DANIEL ESTRIN, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli liberals woke up after national elections with a demoralizing feeling: Most of the country, in a deep and possibly irreversible way, does not think like they do.

There had been a sense of urgency among moderate Israelis, and even an ounce of hope, that widespread frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s six straight years in office would lead voters to pull Israel away from what they perceive as its rightward march toward international isolation, economic inequality and a dead end for peace with the Palestinians.

But as the results trickled in on Wednesday, they showed Likud with a shocking lead that has all but guaranteed Netanyahu a third consecutive term. Netanyahu called it a victory "against all odds." The liberals’ optimism has been replaced with despair – and an infuriating belief that the masses may never understand that logic shows the current path is suicidal.

The Economist

The coffin contains the body of the latest young fighter killed on the front lines of the war with Islamic State (IS).

But few worshippers at Najaf’s Imam Ali mosque pay it heed. On one side women weep and wail at the shrine of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad who became Islam’s fourth caliph, and whose murder can be seen as the beginning of the divide between Sunni and Shia.

On the other a group of pilgrims from Iran sits in quiet prayer. The sermon booming from the loudspeakers is discussing marriage, not war. The ground around the building is packed with families and scattered with the leftovers from picnics.

Last summer the residents of Najaf, in Iraq’s Shia heartland, were in mortal fear of IS. Its fighters had swarmed out of their redoubts in Syria and north-west Iraq to take control of much of the Sunni part of the country.

They were little more than a dozen kilometres from taking Baghdad and also threatened Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. In June IS declared the re-establishment of the caliphate–the single state held to rule over all Muslims. But unlike the caliphate of Ali, this would be one which had highly exclusive definitions of what a Muslim is: Shias need not apply, and a lot of Sunnis would not make the grade, either.

BEIRUT—Islamic State attacks on Syria’s Assyrian population have driven the Christian minority into Lebanon, further straining the impoverished nation and raising concerns that Christianity is being depleted in the Middle East as refugees move on to Europe.

The Lebanese government, which early this year tightened visa regulations in a bid to stem the tide of Syrian refugees, this month granted the Assyrians an exception, citing the Islamic State campaign that began in late February. More than 1.2 million Syrians have overwhelmed the country of four million, along with 500,000 Palestinian and Iraqi refugees.

  United Nations, United States: Gordon Brown, UN special envoy for education, launched an international appeal Wednesday to close a funding gap and pay for the education of 500,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon. The former British prime minister said the money would help fund an agreement reached with the Lebanese government allowing Syrians to […]

  The United Nations Security Council is expected to issue a new statement to confirm its unanimity to safeguard Lebanon and its stability in face of the growing terrorist threats as U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag is set to head to Saudi Arabia and Iran to reach a breakthrough on the presidential stalemate. […]

  A fistfight erupted Wednesday at the ABC mall in Ashrafieh after a number of young Lebanese Armenian men tried to stop the showing of the Turkish film Son Mektup at a Grand Cinemas movie theater. Despite the objections, the show went on as scheduled, in the presence of the Turkish ambassador, MTV reported. The […]

By Jeremy Diamond and Elise Labott, CNN

A senior administration official said that Netanyahu’s sharp tacks to the right before Tuesday’s vote — in which he ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state, a pillar of U.S. policy in the Middle East — "raise very significant substantive concerns" for the White House, and that "we have to reassess our options going forward."

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – During the recording titled, "So They Kill And Are Killed," Adnani explains ISIS’ future plans on its way to conquering Paris, Rome, Portugal and Spain. Adnani also lists a number of sites further east that ISIS "wants."

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, who translated the message, Adnani appears to be trying to boost "the morale of Islamic State fighters in light of recent attacks against them by U.S.-led coalition forces and local opponents."The spokesman explains that the groups’ recent loses don’t mean anything, that they will ultimately come out on top, as it’s enemies have "underestimated its strength, only to come to the realization when it was too late."

  BEIRUT: Syrian and Iraqi Christians are pleading for more international assistance after fleeing attack by militants from the Islamic State group. They spoke Tuesday in two Beirut churches where they lined up to receive food baskets and other humanitarian assistance from a non-profit organization called In Defense of Christians (IDC), whose mission is to […]