'Jesus Burial Box' Trial Gets Thorny

Mossad funding, training People’s Mujahedin of Iran, sources confirm

(NEWSER) - As Iran has long claimed, Israel is indeed behind the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, providing financing, training, and weapons to the Iranian terrorist group that carries out the attacks, US officials confirm to NBC News . Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed since 2007, reportedly by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). That group of dissidents—which was accused of killing American servicemen in the 1970s—is backed by the Mossad, Israel's secret service. "This is an Israeli plot. A dirty plot," says a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who adds that most of the Iranian government's information came from the interrogation of an MEK member whose attempted attack failed in 2010. More»

Police call Palestinian a terrorist for attack on busy nightclub

(NEWSER) - Seven people were injured early this morning in Tel Aviv when a Palestinian man crashed into an Israel Border Police checkpoint in a stolen taxi then began stabbing people, say authorities, in an incident they're calling "definitely an act of terror," reports Haaretz . The attacker, a man in his 20s from the West Bank, allegedly stole a cab and drove to a large club in the city's south, where he drove into a police barrier, injuring two; he then got out of the car and allegedly began stabbing people. More»

S&P credit rating reverberates overseas, as well

(AP) - Stocks tumbled across the Middle East today as most regional markets reopened following the historic downgrade of the United States' credit rating. The region's markets mostly operate Sunday to Thursday, meaning they were the first to react to Standard & Poor's decision late Friday to cut the US level to AA+ from its top AAA rating. "Clearly there's a negative sentiment prevailing on the global financial markets. We're seeing a strong contagion effect on our markets," says a Dubai-based expert. More»

Deepwater discovery could have huge implications for region

(NEWSER) - Discovery of a massive field of natural gas off the coast of Israel could transform the Jewish state's economy and even alter the balance of power in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reports. Houston-based Noble Energy confirmed yesterday that the so-called Leviathan field has 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, making it the biggest deepwater discovery in a decade. More»

Both are isolated except for a superpower

(NEWSER) - Be careful, Israel, you're starting to look like "gulp—North Korea," writes Daniel W. Drezner. Israel may not be in similarly dire financial straits, but the parallels are "pretty eerie" beyond that, writes Drezner in Foreign Policy . Let us count the ways:

• "Both countries are diplomatically isolated except for their ties to a great power benefactor."