Trump’s ambassador pick could drastically alter 2 of the…

President-elect Donald Trump tapped bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman to serve as the US ambassador to Israel on Thursday, raising questions about how Friedman's far-right views will upend Washington's longstanding approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Friedman, who has no diplomatic experience, is a fierce opponent of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine that would create two independent states on either side of the Jordan river.

Erdogan’s Koza Group Power Grab Spills Into U.K. Courts

Koza Altin Isletmeleri AS sued its parent in British courts to block the Turkish government from taking control of the company after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan started to crack down on suspected sympathizers of a failed army coup. Akin Ipek, a tycoon whose family owns Koza Altin and other businesses in Turkey, claims that dozens of trustees with close ties to Erdogan were unlawfully appointed by the company in a plot to wrest control through orders from government-appointed judges.

Carter leads his final anti-IS conference amid uncertainty

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is convening his final war-planning conference with core members of the anti-Islamic State coalition, dogged by questions about what Donald Trump 's arrival in the White House next month will mean for the future of the coalition. Closing out a nearly two-week overseas trip that included a stop in Iraq , Carter was meeting Thursday with his counterparts from 14 nations.

Is there an opportunity?

Some Israelis and their overseas supporters are celebrating what they see as an opportunity to firm up the fuzzy relationship between Israel and settlements in the West Bank. Some go further, and see a chance to absorb the West Bank, somehow without granting its Arab residents Israeli citizenship.

CBS to Netanyahu: ‘Is Israel inching toward an anti-American Middle East bloc?’

US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the notion that Israel is entering an "anti-American bloc" in a high-stakes interview Sunday night with Lesley Stahl of CBS's 60 Minutes : Lesley Stahl: "You have a friendship with Mr. Putin, and a friendship with China.

ISIS militants return to Syria city

Islamic State militants re-entered the historic city of Palmyra in central Syria on Saturday for the first time since they were expelled by Syrian and Russian forces nine months ago. The activist-run Palmyra Coordination network said the militants had nearly encircled the city and entered its northern and northwestern neighborhoods.

Missing American journalist alive in Syria, Senator says

The Obama administration has "high confidence" that missing American journalist Austin Tice is alive in Syria, Sen. John Cornyn said Friday. Freelance journalist Tice disappeared while reporting near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August, 2012.Texas Republican Cornyn, the second-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said he had been briefed on the latest situation by White House hostage envoy James O'Brien.

Adding 200 more troops to Syria, US deepens involvement

Carter on Friday, Dec. 9, made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to consult with military commander... MANAMA, Bahrain - Drawing the U.S. deeper into the Syria conflict, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Saturday he is sending 200 more troops to accelerate the push on the Islamic State's self-declared capital of Raqqa. The 200, to include special operations troops, are in addition to 300 already authorized for the effort to recruit, organize, train and advise local Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces to fight IS.

Raqqa, Mosul Liberations Progress as ISIL Loses Resources to Fight

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker in support of a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve mission over Iraq, Dec. 7, 2016. The KC-135 provides aerial refueling capabilities as the task force supports the Iraqi security forces and the partnered forces in Syria as they work to liberate territory and people under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Syria unlikely to be Partitioned: The Resilience of Colonial Borders

Whenever a country falls into civil war, there are always observers who suggest that the problem could be resolved by a partition of that country. It is as though they think the parties to the war are like squabbling children in the back seat of the car, who can be dealt with by making them sit far away from one another.

New ISIS Spokesman Makes Chilling Promise As Coalition Descends On Capital Cities

Iraqi soldiers pose with the Islamic State flag along a street of the town of al-Shura, which was recaptured from Islamic State , south of Mosul, Iraq October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo The Islamic State's named its new spokesman Monday, and his first statement offers a chilling threat against the West while the terrorist group's two capital cities are under siege.

Right from Wrong: Note to Israelis: The US is not racist

Since Donald Trump won the US presidential election last month, Israelis have been engaged in a heated debate about how the victory of the billionaire businessman who gets into fights on Twitter will affect the Jewish state. The Left, which has been fawning over Barack Obama for eight years, has been attributing all the ills of his country and the world during this period to a combination of piggish capitalism and racism ostensibly so indigenous to America that even the Great Black Hope was unable to stomp them out.

Terra Incognita: Keith Ellison’s speech was an Islamic-supremacist, chauvinist diatribe

The real story with Ellison is that, as with so many religious-nationalist Muslims in the West, his views dovetail much more logically with the extreme Right. In mid-November Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison announced he would run for chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.

In Trump’s ‘global interests’ ad, echoes of overtly …

An ad aired by the Donald Trump campaign in the lead-up to the US presidential election last month appears to bear striking resemblance to a spot released by a white nationalist group days earlier featuring overt anti-Semitic references. Richard Spencer, the leading ideologue of the alt-right movement, said the ad released by the Trump campaign may have been inspired by one created by his National Policy Institute and released just a few days earlier.

REVEALED: The Full Keith Ellison Tape Shows He Was (Mostly) Praising Israel – Not Trashing It

If you've been following the uproar over Congressman Keith Ellison and his run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, you might recall hearing about a 36-second audio clip containing a snippet of an Ellison speech that, according to his critics, proves he's anti-Israel and shouldn't get the job. You may even have listened to the clip and been left wondering exactly what it means.