January 11th, 20210JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered construction plans advanced on Monday for some 800 Jewish settler homes in the occupied West Bank, anchoring the projects in the final days of the pro-settlement Trump administration.
Palestinians condemned such construction as illegal. The timing of the move appeared to be...
December 23rd, 20200It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty.
Israel is currently at the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years. Even by...
December 8th, 20200TEHRAN — The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist last month was carried out remotely with artificial intelligence and a machine gun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system”, Tasnim news agency quoted a senior commander as saying.
Iran has blamed Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen...
December 4th, 20200TEHRAN — Iran is unlikely to retaliate over the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist before the inauguration of Joe Biden in case it jeopardizes any future sanctions relief, the top U.S. envoy on Iran told Reuters on Thursday.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who had little public profile in Iran, but had been named by Israel as a prime...
December 2nd, 20200Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to worry about as Antony J. Blinken, who will directly handle America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a loyal friend of Israel. Crisis averted.
President-elect Joe Biden’s appointment of Antony J. Blinken as his secretary of state was a master stroke,...
December 1st, 20200In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel.
“These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime...
November 27th, 20200TEHRAN — An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb program was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...
November 26th, 20200RIYADH — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman earlier this week, despite a denial of the meeting by Israeli officials.
On the discussion table was a country that has played the role of boogeyman for both Israel and its allies in the U.S. government: Iran. The two leaders talked...
November 14th, 20200“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world.”
These were the words of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh during a virtual meeting with European legislators on November 3. While some may agree with Shtayyeh’s assessment, such...
November 4th, 20200Why does Israel hate Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf?
On October 16, Avi Dichter, Israeli member of Parliament from the right-wing Likud Party, announced that Assaf’s special permit to enter the occupied Palestinian West Bank would be revoked.
Assaf, originally from Gaza, now lives with his family in the United Arab Emirates....
October 14th, 20200“International law” remains one of the most discussed terms in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is almost always present, whether the discussion pertains to the Israeli wars and siege on Gaza, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank or the encroaching apartheid throughout Israel and the...
October 8th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has gained a prominent endorsement from several diplomatic and policy experts on the Middle East.
A substantial list of former ambassadors to Middle East and North African (MENA) nations, foreign policy advisors and Middle East affairs experts have signed on to a letter,...
October 1st, 20200It is abundantly clear that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has underestimated the seriousness of the challenges facing Palestine and the Palestinians.
The rushed agreement between his party, Fatah, and Hamas in Istanbul on September 24, and the Palestinian leader’s speech at the 75th session of the U.N. General...
September 23rd, 20200The polarized nature of American politics often makes it difficult to address fundamental differences between the country’s two main political rivals, Republicans and Democrats. As each side is intent on discrediting the other at every opportunity, unbiased information regarding the two parties’ actual stances on internal and...
September 18th, 20200DEARBORN — So-called “peace agreements” between two Arab countries, the UAE and Bahrain, with Israel were signed on Tuesday, in a ceremony at the White House hosted by President Trump.
The normalization efforts between governments of the two Arab countries and Israel carried little consent from the people of those nations and...
September 14th, 20200LOD (REUTERS) — An Israeli court sentenced a Jewish settler to life imprisonment on Monday for killing a Palestinian couple and their baby in a 2015 arson attack in the occupied West Bank.
The deaths of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents, Saad and Riham, in the village of Duma contributed to a surge of Israeli-Palestinian...
September 3rd, 20200On August 16, the Israeli navy declared the Gaza sea a closed military zone. A few days later, a group of Gaza fishermen decided to take their chances by fishing within a mere two or three nautical miles off the Gaza shore. No sooner had they cast their nets, Israeli navy bullets began whizzing all around them.
Soon after the...
August 26th, 20200This article is cowritten by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo
The notion that “Canada is better”, especially when compared with U.S. foreign policy, has persisted for many years. Recent events at the United Nations have, however, exposed the true nature of Canada’s global position, particularly in the matter of its blind and...
August 21st, 20200NEW YORK — A new initiative by nine Muslim, Jewish and Arab youths in Brooklyn, New York seeks to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has deeply affected the already vulnerable 70 million forcibly displaced people...
August 21st, 20200MUSCAT - The Sultan of Oman issued 28 new royal decrees this week during a reshuffle of government roles and responsibilities.
Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said has named Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud Al Busaidi as foreign minister to replace foreign affairs chief Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah after 23 years of service.
When you have...
August 15th, 20201On August 4, hours before a massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an ominous warning to Lebanon.
“We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers,” Netanyahu said during an official tour of a military facility in central Israel. “I suggest to all of them, including,...
August 13th, 20200
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a "historic" deal on Thursday that will lead to a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two nations in an agreement that President Trump helped broker.
Under the agreement, Israel has agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to areas of the West...
August 4th, 20200BEIRUT — A huge explosion in Beirut has caused at least 78 deaths and 4,000 injuries. The explosion sent a shockwave across the Lebanese capital, creating massive destruction, shattering windows and collapsing apartment balconies.
Social media became flooded with videos and photos from eyewitnesses on the ground soon after the...
August 3rd, 20200DETROIT — In the congressional race between popular Detroit congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and her Democratic primary opponent, Brenda Jones, powerful interests have backed Jones' campaign, records reveal.
Representing one of these interests is an influx of supporters of Indian nationalist Prime Minister, and friend of President...
July 22nd, 20200For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another prisoner exchange similar to that of...
July 20th, 20200WASHINGTON D.C. — Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden spoke at an online event hosted by Emgage Action, a national organization that promotes Muslim civic engagement, on Monday, where he promised to engage with the concerns of Muslim voters seriously.
"I’ll be a president who seeks out and listens to and incorporates the...
July 19th, 20200While the U.S. administration of President Trump remains adamant in its support for Israel, the traditional Democratic leadership continues to employ underhanded language, the kind of “strategic ambiguity” that offers full support to Israel and nothing but lip service to Palestine and peace.
Trump’s policies on Israel and...
July 17th, 20204ANN ARBOR — A former board member of the Friends of the IDF (FIDF), a group that calls itself the sole representative of the Israel Defense Forces and is its biggest donor in the U.S., has expressed his objection to the candidacy of Ann Arbor City Council candidate Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani.
For decades Savabieasfahani and others...
