By Frud Bezhan | (RFE/RL) | — Iran is well-known for its stinging anti-Israeli rhetoric and refusal to recognize what it calls the “Zionist regime.” So, it might have come as a surprise when officials in Tehran unveiled a monument honoring Iranian-Jewish soldiers who died in action during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Iranian […]
Palestinians Under Threat In Jerusalem
AJ+ | — “With tensions rising in Jerusalem, hate crimes against Palestinians have increased in recent months. Mohammed lost his cousin to one such incident a while ago, and now he is one of the newest victims. Like others, he fears for his life. This is the story of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and […]
“Palestinian State Essential to a Democratic Israel” – Frmr Israeli President Shimon Peres
TeleSur | — “In France, former Israeli President Shimon Peres said that a Palestinian State is necessary in order to have a democratic Jewish state. This statement came the same day that the United States and Israel dismissed the Palestine peace plan that was submitted by Jordan to the UN. teleSUR TeleSur English: “Peres: Palestinian […]
Israeli Squatter Fires on Palestinian Demonstrators near Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Dozens of Palestinians on Friday held a march against the Israeli occupation and settlement policies in the West Bank in the village of al-Masara near Bethlehem. Organizers from the local Popular Committees Against the Wall and Settlements said that during the rally a Jewish settler opened fire on the marchers, but no […]
Daesh/ ISIL close to Taking al-Anbar Province as Tribal Levies lack Ammunition, Funding, Unity
By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | — Last week, fighters from tribes in Anbar were forced to give up their hold on the town of Wafaa to extremists from the Islamic State because they ran out of ammunition. And they ran out because apparently the Iraqi government won’t supply them. The steady defeat […]
Roots of Militancy among some Muslim Youth: What can be Done?
By Mustafa Gurbuz Gruesome ISIS beheadings, the Sydney siege, and now Taliban’s slaughter of children in Pakistan have haunted the media, along with the Senate’s report on CIA’s use of torture against suspected terrorists. The true nature of the radicalization problem, once again, is mostly obscured by petty domestic politics. The militant Islamism rests on […]
The Yezidi Minority, Daesh/ISIL, and Iraq’s Human Rights Catastrophe
by Patrick Ball Patrick Ball with Yezidi boys at an informal camp in Sharya, Iraq. Farhad (not his real name) got the call from ISIS on his personal cell phone just after lunch: we have your sister, and we will give her back if you pay us $6000, plus $1500 for the driver. Carrying little […]
The Israeli Hospital Admitting Syrian Fighters: The War Next Door
Vice News | — “In August, al Nusra Front jihadists took control of Syria’s side of the border crossing with Israel and kidnapped over 40 United Nations peacekeepers — who have since been released. But al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-affiliate, isn’t Israel’s only threat from Syria. President Bashar al-Assad’s military, in a possible effort […]
Torture, Assassination and the Other Shoe: The Coming Great Senate Drone Report of 2019
By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | — It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily redacted report on the secret CIA drone wars and other American air campaigns in the 18-year-long […]