What did Pope Francis do for American Catholics?
May 2nd, 20250 For American Catholics, Pope Francis was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church at a time of crisis for both the institution and the faithful. The church in the United States was reeling from the aftershocks of continuing exposés of widespread sexual abuse by priests and the growing rift separating the church’s leadership from...
Lincoln’s speeches glimpsed the future
April 25th, 20250 When Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for his second term as president, the United States was divided as never before or since. The Civil War had killed over 600,000 Americans, North and South. The end of the war was in sight, but bitterness remained. Lincoln could have celebrated the Union’s approaching victory or claimed a...
How to make Trump admire you — when you’re a president of a country and of Palestinian origin
April 18th, 20250 By Hafez Al Mirazi Name: Nayib Bukele or Najib Boukailah — in ArabicTitle: President of El SalvadorAge: 44 Background:The beloved guest at the White House recently is Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, and the world’s only head of state of Palestinian descent currently in office. His father, Armando Bukele (Boukailah),...
Democracy is dead
April 18th, 20250 By Mark Haidar It has happened rather quickly — democracy is dead. It’s hard to pinpoint when the decline actually began, but I will take a shot at it. Like an avalanche, it started slowly, took time to gain momentum, and then accelerated with such speed that it couldn’t be stopped. We are a democracy in name only, as we as a...
Netanyahu’s Shin Bet scandal: Who holds the power?
April 18th, 20250 In just 24 hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Eli Sharvit as the new chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, only to quickly retract the nomination. This episode highlights the lack of coherence in Netanyahu’s leadership, reinforcing the perception that decisions at the highest levels of...
Reform foreign aid; don’t abandon it
April 11th, 20250 Foreign aid is an easy target when people say they want to cut government spending. It makes sense that we should take care of Americans who are struggling before we share resources with other countries. Charity begins at home, as they say. That may help explain why President Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, when they set out to...
Civil war on the horizon? The Ashkenazi-Sephardic conflict and Israel’s future
April 4th, 20250 The phrase “civil war” is one of the most dominant terms used by Israeli politicians today. What began as a mere warning from Israeli President Isaac Herzog is now an accepted possibility for much of Israel’s mainstream political society. “(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice everything for his...
75 days of chaos
April 4th, 20250 By Mark Haidar It’s been 75 days since Donald Trump took the oath of office for the presidency for the second time. A perfect storm of circumstances and the rewriting of history from his first term led to his slim, non-majority victory in November. After his first term in office, he faced the voters in 2020 and lost by 7 million...
Religious leaders condemn Trump’s treatment of immigrants
March 21st, 20250 By Pilar Marrero Even as Donald Trump presents himself as a “defender of the Christian faith”, a growing number of church leaders are denouncing his policies, including on immigration. Many are also taking aim at the Christian nationalist ideology underpinning them. Critics say Trump’s approach threatens the First...
Restoring Palestine to Its rightful owners: A conversation with Mads Gilbert
February 28th, 20250 We have long argued that the Israeli war and genocide in Gaza must catalyze a change in the overall political discourse on Israel and Palestine, particularly regarding the need to free Palestine from the confines of victimhood. This shift is necessary to create space where the Palestinian people are seen as central to their own...
How to stop MAGA? Let it play out
February 28th, 20250 It's been just over a month since Donald Trump took the oath of office for a second time, with the government now fully under Republican control. Since then, he has wasted no time asserting his power — issuing dozens of executive orders, reshaping federal departments and firing scores of government employees he deems disloyal. In their...
Ramadan: Contemplation and reflections on wealth inequalities, poverty, wastage and famine.
February 28th, 20250 The sighting of the crescent moon on February 28 signifies the commencement of Ramadan, a sacred month of fasting observed by billions of Muslims around the globe. Ramadan is a period of spiritual reflection, fostering a sense of responsibility, discipline, control over evil desires, communal prayers, acts of generosity and family...
Gaza has changed the discourse on popular resistance, but are we truly listening?
February 21st, 20250 Palestinians and Israelis agree that the Gaza resistance was the main reason behind Israel’s forced decision to accept a ceasefire and begin its gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The oddity is that Palestinians — dying, resisting, but remaining steadfast in Gaza — usually stand at the polar opposite of everything the Israeli...
It’s not “America First”; it’s “Israel first”
February 21st, 20251 By Mark Haidar “America First”, the stated policy of the new Trump administration, but in reality, the latest lie being told to the American people. Things will not change under Trump 2.0; it will remain “Israel First”, a fact that has been true for decades. How did this tiny nation of about 10 million people convince the...
The great march of hope: Gaza’s defiance against erasure
February 14th, 20250 The return of one million Palestinians from southern Gaza to the north on January 27 felt as if history was choreographing one of its most earth-shattering events in recent memory. Hundreds of thousands of people marched along a single street, the coastal Rashid Street, at the furthest western stretch of Gaza. Though these displaced......
From Gaza to the West Bank: Israel’s unyielding war machine
February 14th, 20250 “A year of combat” — this is how Israel’s new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, described 2025 at a conference organized by the Israeli ministry of defense. The exact sentence, translated from Hebrew, was: “The year 2025 will continue to be a year of combat.” The word “continue” is crucial, suggesting that Israel will resume...
A dictator and a war criminal meet in the Riviera
February 7th, 20252 By Abdul-Majeed Azad A couple of weeks before the general election, Imam Husham Al-Husainy of Iraqi descent, who runs the Shi'a Karbala Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, MI, in his miserable myopia and total ignorance on Trump’s history of religious conviction, said, “I lean towards Mr. Trump because I found him closer to the......
White supremacists and the far right are the real threat to America’s security
January 31st, 20250 By Peter Schurmann Donald Trump has ridden the xenophobic political tiger into the White House once again, convincing Americans that immigrants in this country are an existential threat to our safety and the well-being of the nation. It’s a politically effective trope that in practice diverts attention and, critically, resources from...
Gaza’s unbreakable resistance: A historical perspective on the war and its aftermath
January 31st, 20250 The problem with political analysis is that it often lacks historical perspective and is mostly limited to recent events. The current analysis of the Israeli war on Gaza falls victim to this narrow thinking. The ceasefire agreement, signed between Palestinian groups and Israel under Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediation in Doha on...
Carter was our “best ex-president”
January 26th, 20250 Jimmy Carter spent four years as president of the United States and 44 years as ex-president. It’s his extraordinary career as our former president that we are most likely to celebrate. Prior to Carter, former presidents were likely to go off to a comfortable retirement. Carter, who died last month at 100, changed the pattern. He...
Gaza ceasefire at last: How Israel’s “first defeat” will shape the country’s future
January 26th, 20250 The headline in the Times of Israel says it all: “For the First Time, Israel Just Lost a War.” Regardless of the reasoning behind this statement, which the article divides into fourteen points, it suggests a shattering and unprecedented event in the 76-year history of the State of Israel. The consequences of this realization will......
Trump’s war on immigrants a threat to public health
January 26th, 20250 By Edward Kissam President Trump’s inaugural speech Monday signaled his continued commitment to characterizing immigrants as criminal invaders and an impediment to his campaign mantra of “making America great again.” Following his speech, Trump signed a slew of executive orders — declaring a national emergency...
Israel destroyed Gaza “for generations to come” and the world stayed silent
January 17th, 20250 The first official reference to Gaza becoming increasingly uninhabitable was made by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2012, when the population of the Gaza Strip was estimated at 1.8 million inhabitants. The intention of the report, “The Gaza Strip: The Economic Situation and the Prospects for......
The war criminal “victim”: Netanyahu’s inevitable fate
January 10th, 20250 Suddenly, Yoav Gallant, Israel's notorious minister of defense, disappeared into obscurity. The man who served in his country's military for about 35 years, in politics for nearly 10 and oversaw major wars, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza, quickly retreated from headlines and political significance. In his resignation letter,...
Jimmy Carter was a true American hero
January 4th, 20250 By Tom Watkins Former President Jimmy Carter has died after a remarkable 100 years of life. He is the longest-lived ex-commander in chief. His life is not measured in years or even his ascent to the presidency, but by the kindness and human decency he shared here at home and around the globe. The humble president from Plains,......
