Pope Visits Egypt Amidst Uptick in Violence Against Christians

Pope Francis was scheduled to land in Cairo Friday amidst a spike in violent attacks against Christians in predominantly Moslem countries all over the Middle East and North Africa. Earlier this week, he said he hopes the visit will assist in efforts to improve the dialogue between Christianity and Islam as well as serving as a “consolation and…encouragement to all Christians in the Middle East”.

Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual report on the population Thursday, saying that as Israel prepares to celebrate the 69th anniversary of Independence Day next week there are 8.68 million citizens, including approximately 6.484 million Jews (74.7% of the total population) and 1.808 million Arabs (20.8%) with another 388,000 (4.5%) belonging to various minority groups. The population enjoyed a net growth of 159,000, making a 1.9% increase.

The indications that Abbas is now willing to contemplate a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu under Trump’s auspices may seem surprising, given the latter’s firm stand on issues important to Israel. But it should be considered in the context of the broader consolidation of the pro-western forces in the region, who felt on unstable ground during the Obama years.

When the US first began to focus on the foreign terrorist fighter problem in 2012, before the Islamic State fully emerged, its objective was to prevent individuals from joining the battles in Iraq and Syria. Now that the flow of fighters to these conflict zones has sharply decreased, Washington and its allies have pivoted to dealing with fighters who have returned, or will return, to their home countries.