On the politics of victory and defeat: How Gaza dethroned the king of Israel
June 12th, 20210 How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s...
Netanyahu faces end of rule in parliamentary vote on new government
June 8th, 20210 ISRAEL — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an end to his long hold on power in Israel on Sunday when the country's legislature votes on approving an improbable government of diverse parties that came together to unseat him. "It's happening!" opposition leader Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party wrote on Twitter on...
The fumbling king of Palestine: Palestinians are defeating the Oslo culture
June 3rd, 20210 The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and...Far-right nationalist Bennett and centrist Lapid could end Netanyahu’s reign
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing an end to his long reign over the country, as his rivals pressed on with a political pact to unseat him on Tuesday. After March’s inconclusive election, the country's fourth in two years, Likud emerged as the party with most votes. But after wooing smaller right-wing and...
Ethical Danish pension fund considers excluding Israel over human rights
May 29th, 20210 A Danish pension fund, which prides itself on being the world's strictest on human rights violations, says it is considering adding Israel to a long list of countries it excludes following this month's conflict with Palestinians. The $22 billion Akademiker looks after the pensions of Denmark's teachers and university lecturers and has...
Syria’s Assad wins fourth term with 95 percent of the vote, in election the West calls fraudulent
May 28th, 20210 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad won a fourth term in office with 95.1 percent of the votes, in an election that will extend his rule over a country ruined by war, but which opponents and the West say was marked by fraud. Assad's government says the election on Wednesday shows Syria is functioning normally despite the decade-old...
U.N. rights chief says Israel’s attacks in Gaza may be war crimes
May 27th, 20211 GENEVA — In remarks to the Human Rights Council on Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in their 11-day assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli airstrikes killed at least 248 in Gaza, including 66 children and 39 women, before a ceasefire was announced last...
Abdul El-Sayed: American taxpayers are subsidizing Gaza’s destruction
May 21st, 20211 — This essay, penned by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, originally appeared in his newsletter The Incision on Thursday under the title "Gaza." It has been edited for style. In 2004, a couple childhood friends and I decided, like many 20-somethings, to spend the summer abroad. We headed to the Middle East, land of our forefathers. Our goals were...
The evolution of apartheid: Why Israel is becoming a pariah state
May 20th, 20210 On April 27, one of the world’s largest and most credible rights groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW), concluded, in a comprehensive 213-pages report, that Israel is an apartheid state. “Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians....
Dems offer resolution blocking $735 million Israel weapons sale, Hamas official predicts ceasefire within days
May 19th, 20210 On Wednesday, Democratic U.S. lawmakers introduced a resolution seeking to block a $735 million sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel, in a response to continuing devastating attacks on Palestinians by Israeli forces. Since the fighting began on May 10, Palestinian health officials say 228 people have been killed in aerial...
“We are seeds”: More than 10,000 local residents protest murderous Israeli campaign against Palestine
May 17th, 20210 DEARBORN — More than 10,000 local residents and activists gathered last weekend in protest of the latest Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns in occupied territories of Palestine over the weekend. The Israeli government has sanctioned tactics of attacks aimed at the dispossession of residents from their homes, recently targeting the...
Israel destroys AP, Al Jazeera tower; killing of Palestinians continues
May 15th, 20210 GAZA — Israel pounded Gaza, destroying a tower block that housed the AP and Al Jazeera news organizations, and which it said had militant assets, with no sign of an end to almost a week of bombardment from Israel that has killed more than 130 Palestinians in Gaza. The death toll is rising from the worst escalation since 2014 and...
Never-ending destruction of historical sites in Mecca and Medina, cradle of Islam
May 15th, 20210 Saudi Arabia, in which Wahhabism is the state form of Islam, has a long history of vandalizing and demolishing historical monuments. Cultural devastation of Islamic heritage sites is not a new phenomenon to the Bedouin kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After the conquest of Mecca and Medina in the mid-1920s Saudis went on an orgy of...
Israel’s violent assault on Gaza continues, as death toll passes 100
May 14th, 20210 GAZA — Israel’s violent assault on Gaza continued into Friday, with the reports confirming Israel’s airstrikes had killed at least 115 killed, including 27 children, 11 women and wounding over 600. More bodies remain trapped under the rubble. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has responsibility for the welfare of...
Top scientists question the need for COVID-19 booster shots
May 13th, 20210 COVID-19 vaccine developers are making ever bolder assertions that the world will need yearly booster shots, or new vaccines to tackle concerning coronavirus variants, but some scientists question when, or whether, such shots will be needed. In interviews with Reuters, more than a dozen influential infectious disease and vaccine......
Israel levels third high rise as bombardment of Gaza continues
May 12th, 20210 PALESTINE — Israel’s assault on Gaza continued on Wednesday, leveling a third high rise, the 16-story al-Shorouk tower, which housed local and foreign media outlets as well as shops and apartments. Israeli authorities said Hamas members were using each of the three buildings it has so far targeted for military purposes, though...
20 Palestinians, including nine children, killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, amid days of violence
May 10th, 20210 PALESTINE — Israel directed military operations to Gaza, killing 20 Palestinians, including nine children, in airstrikes as violence and crackdowns by Israeli forces continued on Palestinians over protests stemming from threatened eviction of families from Sheikh Jarrah. Days of violence in Jerusalem, including the multiple raids......
Lebanon’s lights may go off as cash for electricity runs out
May 7th, 20210 BEIRUT – Lebanon's lights may go off this month because cash for electricity generation is running out, a lawmaker said on Thursday, as the country grapples with a deep economic crisis. Lebanon's parliament had approved a $200 million emergency loan to finance fuel imports for power generation in March, but a committee reviewing the...
Saudi Arabia considers barring overseas Hajj pilgrims for second year, sources say
May 5th, 20210 RIYADH – Saudi Arabia is considering barring overseas pilgrims from the annual Hajj for the second year running as COVID-19 cases rise globally and worries grow about the emergence of new variants, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Such a move would restrict the pilgrimage to Mecca, a once in a lifetime duty...
Syrian court selects two candidates to appear on ballot against Assad
May 3rd, 20210 DAMASCUS — On Monday, Syria's higher constitutional court selected two obscure figures to appear on ballots standing against President Bashar al-Assad in a May 26 election, which the West rejects as a farce that will hurt diplomatic efforts to end the civil war. From a list of 51 potential candidates, the court approved just...
Blinken meets Israel’s Mossad spy chief for talks on Iran
May 1st, 20210 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency and its ambassador to Washington on Thursday, and the Israeli officials expressed “deep concern” about Iran’s nuclear activities, according to a person familiar with the matter. The meeting in Washington followed talks this week between U.S.......
82 dead, more than 100 injured in Baghdad hospital fire
April 29th, 20210 BAGHDAD — A fire caused by an oxygen tank explosion at a COVID-19 hospital, Ibn Khatib, has resulted in the death of at least 82 people and injured more than 100 more. The explosion occurred on April 24. Witnesses and authorities said that the blaze caused some people to jump from hospital windows. Prime Minister Mustafa...
Well-known Lebanese composer Samir Sfeir believed to be detained in Saudi Arabia for unknown reasons
April 28th, 20210 BEIRUT — Samir Sfeir, a well-known Lebanese music composer, is believed to be detained in Saudi Arabia for unknown reasons, according to local media and international news sources. Sfeir has sung about Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun and is said to be close to the president’s party. He is from Ajaltoun, Lebanon. The Lebanese......
Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of “apartheid” crimes against Palestinians
April 27th, 20210 NEW YORK — On Tuesday, an international rights watchdog accused Israel of pursuing policies of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians — and against its own Arab minority — that amount to crimes against humanity. New York-based Human Rights Watch published a 213-page report, which it said was not aimed at comparing...
A Palestinian prayer for Ramadan: May the voices of the oppressed be heard
April 26th, 20210 Palestinians COVID-19 cases, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant, which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic......
