Islamic State

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Sunday, May 21, 2017, to participate in the inaugural opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The Middle East nearly disappeared from U.S. media coverage in 2017

Allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. elections dominated the news cycle last year. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict hardly made a dent, confirming that the American public no longer cares a great deal about the issue. By Jim Lobe Except for the ongoing war in Syria, coverage of the Middle East by the evening news programs of…

By +972 Magazine February 8, 2018

‘I’d like to see you hold back on settlements for a little bit. We’ll work something out,’ Donald Trump tells Benjamin Netanyahu at a White House press conference, February 15, 2017. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

Trump finally drags Israel into his orbit of chaos

The litany of scandals affecting the Trump Administration made relatively little impact on Israel — until this week, when the revelation that classified information he leaked to Russian politicians likely came from Israeli intelligence. By Mitchell Plitnick When the history of this chaotic period is written, people will doubtless be amazed that, not even four…

By +972 Magazine May 18, 2017

Fares Sritah, 19, from the Jerusalem neighborhood Beit Hanina neighborhood, is brought to Jerusalem's District Court, August 13, 2015. Sritah was charged with attempting to join Islamic State. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Who are the ISIS supporters in Israel’s prisons?

The 46 ISIS-associated prisoners represent only 0.3 percent of the prison population and just one-tenth of one percent of all prisoners. Some went off to fight in Syria, while others expressed support for the group on social media. By Noam Rotem As of the end of June, Israel was imprisoning 46 alleged ISIS supporters, according…

By +972 Magazine September 4, 2016

Latest

Oops? Israeli news site reports ISIS ‘threat’ to win Eurovision

The song, ‘Death to the West,’ ‘sounds quite thematically heavy, but I’m sure audiences the world over will love the uplifting chorus,’ the all-too-serious report quotes an all-too-made-up Islamic State spokesperson saying. By Oren Persico Ahead of the Eurovision singing contest slated to take place in Sweden later this month, “NRG”, a major news outlets…

By The Seventh Eye May 1, 2016

Passengers evacuate a subway in Brussels following the terrorist attack, March 22, 2016. (Evan Lamos/EurActiv)

We don’t have the privilege of being Islamophobic

Israelis tend to warn of the ‘Islamization’ of Europe in the wake of attacks like those in Brussels. But the fear of Muslims in a country where Jews and Muslims must live together is simply not an option. After events like the terrorist attacks in Brussels or Paris, it has become common to hear Israelis…

By Noam Sheizaf March 22, 2016

Israeli soldier mourn beside flowers placed on the grave of Israeli border policewoman, Hadar Cohen, 19, during her funeral at the military cemetery in Yehud, near Tel Aviv, Israel, February 4, 2016. Three Palestinians killed the Israeli border policewoman and wounded another before being shot dead by nearby officers at Damascus gate IN Jerusalem's Old City on February 3, 2016. (Activestills.org)

Why do we only listen to violence?

Two intifadas increased Israeli willingness to make territorial withdrawals. Wars in Lebanon and Egypt led Israel to withdrawals from those territories. Despite all that, the Palestinian Authority is trying to maintain quiet and security for Israelis but receives nothing in return. If I were Palestinian I might come to a disturbing conclusion. One axiom of…

By Noam Sheizaf March 10, 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Merkel at a joint press conference in Berlin, February 16, 2016. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Fact-checking Netanyahu: A week full of truthiness

From surreal exaggerations to outright lies, Netanyahu dished up another batch of nonsense utterings to a foreign audience in Berlin this week. We picked three of the best and broke them down for you. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has something of a track record of saving his most nonsensical and demonstrably false statements for foreign…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland February 17, 2016

Niswan Zalud, 22, a Yazidi man whose family fled ISIS, Shingal, Iraqi Kurdistan. (Seth J. Frantzman)

PHOTOS: A modern genocide — Yazidi survivors in Shingal

Text and photos by Seth J. Frantzman In August 2014 the extremist group calling itself Islamic State (ISIS) swept through a part of northern Iraq inhabited by the Yazidi religious minority. ISIS had already broadcast to the world their intention to exterminate “un-believers” and those they opposed. They had massacred 1,600 Shia army cadets at Camp Speicher…

By +972 Magazine January 1, 2016

A woman lays flowers at an impromptu memorial a day after the Paris terror attacks, Le Petit Cambodge / Carillon, November 14, 2015. (Maya-Anaïs Yataghène/CC)

Don’t equate Paris attacks with those in Tel Aviv

Suggestions that terrorism in Paris springs from the same well as terrorism in Israel are misleading and dangerous. Erasing complexity may be a comfort in difficult days like these, but conflating the varying causes of violence won’t help us end it. There are troubled currents flowing from unlikely sources these days. Terror attacks have continued…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland November 24, 2015

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas address the general debate of the UN General Assembly’s 70th session, September 20, 2015. (UN Photo/Cia Pak)

Palestine’s battle for hearts and minds in the Arab world

A new Palestinian PR campaign attempts to recast the conflict by comparing Israeli violence against Palestinians to methods used by Islamic State. By Jacob Wirtschafter CAIRO — Eager to re-enlist Egyptian public opinion to their cause, the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo hosted a rare press conference Thursday outlining Ramallah’s current diplomatic agenda. The agenda includes…

By +972 Magazine November 1, 2015

T. photographed in Tel Aviv (R), and appearing in ISIS' execution video (L). (photo courtesy of the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants)

ISIS executes three asylum seekers deported by Israel

Video by extremist Sunni group shows execution of three Eritrean asylum seekers coerced into leaving Israel last year. At least three Eritrean asylum seekers who lived in Israel and were deported to a third country were executed by Islamic State militants in Libya this past week, according to family and friends who recognized them in…

By Haggai Matar April 21, 2015

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UNGA during the general debate, September 26, 2014. (UN Photo/Amanda Voisard)

A Palestinian state is in Israel’s best interest

Forget the Right’s fear-mongering: by disarming Hamas and establishing a joint force in the Jordan Valley, a Palestinian state will only serve as a security asset to Israel. By Ilan Baruch When it comes to its enemies, Israel has always had a tendency to define threats against its security according to military and terrorist capabilities.…

By +972 Magazine April 9, 2015

Screenshot from the latest Likud campaign video.

Netanyahu campaign video: A victory for the Left means an ISIS invasion

In the latest Likud campaign video, released online Saturday, the message is that voters who cast their ballots for parties to the left of Netanyahu are throwing open Israel’s borders to an invasion by the so-called Islamic State, which in Israel and much of the Arabic-speaking world is called Da’esh. The video opens…

By Lisa Goldman February 14, 2015