzook’s remarks followed the announcement by the Palestinian Authority that it will withdraw its security officers from the Rafah Border Crossing, the only route between Gaza and…
The state of Israel seems to share at least some of the responsibility for the latest shift of U.S. Syria policy — as National Security Adviser John Bolton announced on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s call to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria would now be “coordinated” with Israel, after meeting with top Israeli officials including…
On Sunday National Security Advisor John Bolton tried to set conditions for a U.S. retreat from Syria: Bolton, on a trip to Israel and Turkey, said he would stress in talks with Turkish officials, including President Tayyip Erdogan, that Kurdish forces must be protected. …Asked whether a U.S. withdrawal would not take place in Syria…
2018 wasn’t a good year for Israel. It was even worse for Palestinians, of course. On the surface, it wasn’t an especially dramatic year – just a lot more of the same, without major new wars, and without much bloodshed if you compare it to most previous years. Things appeared frozen in place. The occupation…
After the Berlin wall fell in 1989, the only major divided capital city in the world was Nicosia, split between its southern Greek part and its northern Turkish sector. Entrepreneurship resulted in the opening of a bar at the United Nations-operated crossing point between the Greek and Turkish sectors called “Checkpoint Charlie II,” a reference…
