Dr. Harold Rhode, a Mideast scholar and former adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon, recently penned, "Misunderstanding Iran," an insightful essay at the Jewish Policy Council that offered a sobering analysis of why we in the U.S. and the West more generally so often, so badly misunderstand the Iranian regime.

In short, it's a tendency to mirror image our own cultural premises, expecting that other, very different cultures share our way of thinking about things.

They don't.

In the case of Iran, the most mistaken impression is that the Islamic Republic's regime wants a "balanced" policy with its regional neighbors, with us, with anyone.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Two recent interviews — one with former Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince and one with Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., — pointed to the gathering threat of terror violence inside the country this year.

Aside from these two and a few more, though, there seems to be scant attention being paid to the likelihood that a confluence of threat indicators will erupt into street violence on a scale we've not seen since the summer of 2020.

This year, the Islamic month of Ramadan begins on March 10.

It runs until sundown on April 10.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

It's long been known that the Soviet Union was deeply involved in collaboration with and training of Middle Eastern Islamic terror groups, like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Much of this was learned from Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Romania, who defected to the U.S. in 1978, when he walked into the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, West Germany.

The "Mitrokhin Files" added even more information about Russian sponsorship of Islamic terror. Vasiliy Mitrokhin was a KGB archivist who defected to the West in 1992, bringing out with him a treasure trove of secret documents.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

In the wake of the savage HAMAS attack against Israel on the morning of 7 October 2023, many are waking up to its genocidal intent against Jews. Understandably, there are memories of pogroms past, of the horrific toll of the Holocaust, and references to "Nazis" and the "Einsatzgruppen".

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

At dawn on Shabbat, Saturday October 7, 2023, dozens Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, firing some 5,000 rockets and flooding over the border where they battled local residents of southern Israeli towns and also at the Re'im military base.

Israeli residents reported to news outlets that the terrorists were going door-to-door, shooting and kidnapping people. They had invaded in a multi-front attack by land, sea and air.

Initially taken by surprise, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) by later in the morning were responding in force and had launched "Operation Swords of Iron."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles