Thousands of US troops land in Israel. Aircraft carrier coming soon

DEBKAfile — Thousands of US troops began descending on Israel this week. Senior US military sources told DEBKAfile Friday, Jan. 6 that many would be staying up to the end of the year as part of the US-IDF deployment in readiness for a military engagement with Iran and its possible escalation into a regional conflict. They will…

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US support: Is Israel losing the battle?

BY STEVE RUBIN, YNET— The de-legitimization of Israel is being perpetuated by the Jewish state’s lack of a concrete plan to counter a new generation of anti-Israeli attitudes amongst both the American Jewish community and on college campuses. With regards to college campuses, this is not an issue of bigoted anti-Semitism; rather, it is a…

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Saudis, Gulf states on war alert for early US-Iran clash

BY DEBKAFILE— The armies of Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states stood ready Thursday Jan. 5, for Washington to stand up to Iranian threats and send an aircraft carrier or several warships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. Riyadh has been leaning hard on the Obama administration not to let…

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Intro to the Middle East

BY YORAM ETTINGER, ISRAEL HAYOM— In the pursuit of peace, alliances and interests, Western policy-makers have tended to sacrifice the perplexing realities of the Middle East on the altar of oversimplification and wishful-thinking. Yet their attempts to implement unsubstantiated policies often have served to inflame rather than extinguish regional fires. Lebanese-born professor Fouad Ajami, the…

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Mythomaniacs and the Arab-Israel Conflict

BY RICHARD BOOKER— An excited crowd of 5,000 Christian Zionists attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem leaped to their feet with thunderous applause when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked them to join Israel in their historic struggle to present the true story of Israel and the Arab world. Israel has certainly been losing the…

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Constraining Iran in the Straight

BY ILAN BERMAN, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE— The past two weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in Iran’s war of words with the West. Last Wednesday, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, that new economic pressure currently being contemplated by the West would come at a steep cost. According to Rahimi,…

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Why US won't be center stage in new Israeli-Arab talks

BY HOWARD LAFRANCHI, CSMONITOR The United States won’t take its usual center-stage position when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet today for their first direct talks in more than a year. The talks, set for Amman, Jordan, are designed to explore the potential for a return to formal direct peace negotiations, which collapsed in October 2010.…

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