Other threats are more serious. One day soon, Hezbollah will have access to missiles with the range and accuracy to effectively target Tel Aviv from anywhere inside Lebanon. That will be a game-changer for Israel’s security, its economy, and its politics. More than half of Israel’s population and the heart of its economy are centered [...]

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The Obama administration is acting more like an enemy of Israel instead of a friend.
However, in Jerusalem, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu called his inner cabinet into its second session on the crisis that same night. The seven ministers were asked to review the situation after President Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton turned [...]

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Fifteen police officers and some 40 Palestinian protesters were injured in East Jerusalem on Tuesday in a series of clashes during the orchestrated “Day of Rage” announced by Hamas.
Police predict that Palestinian rioters will continue to stage violent protests on Wednesday in East Jerusalem and elsewhere.
Police predict continued violence in Jerusalem – Haaretz – [...]

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“All of Jerusalem is on fire today,” said M. on Tuesday, as he gazed out over the golden Dome of the Rock from a traffic circle atop the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.
Smoke was rising from trash bins that had been set alight inside the neighborhood’s narrow alleyways and a police helicopter that had [...]

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Although Monday, March 15, went by without an unusual level of Palestinian violence, aside from sporadic rock-throwing incidents against Israelis, Fatah factions opposed to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas called on the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli Arabs to mark Tuesday as a “Day of Rage.”
In the [...]

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While exploiting Israel’s ill-timed announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem for concessions to the Palestinians, Washington will keep the hullabaloo against Israel at top pitch until the Netanyahu government toes the line on Iran, debkafile’s Washington sources report.
DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security

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debkafile’s military and Washington sources report: The Obama administration is considering withholding from Israel military items urgently needed in case of a flare-up of hostilities with Iran. This would further ratchet up the mounting row over Israel’s decision to build another 1,600 homes in E. Jerusalem. The requests were filed by defense minister Ehud Barak [...]

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As the United States steps up its campaign to impose economic sanctions on Iran, fears are growing in Washington and in the Middle East that Iran will try to trigger a new war in the region in order to shift attention from its nuclear activities, throw the U.S. and its allies off balance, and put [...]

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Syria has defied Israel’s caution that handing over new strategic weapons to the Lebanese Hizballah would compel Israel to strike targets inside Syria. debkafile’s military sources disclose that Damascus has just smuggled across the border a number of Russian-made IGLA-S surface-to-air missiles capable of intercepting low-flying F-16 warplanes, drones, helicopters, cruise missiles, transports and surveillance [...]

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Across the Middle East, a fatalistic conventional wisdom is taking hold: war is unavoidable. Some see war as a way of resolving an increasingly deadlocked situation, shaking up a dysfunctional regional order whose main actors are not only at loggerheads, but are also incapable of resolving the legitimacy deficits of their respective regimes.
The Middle East’s [...]

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