Stay ConnectedThe Middle East never stops moving. Neither does the FDD Morning Brief.
Three mornings a week, FDD Executive Director Jonathan Schanzer cuts through the noise with the experts who have spent their careers studying, shaping, and living the region’s most consequential moments. All before your morning coffee gets cold.
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THE REVERBERATING IMPACT OF THE 1929 HEBRON MASSACRE
HEADLINE 1: Israel will allow Syrian Druze, along with Circassians – another ethnic minority in Syria – to work in the Israeli Golan Heights.
HEADLINE 2: Recent meetings in Qatar between top Hamas terrorists and Adam Boehler, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, are focused the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander.
HEADLINE 3: The Trump administration has followed through on its threat to cancel federal funding to Columbia University, revoking $400 million due to the institution’s failure to respond to campus antisemitism.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer provides timely updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with award-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated producer, and bestselling author Yardena Schwartz.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
WHO ARE THE KURDS, AND HOW DO THEY FIT INTO THE MIDDLE EAST PUZZLE?
HEADLINE 1: The U.S. Air Force conducted a joint exercise with the Israeli Air Force on Tuesday.
HEADLINE 2: Clashes broke out in Syria between Assad loyalists and the new government’s security forces.
HEADLINE 3: The Trump administration is getting creative with its maximum pressure campaign.
BONUS HEADLINE 4: Syria’s foreign minister made a historic visit to the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or the OPCW.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer provides timely updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Giran Ozcan, who serves as the executive director of the Kurdish Peace Institute.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM POST-OCTOBER 7
HEADLINE 1: The State Department designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
HEADLINE 2: Russian missile experts travelled to Iran twice last year.
HEADLINE 3: Turkey and Iran are at loggerheads.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer provides timely updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Wendy Sachs, director of "October 8." This documentary offers a powerful examination of the surge in antisemitism across college campuses, social media, and American streets in the wake of Hamas' October 7 massacre in southern Israel.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
TURKEY'S TIES TO SYRIA AND ERDOGAN'S DYNAMIC WITH TRUMP
HEADLINE 1: The IDF says it is ready to defend an endangered Druze community in Syria.
HEADLINE 2: Lebanese authorities detained a man at the airport in Beirut on Friday.
HEADLINE 3: The Trump administration is expediting the delivery of some $4 billion in military aid to Israel.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Henri J. Barkey, the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Chair in International Relations at Lehigh University and adjunct senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
THE U.S.-ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP FROM A DEFENSE PERSPECTIVE
HEADLINE 1: The Iran sanctions keep on coming.
HEADLINE 2: Israeli authorities arrested yet another Israeli citizen accused of spying for Iran.
HEADLINE 3: A car-ramming attack unfolded at a bus stop near the Israeli city of Caesarea yesterday.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis ahead of a conversation between Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of FDD's Center on Military and Political Power, and Adam Tarsi of the Department of Defense's Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
ANTISEMITISM AND A NEW MIDDLE EAST
HEADLINE 1: The Trump administration escalated its maximum pressure campaign on Iran with a new round of sanctions.
HEADLINE 2: Things are getting hairy between Syria’s new leadership and the Israeli government.
HEADLINE 3: Speaking of Syria, an Israeli journalist uncovered troves of classified intelligence from the fallen Assad regime at Iran’s embassy in Damascus.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Learn more at: https://www.fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
THE HOSTAGE CRISIS: THE STORY OF ALON OHEL
HEADLINE 1: Israeli authorities have arrested 10 people suspected of smuggling arms from Jordan into Israel.
HEADLINE 2: The IDF deployed tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin.
HEADLINE 3: The IDF carried out a series of airstrikes in Lebanon ahead of Nasrallah’s funeral.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Idit Ohel, mother of 24-year-old Hamas hostage Alon Ohel.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
SOUTH AFRICA'S MALIGN TIES WITH AUTHORITARIANS
HEADLINE 1: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was in Iran this week.
HEADLINE 2: Arab leaders are meeting in Riyadh today to discuss alternatives to President Trump’s vision for Gaza.
HEADLINE 3: Iran executed a record number of people in 2024.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Max Meizlish, senior research analyst at FDD's Center on Economic and Financial Power.
Learn more at: https://www.fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
ABRAHAM ACCORDS, 10/7 WAR, IRAN
HEADLINE 1: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Saudi officials in Riyadh.
HEADLINE 2: Israeli troops remain in "buffer zone" in Lebanon to enforce the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire.
HEADLINE 3: The European Union plans to weigh in on the postwar Gaza discussion.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Dan Feferman, a Middle East and Jewish studies scholar who serves as the chairman of the peace-building NGO Sharaka.
Learn more at: https://www.fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
STARTUP NATION, ISRAEL AND THE GULF, AND THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS
HEADLINE 1: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel over the weekend.
HEADLINE 2: On Friday evening, Hezbollah supporters attacked a UN peacekeeping convoy.
HEADLINE 3: The IDF was hard at work in Gaza over the weekend.
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FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Nave Shachar, who serves as the Gulf Cooperation Council and MENA Innovation Diplomacy Director at Startup Nation Central.
Learn more at: https://fdd.org/fddmorningbrief
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