On October 7, 1985, four men, including mastermind Muhammad Zaidan, aka Mohammed Abul al-Abbas, from the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)…
Ambassador Skip Gnehm on the Middle East
The Middle East has been a complicated, if not violent, region for millennia, which has only been exacerbated by recent…
Broken Bones, Broken Dreams, Broken Homeland: The First Intifada, 1987
On December 9, 1987, the deaths of four Palestinian refugees plunged the nation of Israel into four years of strikes,…
An Iraq War Dissent
In 2001 Ann Wright served as the first political officer in the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Two years…
Jordan’s King Abdullah I, The Man Who Would Be Peacemaker
Abdullah I bin al-Hussein fought along side Lawrence of Arabia against the Ottoman Empire and became Emir of Transjordan and…
8 Weird Things You Didn’t Know About American Diplomats
OK, when you think about State Department types — if you think about them at all — chances are they’re…
Ariel Sharon Launches an Attack — Against the U.S. Ambassador
Ariel Sharon, who died January 2014 after eight years in a coma, was not known for his calm and easygoing…
The Assassination of Anwar Sadat, Part I
When Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords along with President…
A Gamble for Peace – Negotiating the Camp David Accords
Unrest in the Middle East has been an unrelenting problem for centuries, the Gordian knot that cannot be cut. The…
Qaddafi – The Man and His Rise to Power
On September 1st, 1969 Muammar Qaddafi along with a group of officers part of the Free Officers Movement staged a…