The self-assigned capital of Daesh, Raqqa, is being pounded from the air, forcing fighters to send their families across the border to Mosul for safety. For the West, the Paris attacks have been a game changer. Continue reading
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fancies himself a tough guy. He was proud to announce that he was the one who ordered the shooting down of a Russian jet that, by his own account, entered his country’s airspace for 17 seconds. He says the pilot was given ten warnings before his plane was brought down, but neglected to explain how those long garbled warnings were squeezed into such a short space of time. Continue reading
The iconic Champs Elysees is beautifully lit up for the coming holidays. The city resonates with impromptu renditions of “La Marseillaise” and the slogan “Go out to the Bistrot!” Continue reading
A terrible tragedy happened. Our hearts are with the victims’ families. Never mind the so-called terrorist chatter, as yet no one knows for sure what caused Metrojet Flight 9268 to crash in the Sinai desert but, because of Britain’s haste to reach conclusions even before the results of the investigation are known, the world has been indoctrinated with possibilities, probabilities and unproven theories. Continue reading
Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t help feeling that when a country’s future is being discussed those directly impacted should have a place at the table, nay at the head of the table. Instead, this ancient Arab heartland is being treated like a plaything by foreign powers. Continue reading
He’s larger than life and the very antithesis of America’s current strategy-challenged Ditherer-in-Chief. On the plus side, he’s wealthy enough not to jump into lobbyists’ pockets. He insists he always gets what he wants and what he wants is to make America great again, which translates in the minds of his nationalistic base as projecting US power around the world. Been there, done that and as Dr Phil might say, ‘How did that work for you?’ Continue reading
Enough engaging in one-upmanship! There is a lot more at stake than which bullyboy on the block has the biggest fist. Syrians are dying and fleeing; their babies are drowning or suffering from hypothermia on freezing, wet European roads. Their needs should take priority over all else. Continue reading
US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is one tough cookie. I watched every second of her testimony before a grueling eleven-hour-long Congressional hearing on Benghazi in awe of her composure and self-control. Towards the end, she wilted slightly and briefly snapped against one of her Republican ‘interrogators’—but who wouldn’t in the kind of hot seat she had to endure. Continue reading
If Benjamin Netanyahu imagines his new security measures will turn disaffected Palestine youth into docile sheep forever penned in, he is mistaken. If anything, they are likely to strengthen the resolve of students to resist Israeli occupation and oppression. Continue reading
Palestine youth have had enough. Throughout their entire lives they’ve known only humiliation, oppression and deprivation. They’ve been let down by their political leaders, resistance organisations and the international community. And now that they’ve been stripped of all hope, students as young as 13 are violently lashing out because they see violence—which to date has robbed the lives of over 40 Palestinians and seven Israelis over the past two weeks—as the only option left to them. Continue reading
Once again, the US military has shown that it considers the lives of non-Americans cheap. Its vicious attack on a clinic in the Afghan town of Kunduz run by Doctors without Borders is just the tip of the iceberg. The difference is that America’s impunity from being held to account for its crimes is being challenged. Continue reading
Let’s not fool ourselves, Washington’s relationships and actions are primarily based on US interests; interests which coincide with its allies in some instances but not on others. Continue reading
Old paradigms for peace have failed and as the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas indicated before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, to fulfil “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” are now virtually defunct. It takes two hands to clap and, unfortunately, Israel has wielded its mighty hand to slap down an occupied people, strangling their dignity and their hopes. Continue reading
Jeremy Corbyn, the darling of the British left, a self-ascribed dyed-in-the-wool socialist and former chair of the Stop the War Coalition recently elected to lead the Labor Party, must have believed he was destined to be a backbencher for all time. And, in truth, the sudden rise of this rebellious activist turned politician has caught the party elites on the hop especially as the odds against him were 100-1 when he initially threw his cap in the ring. Continue reading
Out of the mouth of babes comes truth. American Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is no babe but his knowledge of the Middle East borders on juvenile. He doesn’t know the difference between the Kurds and Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Al Quds force, for instance. But there’s one thing he does knows for sure. There will be no American boots on the ground to tackle Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Syria on his watch—a vote-getting stance when Americans have little appetite to get seriously embroiled in yet another war in the Middle East. Continue reading
The Middle East is torn by conflicts and terrorism. Essential food aid has been summarily cut to Syrian refugees subsisting in camps on Jordan’s soil, leaving families to starve because the UN refugee agency has run out of money. Continue reading
Moscow, suspected of stepping up its military involvement in the Syrian conflict, is coming under fire from the White House. While it’s known that Russia wants its ally the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to endure and has been supplying the Syrian Army with weapons as well as military advisers, reports suggest that Russian infantry forces are now operating within the country. Continue reading
I have been overwhelmed with admiration for the Syrians with a single-minded goal to get to welcoming northern European countries. Mothers, fathers, children and young men fleeing regime bombs and terrorists, thought their worries were over when they arrived on the shores of Greece. Little did they know they were just beginning! Continue reading
After all they have suffered in their war-torn country and during their dangerous trek across countries, their euphoria at arriving in Budapest, where they had train tickets to Austria and Germany, soon turned into anger. Continue reading
A photograph of an anguished ‘migrant’ holding fast to his frightened children underscores the suffering of those who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean more than words ever can. The majority of those heading for the shores of Greece and Italy are wrongly being labeled migrants when they are, in fact, refugees. Most are Syrians and Afghans fleeing violence-stricken zones. Continue reading
Libya is embroiled in bloodshed and chaos, terrorized and plundered by Daesh and feuding armed militias. Toothless rival governments—one operating out of Tripoli dominated by the Libyan Dawn, the other out of Tobruk, supported by the forces of Gen. Khalifa Haftar—render the country virtually leaderless. Continue reading
You might not know it if you follow the English-language Western media, but Egyptians are experiencing a new positive mood, no thanks to its enemies’ unrelenting scathing propaganda. Where there were once cities blighted by violence, looming bankruptcy, daily electricity cuts and shortages of petrol as well as cooking gas, today there is hope. As one of my friends on social media wrote, you have to live here to feel it. Continue reading
I’m forced to reach the conclusion that certain sectors of the English-language Western media would come up with negative comments about Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, even if he singlehandedly constructed a replica of the Giza Pyramids, block by block, on the moon. By contrast, the French, Italian and Spanish papers overall ran congratulatory headlines. Continue reading
Seared photographs of angelic 18-month-old Ali Saad, burned alive by Jewish radicals, have touched a nerve within Israel just as a photograph of a young Vietnamese girl, fleeing in agony from the effects of napalm, altered America’s perceptions of the Vietnamese war. Continue reading
You can’t blame the Jewish colonists on the West Bank from believing they can get away with murder. For one thing, they are a privileged class with superior lifestyles subsidised by the state. For another, the ultra-religious are taught to dehumanise their Palestinian neighbours; they think of the rightful owners of the land as little more than inconvenient squatters on the territory the colonists refer to collectively as Judea and Samaria. Whereas they get to live in elevated modern houses surrounded by landscaped lawns and fountains, which are guarded 24/7 at great cost to Israeli taxpayers, Palestinians below struggle to get building licences to renew theirs and suffer from frequent water shortages preventing them from watering their orchards and crops. Continue reading
Amid a volcano of opposition, a framework agreement was signed in Lausanne by P5+1 countries and Iran that will limit Tehran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, while keeping its infrastructure intact, the final pact slated to be signed at the end of June. Iranians may be setting-off celebratory fireworks, but others around the region view this new US-Iranian accord with trepidation. Continue reading
Obama is looking unusually smug; a mainstay of his foreign policy looks like it’s in the bag. John Kerry, whose done the hard work, is all smiles. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Tehran; his charismatic boss, President Hassan Rouhani wallows in unprecedented public approval, even though if all goes to plan, Iran’s nuclear programme will become the most intrusively monitored on the planet. Continue reading
Arab League summits used to be dismissed as little more than talking shops, mere forums for Arab leaders to stay in touch. Final communiqués were usually devoid of actionable steps to resolve issues. However, those criticisms are old news as the mood and outcome of the 26th summit held in Sharm El-Sheikh strongly indicates. Continue reading
Such sheer desperation! They talk about dictators hanging on to their seats for dear life, but Benjamin Netanyahu takes the biscuit. He couldn’t bear the thought of his power dissipating so at the nth-minute he resorted to poking President Obama in the eye by announcing R.I.P. to a Palestinian state and pledging to expand Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. In other words, all these years taken up with negotiating peace were an utter waste of time, bringing nothing but false hope. He’s a conman. Continue reading
The polls in the run-up to Israel’s recent elections got it dramatically wrong, as did every exit poll that placed Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party neck-and-neck with the left-leaning Zionist Union headed by Isaac Herzog. In the event, much to everyone’s surprise—not least that of Herzog who only discovered his fate when he was woken up in the early morning—Likud was ahead by six seats. Such a great disparity between polling results and the outcome that thrust Netanyahu into a fourth prime ministerial term seems to indicate that whereas a majority of Israelis genuinely seek change, their fears and insecurities inevitably win the day. Continue reading
Western intervention, whether military, diplomatic or economic, in the affairs of other countries under various pretexts, including assisting citizens attain freedom and democracy, has produced bloodshed, chaos and burgeoning terrorism. Continue reading
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More depraved than deprived
Posted on December 10, 2015 by Linda S. Heard
The idea that individuals from poor backgrounds marginalized by society and starved of opportunity are the ones dashing off to Daesh just doesn’t stack up. There are millions all over the world living on less than $2 a day, millions more who get their daily bread from scavenging in garbage dumps or spending 12-hours-a-day in the fields for little more than the price of a meal. Their fantasies don’t include chopping off heads or burning people alive; they dream of sending their children to school. Continue reading →