Middle East / Levant

David Delgado Shorter, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been given the official green light to continue using university resources to promote the boycott of Israel. Shorter prominently features links to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel on his official class website. The founders of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel have openly stated that their ultimate goal is the dismantling of the Jewish State.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is making fresh allegations of ties between an Islamist movement and vast parts of the U.S. government.

Syria's defense minister and several other government officials were killed or hurt by a suicide bomber in Damascus Wednesday, a day after Israel's Director of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi had said that President Bashar al-Assad's days were numbered. Also killed in Wednesday's blast was Assad's brother-in-law, who was Syria's deputy defense minister. The bomber, who struck during a meeting of government and security heads, reportedly was a bodyguard.

As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's armored car motorcade was riding through the Egyptian port city of Alexandria where she had given a speech on democratic rights, a tomato hit an accompanying Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle were thrown at Hillary's car. Clinton herself was not hit, but she may have been able to hear the taunts of "Monica, Monica" which the protesters were chanting. Protesters in Cairo and Alexandria accused Clinton of cutting a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, at the expense of Egyptian liberals and non-Islamists.

The head of Hamas in Gaza said Egypt's new president would shield Gaza from attacks by Israel and would lift the blockade.

An anonymous U.S. official has said that, in addition to stable relations with Israel, “the U.S. is expecting Egypt to use the good ties that link the Muslim Brotherhood with the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip to curtail any plans that Hamas might have towards escalation with Israel." The U.S. is also expecting President Morsi's Egypt to remain committed to its traditional policy of limited engagement with Iran.

According to Al Ahram, Egyptian journalist Adel Al-Gogari, 56, died on Wednesday night while discussing the crisis in Syria during a live televised broadcast on Iraqi Al-Hadath private channel in Media Production City, Cairo. Al-Gogari, a Nasserist, also accused the Free Syrian Army of being funded by Israel during the show.

Iran was elected to a top post on the UN Arms Trade Treaty conference, UN Watch revealed on Sunday. The Geneva-based human rights group is calling on UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who addressed the conference on the same day, to condemn the selection of the Tehran regime.

President Barack Obama has invited his newly elected Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi to visit the US for an official visit in September. Deputy Secretary of State William Perez said he delivered this message during his meetings with Morsi on Sunday. One of the issues Morsi is certain to bring up as part of the preparation for his visit, would be his pledge to seek the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman from U.S. custody.

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney’s announced trip to Israel, at the height of his campaign to wrest the presidency from Barack Obama, could be a twofer, drawing closer two critical constituencies: evangelicals and foreign policy hawks.

Iran's current three-day military drill, understood as a thinly-veiled and defiant response to the newest round of EU sanctions on its petroleum industry, is intended to demonstrate Iran's ability to retaliate to a US or Israeli attack. But the maneuvers may be having the opposite effect, as more experts are coming to the conclusion that Iran's incessant sabre-rattling and bellicosity seek to mask the obsolete and impotent state of its armed forces.

With tougher sanctions by the European Union taking effect, Iran announced new missile tests and threatened to obliterate Israel. The Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps launched missiles with ranges of 300, 500, 800, and 1,300 kilometers, the Mehr agency reported on Tuesday.

Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Zaki, who came second in Egypt's presidential runoff election last week, is reported to have boarded a flight to Abu Dhabi fleeing several corruption complaints.

While the winner is declared and the celebrations in Egypt's squares cannot be ignored, it isn't clear what, exactly, has Mohammed Morsi won, considering the restrictions the Army has placed on his presidency. On Sunday evening, Morsi said he had a "message of peace," and he "will respect all international agreements," but stopped short of mentioning Israel.

“In our strategic planning, we have defined a radius named the radius of deterrence, which includes all strategic interests of the enemy in the region, so that we can manage the battle at any level in case of the outbreak of war,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami said.

U.S. officials are saying Bashar al-Assad’s closest supporters are secretly making plans to defect to the other side in case the Syrian dictator succumbs to attacks by the rebellion. And a Syrian activist group reported Friday that four senior officers announced they are defecting and joining the ranks of the opposition.

JERUSALEM – After terror groups operating from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula launched Grad missiles into the Southern Negev’s Mitzpeh Ramon and Uvda regions last weekend and murdered an Israeli Arab construction worker from Haifa on Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak took the unusual step of ordering IDF tank units to deploy along portions of Israel’s southern border with Egypt.

If official results stand, Mursi will have won Egypt's first post-uprising elections with 51.89 per cent of the vote, succeeding toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak. The ruling military council will "hand over power" on 30 June.

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai said that the understanding that the Bashar Assad regime in Syria has “reached its end” is now permeating among Assad’s allies Iran and Hezbollah. Meanwhile, a Russian military source said that Russia may send warships and troops to Syria to protect its logistics base in Tartous, Syria.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday revved up his attacks on President Obama's Mid East policy, suggesting the president fears that Israel might attack Iran more than he fears that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon. “I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite,” Romney said.

Russian Independence Day celebration at Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel were dampered by the arrival of a group of demonstrators protesting Russian military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s harsh crackdown on civilians and armed opposition.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury sat at the cafe of the five-star Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in downtown Dhaka – capital of the third-largest Muslim nation on earth – proclaiming his love for Israel and the Jewish people.

JERUSALEM – Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz to draw up plans for a possible series of preemptive strikes against various Scud missile installations and suspected WMD (weapons of mass destruction) sites across Syria, as the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship appears to be entering a dangerous phase.

"We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria," Clinton said Tuesday. "We are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria."

IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh said Monday night that “Syria has the world’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons, along with rockets and missiles that can reach all of Israel." But Palestinian officials criticized the amplified Israeli criticism on Sunday as a tactic to deflect attention from Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the "moribund peace process."

Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, is calling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s war against opposition a “genocide”, and said Israeli support is behind efforts to overthrow him.

JERUSALEM – Despite the absence of an attack on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, Israel and the U.S. are engaged in a covert cyberwar campaign against a growing list of Iranian targets. The dual objective is to hamper the Iranian regime’s ability to build an atomic bomb while pressuring them to bow to Western and UN demands to downgrade their enrichment capabilities to less than 10 percent.

The IDF Operations Department has put together instructions for military operations in cyberspace against enemies of the Jewish state. The IDF will engage in consistent and continuous intelligence gathering operations online, and said it will handle cyberspace as a battlefield as important as those at sea in the air, and on the ground, executing attacks when necessary.

In an address marking the 23rd anniversary of the death of his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also accused the West of cynically exaggerating the threat a nuclear Iran poses to divert attention: "What Americans and Westerners do is idiotic. They magnify the nuclear issue to cover up their own [economic] problems."

JERUSALEM – In a meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation fresh off nuclear talks in Baghdad, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak and National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror expressed their government’s growing concerns over America’s diplomatic negotiations with Iran.