Israel is bracing for more Arab Spring showers this Sunday, as Palestinians plan to mark the June 5 anniversary of the 1967 war with a new round of protests. That war left Israel occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza , which could be the focus of Sunday's actions. Just two weeks ago, on May 15, "Nakba Day' demonstrations saw Palestinian refugees trying to breach Israel's borders in protest against the confiscation of their families' homes ...

Somehow, it fell to the United States to censure an Israeli shipping company for doing business with Iran. Last month the State Department sanctioned the Ofer Brothers Group, a private company based in the tony beach city of Herzliya, for selling an $8.6 million tanker to Iran through a known Iranian front company based in Monaco. The May 24 order barred the Israeli firm, along with a subsidiary based in Singapore, from obtaining export licenses, private loans ...

The four women and two men walked silently to their red leather armchairs in Room 110 of the Federal District Court Building in lower Manhattan. As dozens of reporters and spectators listened intently, the clerk asked Jury Foreman Richard Zug, an IBM computer specialist, if the panel had come to a decision. "We have," replied Zug. Reading carefully from the verdict form, Zug announced, "On actual malice: to the question, Has the plaintiff proved by clear and convincing evidence that ...

Correction Appended: Feb. 8, 2010 The Jerusalem syndrome is a psychological disorder in which a visit to the holy city triggers delusional and obsessive religious fantasies. In its extreme variety, people wander the lanes of the Old City believing they are biblical characters; John the Baptist, say, or a brawny Samson, sprung back to life. Archaeologists in the Holy Land like to joke that their profession is vulnerable to a milder form of the syndrome. When scientists find a cracked, oversize skull ...

South Lebanon Sunday witnessed its deadliest day since the month-long Israel-Hizballah 2006 war when 10 Palestinian demonstrators were reported shot dead and another 112 wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on protests along the border fence. The casualties came as a massive crowd of Palestinians gathered at Maroun er Ras, a small hilltop village overlooking the border with Israel, to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, when the state of Israel was established. By Sunday night, the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group ...

Next month is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride month, an international season of parades, cultural festivals and street parties celebrating gay rights. But amid all the good cheer, tensions are rising over a controversial issue that is splintering LGBT communities. Around the world, major Pride events are being used as battle grounds to combat what some pro-Palestinian, progay activists are calling pink washing: Israel's promotion of its progressive gay-rights record as a way to cover ...

The hunt for a monster can warp the pursuers. The wanted man was one of the most loathsome creatures of modern times: "Ivan the Terrible," who hacked at his naked victims with a sword as he herded them by the thousands into the gas chambers he operated at the Nazi death camp Treblinka. American and Israeli officials were certain they had found him in John, formerly Ivan, Demjanjuk, a retired suburban Cleveland autoworker of Ukrainian descent. He was extradited to ...

Even by Middle Eastern standards, it was a week of abnormal tension and turmoil. The carefully engineered truce imposed on that divided nation by Syria had collapsed . Bitter fighting continued between hard-pressed Christian rightists and forces of the National Movement, an amalgam of Moslem leftists and Palestinians led by a gaunt, shambling politician-mystic, Kamal Jumblatt , who vowed to fight on until Lebanon's antiquated sectarian political system was reformed. The civil war grew so intense that Syria came ...

Battling terrorism on the home front could forever be tangled up in politics, but what if it weren't? Suppose it were up to the antiterrorism pros alone to decide when to warn the public, what to say about the source of their intelligence and the actions the government is taking to neutralize the threat. Is there an obvious way to handle the sudden evidence that terrorists have plans to strike? Probably not. Few people could disagree last week with ...

Just in time for Easter, an Israeli television journalist has produced a pair of nails he says may have been used to crucify Jesus Christ. "We're not saying these are the nails," says Simcha Jacobovici, holding aloft a pair of smallish iron spikes with the tips hammered to one side. "We're saying these could be the nails." The case for the possible rests on a specific combination of research, surmising, guesswork and either the ineptitude or the skittishness ...