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GAZA WAR
Hostilities in the Middle East are reverberating in the United States, where homeland security and law enforcement officials are tracking a steady increase in threats to Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities. CBP warned that operatives with links to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — might try to enter the U.S. along its southern border.
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AFGHANISTAN WAR
Two-thirds of adults say the American war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting, and more adults view Afghanistan as an adversary than an ally. Less than a quarter of adults say the U.S. was successful in developing a functioning government or improving opportunities for women in Afghanistan.
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WEAPONS PROLIFERATION
Most banks have no interest in facilitating a risky weapons sale or contributing to instability in the global landscape. But most are either unaware of the issue or do not know how to address it. Through live and virtual events, the financial sector is learning how to avoid inadvertently facilitating illicit weapons trade.
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GAZA WAR
A major ground campaign in the Gaza Strip will display Israel’s overwhelming military force, but the country faces a steep challenge in its goal of eradicating Hamas, as well as in finding a workable post-combat plan for the territory.
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GAZA WAR
Since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, activists at anti-Israel rallies have continued to justify and celebrate Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis. Activists have stated that all Israelis are legitimate military targets; that Palestinians have the right to resist by “any means necessary”; that Hamas terrorists are “freedom fighters”; and that Hamas’s terror attacks were part of a laudable process of “decolonization.”
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EXTREMISM
Video games are easy to exploit, and are being used by actors ranging from IS and Hizbollah for recruitment, to Russia, who use it to spread propaganda during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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IRAN’S STRATEGY
Iran has been increasingly vocal about the prospect of additional firepower entering the fray to score a victory for what Tehran calls the “axis of resistance” against Israel. The axis, refined by the Islamic republic over the last four decades, is a loose-knit network of proxies, Tehran-backed militant groups, and allied state actors who play an important role in Iran’s strategy to oppose the West, Arab foes, and, primarily, Israel.
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GAZA WAR
Following its intensive aerial bombardment of northern Gaza over the last two weeks, Israel, in the coming days, is planning to introduce a large number of ground troops to secure northern Gaza, which will allow specialist units to start searching and destroying the sprawling Hamas tunnel system. This phase could be costly in terms of Israeli lives because Hamas fighters underground will have access to the surface to inflict casualties on Israeli troops.
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EXTREMISM
What happens when lonely men, embittered by a sense of failure in the sexual marketplace, find each other and form communities on the internet? The result can be deadly. Psychologist examines genesis of online groups of sexually embittered men, roots in evolutionary behavior, why some turn violent.
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EXTREMISM
A new national poll found that highly antisemitic Americans are three times more likely to support violence to achieve certain political goals compared to the general population. A new study establishes a clear relationship between antisemitism, political violence and antidemocratic conspiracy theories on both ends of the political spectrum.
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GAZA WAR
Analyzing the 2014 Gaza War, the last time Israel invaded the strip, could give a window into how the coming days and weeks will play out.
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GAZA WAR
After the crisis caused by being caught by surprise on 7 October, Israel now faces a second crisis as its government struggles to find a strategy to meet its stated objective of pushing Hamas out of Gaza and rendering it incapable of further atrocities in the future.
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GAZA WAR
If there’s one lesson that should have been learned from the US experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; the Gulf states in Yemen; and Israel’s own two-decade-long occupation of south Lebanon, it’s that it is always easier to forcibly enter a country than it is to leave it.
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HAMAS ATTACK
Analysts point to numerous security failures by Israel’s intelligence and military apparatus ahead of Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel.
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HAMAS ATTACK
Intelligence can only do so much. The other key piece of defense is understanding how your enemy thinks and operates. And there the Israelis also appeared to struggle.
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EXTREMISM
Some fringe-left groups are aligning with anti-Zionist organizations in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, by expressing support for Hamas’s atrocities in the name of “resistance” and “liberation.”
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EXTREMISM
As the conflict between Israel and Hamas rages for another day, many Jews around the world face a familiar threat: a surge in antisemitism. From New York to London, St. Louis to Sydney, Jewish communities are grappling with hate and bigotry that often flare up whenever the Middle East erupts.
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HAMAS ATTACK
Hamas is on Israel’s doorstep. One would think Israel could better understand what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, as opposed to 1,000 miles away in Iran. How did Israel not see something this advanced right next door? Some Israeli officials have said they believed Hamas was already deterred by recent Israeli counterterrorism operations, and that the group lacked the capability to launch an attack on the scope and scale of what occurred.
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HAMAS ATTACK
Israel will seek to eliminate the threat posed by the Palestinian militant group for good, but its campaign in Gaza could draw in other adversaries, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.
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HAMAS ATTACK
Russia’s ties to Hamas are well-documented, as are its ties to Hamas’s main backer, Iran. For some observers and commentators of the ongoing bloodshed in Israel, that in itself is cause for blaming Moscow, accusing it of having a direct hand in the spiraling violence. That’s not correct, said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian policy in the Middle East.
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The long view
“The Federal Government Is Gone”: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
As President Donald Trump guts the main federal office dedicated to preventing terrorism, states say they’re left to take the lead in spotlighting threats. Some state efforts are robust, others are fledgling, and yet other states are still formalizing strategies for addressing extremism. With the federal government largely retreating from focusing on extremist dangers, prevention advocates say the threat of violent extremism is likely to increase.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”