Middle East

By Melanie Nakashian | (Waging Nonviolence) | – – Among the hundreds of Palestinian villages that were evacuated between 1947 and 1951, there is one whose descendants are actually getting close to fulfilling their right of return. In an unprecedented case, the demolished Christian village of Iqrit should soon be connected to Israel’s electricity grid. […]

Iran

Iran Moves To Silence criticism of Nuclear Deal by Hard Line Media

contributors

By Golnaz Esfandiari | ( RFE/RL) | – – Iran’s state media watchdog has suspended a hard-line publication and warned two other like-minded outlets for criticizing the nuclear deal reached last month between Iran and major world powers. The government’s Press Supervisory Board suspended the weekly 9 Dey, which is run by lawmaker Hamid Rasaei, […]

Environment

Why Israelis have cut down 800,000 Palestinian Olive Trees

contributors

Text by Elle Kurancid, photos by Bryony Dunne | (Jadaliyya) | – – Olive tree felling is a longtime strategy of Israel’s occupation regime in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since 1967, an estimated 800,000 Palestinian olive trees have been destroyed by Israeli authorities and settlers. In February 2015, Irish-born filmmaker and photographer Bryony […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Russia Condemns US Mission Creep, New Bombing Plans for Syria

contributors

Russia Today | (Video Report) | – – Editorial note: Russia Today is an organ of the Russian government, so this report is not independent, critical analysis. On the other hand, Russia is a player in Syria and what it thinks is important, and US media tend not to report outside-the-Beltway points of view. Just […]

Israel

Pic of the Day: Palestinians shield Israeli policewoman from stone-throwers

contributors

Striking photo of Palestinians shielding Israeli policewoman from stones thrown by settlers. https://t.co/gburzyw8jP pic.twitter.com/8N6hDqgaFl — Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) August 2, 2015 N.B. A reader wrote in to say that they were protecting her from Palestinian stone-throwers, not settlers.

Apartheid

Rebuilding destroyed Palestinian homes: Resistance one house at a time

contributors

By: Anna Kokko | (Ma’an News Agency) | – – ANATA (Ma’an) — In the northeastern corner of the Palestinian village of Anata, between the separation wall and Israel’s illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev, a crowd of about a hundred people has gathered for a celebration. On a small stage, a group of twenty foreign […]

Israel

Grandson of Meir Kahane arrested for burning baby; part of extremist network

contributors

By Celine Hagbard | (IMEMC News ) As Israeli investigators release their findings that a right-wing Jewish terrorist network is gaining power throughout Israel and illegal West Bank settlements, an arrest has been made in the arson attack Thursday night that burned a baby to death and severely wounded his mother, father and 4-year old […]

Counter-Terrorism

Turkey’s AKP strikes back: the Politics of attacking both KurdS & ISIL

contributors

By Tristan Dunning – (The Conversation) – – Tristan Dunning, The University of Queensland Stemming from a presumed Islamic State (IS) suicide bombing killing 32 leftist Kurdish university students in Suruc and the killing of several Turkish policeman claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkey has begun bombarding both IS forces in Syria and […]

Iraq

It’s Dictatorship & Sectarianism, Stupid! – Rethinking the war on Daesh/ ISIL

contributors

By: Ramzy Baroud – (Ma’an News Agency) – – As much of the Middle East sinks deeper into division between competing political camps, the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (‘IS’) continues its unhindered march towards a twisted version of a Muslim caliphate. Many thousands have lost their lives, some in the most torturous ways, so that ‘IS’ […]