April 11, 2024

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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April 01, 2024

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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March 27, 2024

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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March 18, 2024

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 President Benjamin Netanyahu, and calling for new elections in Israel, reported CNN. Afterward, President...

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March 06, 2024

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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March 01, 2024

Decisions, Decisions

NEED TO KNOW Decisions, Decisions IRAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/aa73e799-3df4-4d8a-8ec5-35a9feeb2bb4.png"] On March 1, Iranian voters will take part in a legislative election that will be pivotal to the future of their country. On the ballot will be members of the Assembly of Experts, the chamber that will pick a successor to...

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February 13, 2024

The Delicate Dance

NEED TO KNOW The Delicate Dance JORDAN [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/8e349f45-1adc-4062-b298-9fdf38aa8f40.png"] Jordanian lawmakers enacted a repressive cybercrimes law last year, to the alarm of human rights advocates who forecast that officials in the Middle Eastern kingdom could use it to subdue dissent. Now, those very same advocates say that Jordanian authorities have...

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February 05, 2024

Word Play

NEED TO KNOW Word Play ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] In a Jan. 26 interim ruling on whether Israel was perpetrating acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, justices on the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands said they were “deeply concerned” about the ongoing bloodshed. And so it...

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January 23, 2024

Ever After

NEED TO KNOW Ever After ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were two of the more than 240 people whom the Palestinian terror group Hamas kidnapped on Oct. 7. In a video released by Hamas, they appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war...

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January 15, 2024

Simmer, and Boil

NEED TO KNOW Simmer, and Boil MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] On Jan. 12, the United States and its allies launched more than 100 missiles at 60 targets in Yemen, including “control nodes, munitions, depots, launching systems, production facilities, and air defense radar systems,” reported CNN. Five people perished and six...

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January 10, 2024

Nourished By Violence

NEED TO KNOW Nourished By Violence ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Late last year, during an interview in Qatar, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya told the New York Times that his terrorist group attacked Israel on Oct. 7 in order to revive the flagging revolutionary avidity that once animated Palestinians toward...

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January 04, 2024

The Unlikely Peacemaker

NEED TO KNOW The Unlikely Peacemaker QATAR [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/eb313eb2-840e-4e71-8167-30beddab851f.png"] Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani recently met in Poland with top-level officials from the Israeli spy agency Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency to secure the release of Israeli hostages whom Hamas...

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December 21, 2023

Peace, Please

NEED TO KNOW Peace, Please ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Hundreds of people recently joined Jewish groups in eight cities throughout the US to call for a ceasefire in Israel’s attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The demonstrations occurred as the United Nations also demanded a pause to the...

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December 12, 2023

A Heater in a Fridge in a Desert

NEED TO KNOW A Heater in a Fridge in a Desert UNITED ARAB EMIRATES [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/e7c972cb-39f7-4c1c-a7c9-c1ed67fdc38d.png"] An oil man oversaw the United Nations summit on climate change, which ended Tuesday. Sultan al-Jaber was recently both the president of the 28th UN Conference of Parties (COP28) as well as the chief...

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December 11, 2023

Burying the Lede

NEED TO KNOW Burying the Lede ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi recently gained the power to halt foreign media broadcasts and confiscate foreign media equipment on the grounds of national security. The new regulations, approved Oct. 20, mainly targeted Al Jazeera, the state-owned, Qatar-based news organization...

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December 08, 2023

Empty Victories

NEED TO KNOW Empty Victories EGYPT [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/180d3d63-0093-422e-a6d2-b3d9896f0053.png"] Egypt’s economy is in shambles. Inflation is running at a record 38 percent. Youth unemployment is 17 percent. The country’s human rights record is dismal. Police routinely arrest government critics on charges of misinformation, according to Amnesty International. Freedom of expression, the...

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December 04, 2023

And the Winner Is …

NEED TO KNOW And the Winner Is … MIDDLE EAST [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/7000f0bb-c02b-4438-87c6-002be2c0dfc6.png"] On Sunday, the warship USS Carney, based in the Red Sea, shot down two drones fired at it and the merchant ship it was assisting, CNN reported. Yemen-based Houthi rebels, who have been battling Saudi Arabian forces...

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November 28, 2023

Hitting Pause

NEED TO KNOW Hitting Pause ISRAEL/ GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] Diplomats worked overtime into Tuesday morning to extend the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas by 48 hours beyond the four-day deadline to Thursday morning , the BBC reported. Both sides said that they wanted to prolong...

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November 20, 2023

Mirror Image

NEED TO KNOW Mirror Image WORLD [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/486ddb7e-3777-4543-ab44-3536360a3ce9.png"] In the West, there has been staunch support for Israel since the attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas and its affiliates that killed about 1,400 people. It was no different in Africa, Asia or Latin America initially, with leaders expressing sympathy. That was...

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November 13, 2023

Teasing a Detonator

NEED TO KNOW Teasing a Detonator ISRAEL/ WEST BANK, GAZA [map url="https://mcusercontent.com/a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4/images/a7853464-ef94-4b48-96b9-d7badbef5e55.png"] After the Palestinian terror group Hamas killed about 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7, Israeli settlers – sometimes wearing masks or reservist army uniforms – started breaking into Palestinian homes in Zanuta, a village in the West Bank,...

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