More in ‘Iran’

• The Israeli Air Force revealed new pilotless drones (the size of Boeing 737s) that have a long enough range to be operational against, say, Iran. [NYT]
• The French and Spanish foreign ministers are the most prominent supporters of an initiative that would see the European Union recognize a Palestinian state within 18 months. Israel ...

During a campaign speech at the University of Uroomiyeh in northwestern Iran a few months before the June presidential election there, Mir Hossein Moussavi, the main reformist presidential candidate and now opposition leader, was interrupted by angry groups of basiji, the regime’s paramilitary enforcers, carrying pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Palestinian flags. “I see ...

• With the Dubai police all but saying Mossad killed Hamas’s main weapons procurer, the case is at this point “more Coen brothers than John le Carre.” [LAT]
• Yesterday’s U.N. report—which concluded that Iran is likely trying to build nuclear weapons—is by far the strongest statement about Iran’s non-peaceful intentions to come out of the ...

• The International Atomic Energy Agency released a new report on Iran, disclosing that, due to a lack of Iranian cooperation, the agency could not “confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.” [JTA]
• The report also concluded, in stronger language than past agency statements, that the mystery Syrian compound that Israel ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Mideast columnist Lee Smith follows up last week’s profile of two prominent American lobbyists for Iran with another of Trita Parsi, an activist allied with the reformist wing of the Iranian regime who has tried to create the Iranian-American equivalent of AIPAC. ARTNews executive editor Robin Cembalest prepares us for a ...

The is the second in a two-part series. Read the first part here.
Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, wants to be the face of the Iranian-American lobby in Washington. The other pillar of Washington’s Iran lobby, Flynt Leverett and his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, have accumulated power and influence by executing the ...

• Prime Minister Netanyahu met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow to push for further Iran sanctions. [WP]
• Netanyahu also asked Medvedev to tell Hamas that his previous offer for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit—a deal Hamas did not accept, leaving talks at an impasse—would not be improved upon. [Haaretz]
• Lebanese soldiers fired anti-aircraft guns ...

• The U.S. State Department asserted that Iran’s nuclear program is “anything but peaceful.” [Haaretz]
• Influential Chicago Rabbi Asher Lopatin (he has counted Rahm Emanuel as a congregant) is starting a community in Israel as part of an effort “to build a new type of religious Zionist.” [Chicago Tribune]
• Over 1500 cases of the mumps ...

• A Palestinian Authority police officer killed an Israeli soldier, in an area of the West Bank controlled by Israel. Twist #1: the Israeli was a Druse. Twist #2: the victim’s name was Ihab Khatib, the killer’s name was Mahmoud al-Khatib; they are unrelated. [NYT]
• Today Iran observes the anniversary of the founding of the ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Adam Kirsch introduces Yehuda Halevi, the new biography by Hillel Halkin (and published by Nextbook Press), arguing that Jews today can better understand themselves by considering the life of this 12th-century poet. Mideast columnist Lee Smith reveals how the influential husband-and-wife team of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett have pushed the ...