Mob Rule

NEED TO KNOW Mob Rule ISRAEL/ WEST BANK [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/55f0c4f0-b3c4-e36d-0508-3a9e97283f17.png"] When Moawya Ali saw dozens of armed and masked Israeli settlers rushing toward his house in the West Bank town of Jit on Aug. 15, he grabbed his five children and took them to a nearby house for safety. When he...

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Punch Drunk

NEED TO KNOW Punch Drunk ISRAEL/ LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/b30a5a08-84e8-376b-e80a-eff0993be114.png"] Smoke billowed from the streets of Khiam in southern Lebanon recently after Israeli military forces shelled the area in response to the Iran-backed militant group and political party Hezbollah launching missiles into northern Israel. In Dahieh, a densely populated residential and...

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Playing Chicken

NEED TO KNOW Playing Chicken MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7d5d13a4-f151-0ed2-ad36-8136fa782109.png"] Iranian leaders recently warned commercial airlines and others to avoid Iranian airspace as the country appeared poised to launch a war against Israel. The warning came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Group of Seven foreign ministers...

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Growing Back Limbs

NEED TO KNOW Growing Back Limbs IRAQ/ SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/26810b8b-421c-70eb-c736-3fda34a28a4e.png"] The terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) no longer makes headlines like the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East do. Ten years ago, however, it was a different story. Then, amid...

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The Practical Prince

NEED TO KNOW The Practical Prince SAUDI ARABIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/41fc0990-4945-0edc-6ee1-a971e46ec742.png"] Chinese solar panel companies TCL Zhonghuan and Jinko Solar reached a $3-billion deal with Saudi Arabian leaders recently to build new solar farms. The agreement highlights how Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in renewable energy – including billions...

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A Moderate’s Tale

NEED TO KNOW A Moderate’s Tale IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] A moderate candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, 69, shockingly and decisively won the Iranian election earlier this month after his hardline conservative predecessor died in a helicopter crash in May. The cardiac surgeon’s victory over his conservative rivals, despite the purported wishes...

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The Endgame That Wasn’t

[announcement] NEED TO KNOW The Endgame That Wasn’t SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Syrian voters will elect their members of parliament on July 15 – or at least some of them will. That’s because polls are only open to those voters who live in territory under the control of President Bashar Assad, which...

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Passing the Bar

NEED TO KNOW Passing the Bar IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] Iran’s mullahs approved six candidates to run for president on June 28, the date for a potentially tectonic election that comes as the West Asian country could face more political instability than ever. The winner will replace Ebrahim Raisi, the late...

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Sleepwalking Into War

NEED TO KNOW Sleepwalking Into War ISRAEL/ LEBANON [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/6b883c77-0a96-0fbb-b624-6cfe445512fa.png"] The leader of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed political party and militant group based in Lebanon, recently dared Israeli politicians to start a war to their north as they fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the south. “Everything you see we...

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The Genie in the Bottle

NEED TO KNOW The Genie in the Bottle TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Last month, prominent Tunisian lawyer Sonia Dahmani was on a popular talk show addressing comments by President Kais Saied who alleged a conspiracy to push thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa into Tunisia. She wondered how that was possible,...

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Tinted Lenses

NEED TO KNOW Tinted Lenses ISRAEL/ GAZA STRIP [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Bombs and bullets are flying in the Gaza Strip even as both sides mull a ceasefire deal. Even so, the battles over hearts and minds are just as intense. As a result, what Israelis see is a very different war...

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Tears and Cheers

NEED TO KNOW Tears and Cheers IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] The funeral for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died along with the Iranian foreign minister and other officials on May 19 in a helicopter crash near Azerbaijan, was muted compared with the procession for Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed...

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Shuffling the Deck

NEED TO KNOW Shuffling the Deck MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] Leaders meeting at the 33rd Arab Summit in Bahrain recently denounced “Israel's obstruction of ceasefire efforts in the Gaza Strip and … the occupation forces’ persistence in expanding their aggression against the Palestinian city of Rafah, despite international warnings...

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Drawing in Pencil

NEED TO KNOW Drawing in Pencil ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Rebuilding Gaza after Israel’s devastating military operations in the Palestinian territory since Oct. 7 could cost $50 billion. “We have not seen anything like this since 1945,” said United Nations development program director Abdallah Al Dardari, according to Al Jazeera....

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Guns, Bombs and Morality

NEED TO KNOW Guns, Bombs and Morality IRAQ [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7f5678d9-eac3-49b9-9755-dcad8927e883.png"] Iraq has regained a semblance of stability since the defeat of the Islamic State, the departure of most foreign troops, and the growth of Iranian influence in the capital of Baghdad in recent years. To counter that influence, Saudi...

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Stuck in Celestial Hades

NEED TO KNOW Stuck in Celestial Hades SYRIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e4901088-a8f1-4f67-bb93-075f2af0bff8.png"] Residents of the upscale Mazzeh neighborhood in the Syrian capital of Damascus were stunned when an airstrike recently reduced the Iranian consulate to rubble. Thirteen people, including two generals and five others in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, perished in...

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Warrior Class

NEED TO KNOW Warrior Class ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip has stirred controversy worldwide, less so at home. But now, Israelis are arguing over who among them should be fighting. The Israeli Supreme Court last week ordered the Israeli government to cut off funding from ultra-Orthodox...

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Last Stop Before Paradise

NEED TO KNOW Last Stop Before Paradise TUNISIA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/1f262cf6-0ed8-4367-aeca-5f0f2b6684d0.png"] Sixteen-year-old Adam migrated with his father and younger brother from Sierra Leone in West Africa to Tunisia on the Mediterranean coast two years ago. Today, after their father was arrested in Algeria, the two brothers live on the street...

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The Face of Defiance

NEED TO KNOW The Face of Defiance ISRAEL [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/2f7ce1b6-fa2d-e80d-cdee-e2c83f69c720.png"] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US, recently delivered a speech criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and calling for new elections in Israel, reported CNN. Afterward,...

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On All Sides

NEED TO KNOW On All Sides EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] Germany’s left-wing Rosa Luxemburg Foundation recently described Egypt as a “regional hegemon in decline,” an important, potentially vital actor in the region that has fewer and increasingly worse tools to succeed. The country is an autocracy whose leader, President Abdel Fattah...

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