As I write these words, my heart is heavy with pain.  A convoy of buses is now making its way from Ayalon Prison, carrying 550 Palestinian prisoners due to be released as part of Israel’s deal with Hamas that has freed the captured Israel Defense Forces soldier, Gilad Shalit. These prisoners make up the...
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Once again, we at EMET wish that we had been proven wrong. As soon as the demonstrators took to the streets in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt last winter, we had been alone on Capitol Hill arguing that  the United States should immediately halt, or at least temporarily suspend, all U.S. military aid and...
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Sunday morning, an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile commander and sixteen other IRGC officials were killed in an explosion at a base southwest of Teheran. Iranian officials called the explosion an accident during the transport of munitions, but there are a number of reasons to believe it was not. Firstly, the commander killed...
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Summary: Over the past year, events in the Middle East, including most notably the Arab Spring, have dramatically altered the security landscape facing the nation of Israel, as well as the national security interests of the United States in the region.  While each of these events have been well cataloged separately and in greater...
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How does one measure a heavy heart? Is there an instrument that can calibrate the considerable weight of the ambivalence that I am feeling today? I am spending the holiday of Sukkoth here in Israel, with my beautiful children, Rachel and Jeremy, who have just married, and who have recently made aliyah. My son-in-law,...
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Last Friday in Cairo, a throng of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square, marching two miles to the Israeli embassy, proceeding to demolish a protective wall, entering and ransacking the embassy and the building, climbing up and tearing up the Israeli flag, urinating on the building, and concludingby shredding and throwing  Israeli documents...
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It seems as though it is now understood and was even at the time, that the September 11th attacks marked the true demarcation line between the 20th and 21st centuries. The 20th century, filled though it was with both innovation and horror in equal measure, was nevertheless the “modern” century. And on that September...
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I recently attended a briefing by a former NYPD counterterrorism official on the risk to the United States from so-called “Lone Wolf” terror attacks. Generally speaking a “Lone Wolf” is a terrorist who is not a member of any larger international or domestic terrorist organization, who launches a terrorist attack utilizing only what weapons...
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On the 9th of March, 1916, Pancho Villa led 100 members of his Mexican revolutionary army across the United States border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico.  Eighteen Americans were killed in the attack and the Mexicans took 100 horses and military supplies stored in the town.  Incensed by this invasion of...
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As the Arab Spring has transformed itself into the long, hot Islamic summer, optimism about the Arab world has had to undergo a significant reality check in America and the West. First off, the sobering results of a recent poll, taken by  Zogby International together with the Arab American Institute; this poll, which was...
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