Articles

The Sun Force: Life on the Frontlines With the Peshmerga’s Female Fighters

June 29, 2016 Christine Balling Foreign Affairs

Late last year, Captain Khatoon Ali Krdr, 36, the commander of an all-female Kurdish peshmerga unit, visited a family in the village of Kocho in northern Iraqi Kurdistan to see a woman who'd had nearly everything taken away by the Islamic State (ISIS). Like Khatoon, the woman and her surviving family members are Yezidis, an ethno-religious Kurdish minority group. ISIS has long enslaved, tortured, and killed, Yezidi women. Khatoon tried to speak to the woman, but she could not answer. These days, she is mute and can only stare ahead.

Beware Russians Bearing Gifts

June 27, 2016 Ilan I. Berman Jerusalem Post

Slowly but surely, a strategic reorientation is underway in Israel. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a high-profile state visit to Russia. The trip, Netanyahu's fourth in the past year, was a public sign of the rapidly expanding ties between Jerusalem and Moscow.

The Real Reason For Brexit

June 26, 2016 Ilan I. Berman U.S. News & World Report

Last week's vote by England to formally leave the European Union has touched off nothing short of a political earthquake, both in Europe and in the United States. In the aftermath of Thursday's referendum, which saw a slim majority (52 percent) of Britons vote in favor of "Brexit," there has been no shortage of recriminations from the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic, which have been quick to label Britons as both xenophobic and foolish for their choice.

It All Comes Back To Religion

June 15, 2016 James S. Robbins U.S. News & World Report

Jihadists are hailing the mass shooting at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse as an Islamist victory. The Islamic State terror group has claimed credit for the atrocity, saying "a soldier of the Islamic State has carried out the attack." President Barack Obama said that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was "filled with hatred" and that the investigation "will go wherever the facts lead us." They will lead directly to radical Islamism.

‘Collective Responsibility’ For Terror

June 13, 2016 Lawrence J. Haas U.S. News & World Report

Israel responded to a Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv which claimed four lives by revoking 83,000 travel permits for Palestinians to enter the country during Ramadan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights suggests that response amounts to "collective punishment" and is, thus, illegal under international law.