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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday that the leaders of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel were isolated in their hostility to Iran. "Today, the entire world has declared they are not in line with US policies against Iran," Zarif said

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' office claimed that White House Adviser Jared Kushner's reported efforts to limit UNRWA activities are "a continuation of the subversive plots to eliminate the Palestinian problem." A statement from Abbas' office emphasized the need to "oppose" and "foil" the US plan. It is believed that US President Donald Trump's proposed peace plan will remove the question of PA "refugees" from the negotiating table. The peace plan, the contents of which have not yet been revealed, was by the PA as "aiming to eliminate the Palestinian problem and negate all of the Palestinian nation's legitimate...

The timing of the exercise is unusual, as it appears to be similar in scale and nature to a drill that ordinarily happens later in the autumn. It comes just days before the U.S. reimposes sanctions on Tehran after its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several dozen boats were out training early Thursday morning. The vessels are mostly small attack boats, and there have been no interactions with U.S. ships in the area, the official added, according to AFP. In a statement, Captain Bill Urban, the military's Central Command spokesman, said...

Full Title: 'Death to the dictator!' Violence on streets of Iran as police use tear gas on furious protesters, including chador-clad women, demonstrating against 'corrupt regime' ruining the country while waging ideological war abroad Protests have broken out in a number of cities against Iranian regime this week Comes after the dramatic drop of Iran's currency and other economic problems 'The nation is forced to beg while the leader lives like God,' protesters chanted 'Death to the dictator!' Violence on streets of Iran as police use tear gas on furious protesters, including chador-clad women, demonstrating against 'corrupt regime' ruining the...

Iran's currency is continuing its downward spiral as increased American sanctions loom, hitting a new low on the thriving black market exchange. The Iranian rial fell to 112,000 to the dollar on Sunday, from 98,000 to $1 on Saturday. The government-set exchange rate was 44,070 to the dollar, compared to 35,186 on Jan. 1. The Iranian rial has been declining steadily for years but the drop has accelerated in recent months after the U.S. decision to pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran in May and announcement of increased sanctions beginning next month.

Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country. "They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria," Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov told Israel's Channel 10 television in an interview. "That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said. "We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly...

The hundred-some billion dollars that President Obama sent to Iran apparently has come and gone, leaving the Iranian economy once again desperate to avoid collapse.  The pallets containing more than a billion dollars in hard currency have funded terror groups, and the rest of the haul apparently has gone to pay for debts, spending, and graft, leaving the real economy gasping for air, unable to generate hard currency yet dependent on imports. Steve Hanke reports at Forbes: Iran's rial plunged from 98,000 IRR/USD on Saturday to 112,000 IRR/USD on Sunday on Tehran's Ferdowsi Street.  That stunning 12.5% one-day plunge has pushed the...

Iran By Alan Peters, Contributing Editor TheClerics Lash Back as Iranians Question Their Legitimacy VIGOROUS ATTACKS ON THE CREDIBILITY and legitimacy of the clerical leadership in Iran have continued to mount since the February 20, 2004, Majlis (Parliament) elections which, despite the removal of so-called “reformists” from the ballot, still failed to attract a meaningful voter turn-out. The elections showed the extent of electoral fraud to which the clerics were forced to turn, highlighting their tenuous hold on power. There are now signs that the underpinnings of the clerics will be attacked still further, especially as evidence is now available...

A court in Egypt sentenced 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death for their involvement in a protest against the military coup in 2013. The sentencing of 660 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood will be announced...

The Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to a group in Sudan with ties to Al Qaeda even though it had been designated a terrorist-financing organization by the U.S. years earlier, a conservative think tank revealed this week. Further, an agency official acknowledged the prior administration allowed taxpayer money to flow to the group even after its designation was discovered. The 2014 grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was revealed by Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum in a story for the National Review. “More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release...

The Islamic Republic of Iran is playing with fire. To distract from its maneuvers in Syria, where along with its proxies - including the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group, as well as Iraqi, Afghan and Yemeni Shiite militias it controls - Iran in gunning for the Israeli border in the Quneitra province of southwestern Syria. Tehran is directing Hamas, the Islamic terror group who they fund and arm, to provoke Israel by attacking the Israeli communities around Gaza. In recent weeks, Hamas launched incendiary kites across the Gaza border that scorched a whopping 8,000 acres of farms and nature reserves...

The Ankara chief's words were in response to Israel's new "nation-state" law, with Erdogan branding Israel the "most Zionist, racist and fascist country". He argued the new law legitimises "unlawful actions and oppression". The "nation-state" law has been criticised for effectively ruling out a two-state solution to the long-running Israel-Palestine conflict. Palestinians have threatened to go to the International Criminal Court and the UN to protest against the new legislation. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu has hit back, saying Turkey has become a "dark dictatorship" under Erdogan. In a war of words, he accused the Turkish president of "massacring...

"Time will tell if we just averted war. But what we did learn is that Israel’s position in a war with Iran is stronger than it could have been if the two leaders hadn’t met in Helsinki."

Israel takes down Syrian plane For the second day in a row, sirens sound in Israel's north. Israel fires interceptor missiles towards Syrian plane in Israeli airspace. Sirens sounded Tuesday afternoon in regional councils in the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley, as well as in the northern city of Katzrin. Residents of northern Israel reported that two interceptor missiles were fired from the Tzfat region. The IDF confirmed that two Patriot missiles had been fired at a Syrian Sukhoi plane. The plane was being tracked, and when it reached two kilometers (1.24 miles) into Israel, it was shot down....

If this were the first time that Hamas deliberately provoked Israel into self-defense actions that resulted in the unintended deaths of Gaza civilians, the media could be excused for playing into the hands of Hamas. The most recent Hamas provocations — having 40,000 Gazans try to tear down the border fence and enter Israel with Molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons — are part of a repeated Hamas tactic that I have called the “dead baby strategy.” Hamas’ goal is to have Israel kill as many Gazans as possible so that the headlines always begin, and often end, with the...

An Egyptian court sentenced on Saturday a Lebanese woman to eight years in prison over insulting Egyptians in a video she posted online, and set July 29 as the date for her appeal, state media reported. Mona el-Mazbouh was initially handed down 11 years but the sentence was later reduced to eight, the state-run Al-Ahram news agency reported. It was unclear why the sentence was reduced. She was also fined 10,700 Egyptian pounds (around $598). She was charged with “deliberately broadcasting false rumors which aim to undermine society and attack religions.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were acting on a request from the US, the UK and other European nations. The White Helmets had become trapped in an area of south-western Syria near the border with the Golan Heights after an offensive by the Syrian military. ... The evacuees were driven to the border with the Golan Heights and taken on from there by Israeli troops to Jordan. The plan had been to evacuate 800 White Helmets and their families, but only 422 made it.

… “The word and even the signature of the Americans cannot be relied upon, so negotiations with America are of no avail,” Khamenei said in a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials, adding that negotiations with Washington would be an “obvious mistake”, according to his official website. …

The Israeli Air Force launched a "wide-scale attack" against Hamas military targets in Gaza on Friday, after an Israeli soldier died after being hit by gunfire from the coastal enclave, according to the Israeli military. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the shooting attack took place Friday during a Palestinian protest along the fence separating Gaza and Israel. It's the first Israeli soldier killed along the Gaza fence since the last war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, the army said. The IDF responded first with tank and artillery fire, killing four people according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health....

President Donald Trump has been criticized by the media and by Beltway politicians of both parties for his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday. But the summit has already produced a very significant win: namely, agreement to avoid a war in the Middle East by restraining Iran in Syria. As Breitbart News columnist Caroline Glick noted last month, it was crucial that Trump confront Putin over Syria, because Russia was about to allow Iranian and Hezbollah soldiers, dressed in Syrian uniforms, to move into southwestern Syria along the border with Israel and Jordan.