Sean Durns

Sean Durns is a Washington DC-based foreign affairs analyst. His views are his own.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi gestures as he speaks at Tehran's Friday prayer on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in Tehran, Iran, February 11, 2022.

Amnesty International helped usher in Iran’s Islamic Revolution

PETER BEINART is the sort of progressive who hopes to be ahead of his time.

Brit Shalom and Peter Beinart - analyzing Jewish-Palestinian land solution

A helicopter waits to fly troops and equipment back after the completion of military action on Egypt’s Shadwan Island in 1970 during the War of Attrition

Remembering the Rogers Plan and Israel’s forgotten war


The time the CIA took a terrorist to Disneyland

In 1969, the CIA opened up a back channel with the PLO, which was then considered by the US and others to be a terrorist group.

Disney characters attend the 25th anniversary of Disneyland Paris at the park in Marne-la-Vallee, near Paris, France, March 25, 2017

1989 and the rise of Hamas

Israel’s crackdown forced Hamas to restructure into cells – a move copied from its rival, Fatah.

PALESTINIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD fundamentalist leader Asad Tamimi congratulating shiekh Abdul Fatah Aqel, the brother of Hamas commander Imad Aqel in 1993.

The media are helping to normalize antisemitism

The only thing necessary for the triumph of antisemitism is for journalists to do nothing, to say nothing – unless its politically convenient.

The Washington Post

CAIR isn’t credible

As The Jerusalem Post has noted, CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) retrial, the largest terrorism financing case in American history.

Student watches the Republican presidential debate at the CAIR office (REUTERS/Jason Redmond)

How ‘moderate’ and ‘secular’ is Fatah?

Orwell’s warning is certainly applicable on the battlefield of the Israel-Islamist conflict, where mistaken assumptions are often uncritically heralded as truths.

Palestinians take part in a Fatah rally in support of president Mahmoud Abbas, in the Palestinian Authority controlled side of Hebron, February 24, 2019

The rise of Fatah, 50 years on

Fatah also expanded its presence in Jordan, which it considered part of a future Palestinian state, and began to establish bases in Beirut, Lebanon.

Palestinians parade during celebrations after Hamas said it reached a deal with Palestinian rival Fatah, in Gaza City, October 12, 2017.

Marc Lamont Hill and the Soviet Union’s ongoing war against Israel

A Cold War relic, CEIRPP continues the Soviet Union’s war against Jewish self-determination.

Protesters hold abanner that reads "Boycott Israel" during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Paris

From the Kaiser to Khamenei: The underreported Berlin-Tehran axis

Just as the rise of Nazi Germany didn’t impede relations with Iran, neither did the rise of another antisemitic authoritarian regime.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

How the PLO helped create Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards

The future could see greater Iranian influence in the Fatah-ruled West Bank – a possibility that has been ignored by many analysts and media commentators and could be disastrous.

AN UNDATED picture handed out by the PA shows Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini during a meeting in Tehran

Iran’s support for al-Qaida

Trump is hardly alone in noting Iranian links to al-Qaida.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard members in Tehran carry the casket of Iran Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Mohsen Ghajarian, who was killed in the northern province of Aleppo , Syria