Middle East

By Saed Bannoura | (IMEMC News) | – – In yet another decision that violates International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Higher Construction and Planning Committee of the Israeli ‘Civil Administration Office’ has approved a construction plan to ‘legalize’ two colonial outposts in Ramallah, in addition to building 2200 more units. Israeli settlement […]

Featured

What Obama should tell Netanyahu this Week (But won’t)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Far right Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is arriving in Washington, D.C., Monday, and will apparently ask the US to almost double its $3 bn. a year in aid to $5 bn. Netanyahu has been a constant thorn in the US side and has done absolutely […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel Requesting Over $5 Billion in US Military Aid

contributors

By IMEMC News | – – The Israeli government has made an initial request for its annual U.S. defense package to increase by as much as $5 billion when its current aid package, worth an average $3 billion a year, expires in 2017, U.S. congressional sources said, this last Wednesday. PNN reports that, according to […]

Iraq

How can Iraqi PM al-Abadi defeat ISIL if his own Party has Turned on Him?

contributors

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Nobody in Iraqi politics appears to like Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi much anymore. Some dislike him for his proposed reforms, others for not reforming enough. It’s a no-win scenario. How long can he last? PM Haider al-Abadi: The senior politician may have run out of friends […]

Israel/ Palestine

In Palestine’s Hebron district Israeli Occupation troops impose ‘draconian’ measures

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – HEBRON (Ma’an) — As Hebron remains at the center of violence in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli rights group B’Tselem on Friday condemned Israeli actions there as “immoral” and “awful.” At least 22 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Hebron district since the beginning of last […]

Israel/ Palestine

Obama gives up on Israeli-Palestinian peace during his Administration

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — United States president Barack Obama concluded that a peace treaty or direct talks between Israel and Palestinian leadership would not be carried out in his time left in office, a White House spokesperson said Thursday. With thanks to FreeOnlinePhotoEditor Israeli media reported that Obama’s senior adviser […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Russian Branch of Syria’s al-Qaeda appeals for Funding from Russian Muslims

contributors

By Joanna Paraszczuk | ( RFE/RL “Do you think you’re safe from the fires of hell? Give yourself a chance — help mujahedin on the path of God!” Thus reads a new fund-raising advertisement published on the VKontakte social network this week by the Russian-speaking battalion of Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. “Do you […]

Bush

Bush Sr. Blames Neocons for Ruining W.’s Presidency: Is he Warning Jeb?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In interviews given for a new biography, George H. W. Bush, 91 lets loose against Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, whom he clearly blames for many of the failures of the presidency his son, George W. Bush. But if you attend carefully to what he said, […]

Iraq War

Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the wider fallout from the Iraq invasion

contributors

By David Morrison | (OpenDemocracy) | – – Tony Blair was warned by his intelligence chiefs that invading Iraq would increase the terror threat facing Britain. If MPs had known this, would they have voted for war? Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller was the director general of MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence agency, from October 2002 until […]