Earlier this year, President Obama drove U.S.-Israeli relations - to use one of President Obama's oft-employed analogies - into a ditch. Arguably, ties between the two countries were never more strained than last spring when Mr. Obama serially insulted the elected leader of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vilified his country and tried to euchre it into making territorial, political and other ill-advised concessions to Arabs determined as ever to destroy the Jewish state. Unfortunately, what the president has in mind for Israel after the election next week will make his previous treatment of the Jewish state look like the good old days.
As he states in the preface to "Talking to the Enemy," Scott Atran seeks to study terrorism - "one of the most compelling faith-related issues of our day" - through the lens of science because this subject "has largely been immune to serious scientific study because of its passion."
With Turkish-Israeli relations on the rocks, the Jewish state has found a new friend in Greece — Turkey's neighbor and longtime nemesis.
Nine Vietnamese fishermen detained by China near disputed islands in September who were set free last week and then lost at sea have been located and taken to safety, the Vietnamese government said.
Israeli troops killed two senior Hamas militants in an early-morning raid Friday in the West Bank city of Hebron, raising tensions as peace talks remain stuck over Israeli settlement building.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III on Wednesday said the bureau is continuing investigations into religious extremists who may be involved in terrorism aside from the nationwide community outreach programs to ethnic and religious groups.
Iran's opposition leader says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foreign policies are destructive and his performance as president should be judged in a referendum.
With the recent departures of Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, economic policy adviser Lawrence H. Summers and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the next senior Obama administration official expected to quit is the national security adviser to the president, James L. Jones. All other things being equal, his successor seems likely to be the president's homeland security adviser, John Brennan (who also serves as Gen. Jones' deputy).
The FBI on Thursday defended its inclusion of a Chicago Muslim cleric tied in the past to the terrorist groups Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood in a group that recently visited the National Counterterrorism Center and FBI headquarters.
