Islamic Societies Review WEEKLY

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Media review: The Gaza war creates a new Islamic front and threatens American influence--Foreign Affairs

Saturday, February 10, 2024 No comments

The American magazine Foreign Affairs published a long article dealing with the impact of the Gaza war on the Islamic and Arab worlds, saying that this war created a new Islamic front that may be the greatest challenge facing America.

The article, written by Toby Matthiesen, a senior lecturer in global religious studies at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, explained that the Gaza war is no longer limited to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel.

He pointed out the extension of this war and the participation of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” that includes Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen in it, and it has gone beyond that until it has now become, 4 months after its beginning, a strong unifying force for Sunnis and Shiites and has awakened a comprehensive Islamic front that includes the Sunni Arab masses, who are opposed by a majority. Overwhelming, Arab normalization.

The article added that for the United States and its partners, this development constitutes a strategic challenge that goes far beyond confronting the Iraqi factions and the Houthis with targeted strikes. By bringing together a region long divided, the war in Gaza threatens to further undermine American influence and, in the long term, could make many American military missions untenable.

He said that this new rapprochement also raises major obstacles to any US-led efforts to impose a top-down peace agreement that excludes Palestinian Islamists.

The writer reported that Arab opinion polls and social media show great Arab support for the Hamas movement and its strategy of armed resistance, and a significant decline in support for the United States and the regimes closely associated with it.

The same opinion polls now show, according to the article, that an overwhelming percentage of the population - more than 90% - opposes establishing relations with Israel, adding that the Arab Opinion Index for last January, a survey conducted in Doha that included 16 Arab countries, shows agreement. More than 3 quarters of respondents said their views of the United States had become more negative since the war began.

Matthiesen advised the pro-Western Arab countries to seek to bridge the widening gap between their policies and the sympathy of their citizens, saying that after years of neglect, these masses will urgently press for a just solution to the Palestinian issue, which threatens to spark a new wave of Arab uprisings.

He stressed that it is increasingly clear that it will be impossible for Washington to stop the regional escalation unless it is able to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, end the occupation, and finally establish a viable Palestinian state, adding that in the absence of concrete, credible steps in this direction, the pressure will continue. Popular influence on governments in the region.

Matthiesen concluded his article by emphasizing that without a just and broad solution to the Palestinian issue, the Middle East will never achieve lasting peace or the kind of political and economic cooperation that many have long dreamed of, indicating that the alternative is an endless cycle of violence, the decline of Western influence, and the integration of the region. In a way that is completely different from what the West wants, and even fundamentally hostile to it.

After 127 days of killing in Gaza, US admin officials admit errors: We made mistakes and we do not trust the current Netanyahu government

Saturday, February 10, 2024 No comments

Another example of Western democracies' behavior showing that for them politics trumps human rights, US officials now worried that their next presidential elections could be decided by the administration’s handling of the war on Gaza. Officials are now in damage control mode admitting errors and justifying their actions and inactions. The entire world wanted the war to stop, 80% of nation-states in the world voted to stop the killing, a vote opposed only by the US government and 5%, countries most informed readers will not be able to place them on the map. Even the UK a long time partner of the US could not vote against, so they abstained.

White House officials claim that they now know that this government of Israel cannot be trusted. The problem for the administration is this: the head of this government, Netanyahu, is the longest serving prime minister, and therefore, therefore, his policies and stances have been known for a long time. So, what kind of government is not open for discovery to determine whether it should have the confidence of the US government. The US government must have known for years that this long serving right wing government has no desire for peace. The continuous building of illegal settlements on occupied land in West Bank is the manifestation of their rejection of any just solution.

The New York Times quoted US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer as saying that Washington had made “mistakes in responding to the crisis since last October 7.”

Finer added, “The Biden administration should have quickly condemned Israeli statements that compared the Palestinians to animals.”

The aide offered some of the administration's clearest expressions of remorse for its response to the Gaza war, a sign of growing Democratic pressure on President Biden.

In a closed meeting with Arab American leaders in Michigan this week, one of President Biden's top foreign policy aides acknowledged mistakes in the administration's response to the war in Gaza, saying he had "no confidence" that the Israeli government is willing to accept war in Gaza. Taking “purposeful steps” towards establishing a Palestinian state.

“It did not in any way address the loss of Palestinian life during the course of the first 100 days of the conflict,” Mr. Finer said. “There is no excuse for that. It should not have happened. I believe it will not happen again. But we know that there was a lot of damage done.
“Out of a desire to sort of focus on solving the problem and not engaging in a rhetorical back-and-forth with people who, in many cases, I think we all find somewhat abhorrent, we did not sufficiently indicate that we totally rejected and disagreed with those sorts of sentiments,” Mr. Finer said.
He did not clarify which Israeli officials he was referring to, but in the conflict’s early days, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Some other Israeli officials have also faced criticism for dehumanizing language.

Friday, February 09, 2024

Media review: How to End America’s Hypocrisy on Gaza

Friday, February 09, 2024 No comments

Sarah Yager, director of Human Rights Watch in Washington, described the US handling of the Israeli war on Gaza as “hypocrisy,” and the Biden administration must evaluate Israel’s behavior and hold it accountable for that.

Yager commented in an article published by Foreign Affairsmagazine that the staggering numbers of Palestinian casualties and injuries as a result of the war launched by Israel on Gaza in response to the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7 is impossible to consider without considering whether Israel has violated the law. International humanitarian aid during its war.

She added that a large amount of available information indicates that Israel did in fact do this, as human rights organizations and the media published reports of illegal collective punishment of the Palestinian population, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, air and artillery strikes, and the demolition of buildings that had no targets. A clear military operation, but it resulted in heavy civilian casualties and the destruction of property.

She pointed out that there was enough smoke to suspect a fire, which put American officials in a dilemma, because American law obliges the State Department to ensure that American security aid does not go to security forces that constantly commit gross human rights violations.

Current US policy also requires the department to evaluate whether recipients of US military assistance are “more likely” to use US weapons to violate international law, and prohibit transfers to any country that meets these criteria.

Yager questioned whether the State Department had conducted these assessments yet, despite the fact that its Secretary, Tony Blinken, and Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, repeated on more than one occasion the phrase that the number of civilian casualties was “very high.”

However, despite President Joe Biden's offhanded warning last December about the risk to Israel's reputation by carrying out "indiscriminate bombing," US officials have avoided clearly stating that any specific Israeli actions in Gaza are unacceptable, taking Administration spokesmen walk back Biden's comment.

The director of Human Rights Watch referred to the direct questions directed to White House spokesmen regarding Israel's behavior in Gaza and their twisted responses on more than one occasion.

She commented that these official statements and many others were noticeably absent of any positive declaration that Israel is in fact adhering to international law.

She said if American officials believed that Israel was doing this - or at least taking all possible measures to avoid harming civilians under difficult circumstances - they would say so with passion, but they did not do so even though the Biden administration was not shy about criticizing the behavior of the warring parties in Other conflicts.

The reason is that drawing more attention to what is happening in Gaza could almost certainly force a policy change that Biden does not want to make, could confront his administration with a series of difficult choices that it would rather avoid, and could also further complicate the already complex dynamics of the US-Israel relationship. And it may create political weakness for Biden in the election year.

She added that as long as the administration avoids the reality of Israeli violations in Gaza and selectively applies the rules for military assistance, the moral authority claimed by the United States will diminish more and more, and the Biden administration’s apparent unwillingness to apply the legal aspect to the available information will be exacerbated by its clear failure to adhere to policies that She put it herself as an expression of Biden's supposed commitment to human rights.

Yager believes that the worst consequence of the administration's refusal to comply with the letter and spirit of American law is that Washington may make it possible for massive and perhaps criminal loss of civilian lives in Gaza.

She added that there is another victim of this approach, which is the credibility of the United States, which has been damaged by what can be considered at best inconsistency and at worst hypocrisy.

For example, in 2016, President Barack Obama condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s deprivation of food and water to civilians in Aleppo. It can be said that Israel did the same thing with the civilian population in Gaza for more than 3 months without facing any criticism for this method from the Biden administration. Biden Netanyahu called for opening a corridor to Gaza to deliver more aid, but he did not directly criticize the blockade.

She added that to begin to rein in Israel and stop the bleeding of American credibility, the Biden administration needs to assign its lawyers to evaluate all available information - confidential and non-confidential - regarding the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and determine the time and place of Israeli forces violating the laws of war, and the results should be published and evidence submitted to Congress.

She concluded that the political costs resulting from looking directly at the evidence and correcting the course of American policy as necessary will not be comfortable for the president and lawmakers during the election campaign.

But these costs are less than the cost of US authorities acting as if the extreme suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza does not deserve the same scrutiny as the suffering of civilians in other conflicts, a position that gives an argument to those who claim that when it comes to applying basic American principles and protecting inherent human rights, Washington applies A clearly hypocritical double standard.

Pakistan announces the final results of the elections, and Imran Khan’s party takes the lead

Friday, February 09, 2024 No comments

Despite criminal charges ban of policical participation, Imran Khan still has decisive inluence in Pakistani politics.

Updates: The Pakistani General Election Commission in Islamabad announced the completion of the counting of votes for the general elections, and revealed the victory of 264 candidates out of 266 seats for the Federal Parliament, while the election of one seat was postponed and the result of a winner in another seat was suspended.

The results show that independents won 101 out of 264 seats, most of them supported by the Tehreek-e-Insaf party (which is banned from running in the elections) led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is in prison.

The Muslim League-Nawaz Party (former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif) came in second place, which won 75 seats, becoming the party that won the largest number of seats in Parliament after Imran Khan’s supporters ran as independent candidates.

The People's Party came in third place, winning 54 seats, the United Qaumi Movement won 17 seats, while the rest of the other political forces won 17 seats.

The final results were released more than 60 hours after voting ended on Thursday, a delay that raised questions about the electoral process.

Previous reporting on this stroy:

Geo News reported on Friday (Feb. 9) that independent candidates supported by former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan won 21 seats out of a total of 50 for which the counting of votes in the national elections has been completed so far. Any political party needs 133 seats in Parliament to ensure a simple majority.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which Khan leads, was banned from running in the elections as a party, but the informal poll, the results of which were broadcast on local television channels, showed that independent candidates, including dozens of those chosen by his party, are leading in most electoral districts, whether in the federal parliamentary elections or the regional parliamentary elections. .

Eleven hours after the polls closed, the Electoral Commission did not publish any results, attributing this delay to “internet problems.”

It was expected that the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz Sharif's wing would win the largest number of seats in the elections that took place on Thursday, as analysts confirm that the 74-year-old former prime minister concluded an unannounced agreement with the army to return to the premiership.

But local television channels said that the Muslim League's performance in the elections was bad, and that Sharif himself was lagging behind his competitor in the electoral district in which he ran.

Yesterday, Thursday, the 2024 general elections process began in Pakistan, amid fears against the backdrop of the deteriorating security situation in the country, especially in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces in western Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

The midnight statement of the Saudi Foreign Ministry regarding normalization: What prompted it?

Wednesday, February 07, 2024 No comments

The abstract of this developing story is this: The Saudi rulers are no longer benefiting from the diplomacy of ambiguity in relations to normalization with Israel. So they took a decisive step at the heels of the fifth visit by the US top diplomat to state in clear and unambiguous terms that Saudi Arabia will not take any steps towards normalization until concrete steps are taken to stop the war in Gaza and establish and recognize an independent Palestinian state over the 1967 borders. Some context, including reactions by media outlets and political entities will provide more clarity.

“Negotiations aimed at normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel continue to advance.” A phrase that the United States and “Israel” have continued to promote continuously, in various forms, and at an intense pace, specifically after October 7, 2023. But what the Saudi statement stated regarding the relationship with “Israel” and the conditions set by Riyadh debunks the falsehood of the Israeli and American narrative in this context, and brings Riyadh into the equation of cards that pressure the occupation to force it to stop its aggression against Gaza. What are the implications of the statement?

The statement issued by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, today, Wednesday, which stressed the Saudi insistence on the necessity of establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with “East Jerusalem” as its capital, stopping the aggression against Gaza, and complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the Israeli occupation, came. As a response to the American leaks, which claimed that Saudi Arabia was ready to accept a political commitment from “Israel” to establish a Palestinian state, in order to conclude a defense agreement with Washington, before the American presidential elections, and here the talk is about a “political commitment” and not practical steps.

In this context, the American newspaper "Washington Post" reported that the United States informed "Israel" that the Saudi normalization agreement should begin within the next two months.

According to the newspaper, this is partly because Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is demanding, as part of the normalization package, a treaty that provides NATO-like guarantees for Saudi security.

Given that it is an election year in the United States, according to the newspaper, such a deal would likely receive Senate approval by June, “and if it is later than that, it will be buried under campaign politics.”

However, all of these accounts contradict the official Saudi position, which was issued just one day after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh.

The Saudi newspaper “Okaz” said that the Kingdom’s statement, including its clear positions regarding normalization with “Israel,” comes to “refute all the allegations made by Washington and Tel Aviv to serve their interests.”

According to the Saudi newspaper, the American-Israeli leaks, which attempt to mislead public opinion that the Kingdom is open to the idea of establishing a normal relationship with “Israel” in light of its continued aggression against the Gaza Strip, aim to influence the Saudi effort aimed at achieving an immediate ceasefire.

The newspaper added, "The Kingdom's statement blocked the way for any bidding regarding the Kingdom's firm and historical position towards the issue of Palestine and its permanent support for the rights of the Palestinian people, strengthening their steadfastness, and providing them with a decent life."

The Saudi position expressed in the Foreign Ministry’s statement regarding the necessity of resolving the Palestinian issue first and foremost and establishing their independent state is, according to the Saudi newspaper, “a historical position par excellence.”

Two weeks ago, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Rima bint Bandar Al Saud, confirmed that her country is unable to continue discussions regarding the normalization agreement with the Israeli occupation entity before the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Noting here that the idea of “normalization” is widely and popularly rejected in Saudi Arabia, as expressed in the latest opinion polls, which were conducted by the Washington Institute in December 2023.

The poll results show that (96%) agree with the proposal that “the Arab countries must immediately cut off all diplomatic, political, economic and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza.”

The results of the survey also showed that the popularity of the Hamas movement has increased significantly among Saudis, as there was a thirty-point shift in positive attitudes towards the movement, from only 10% in August 2023 to 40% in December 2023.

The opinion poll indicated that (91%) of Saudis agree with the statement that “despite the destruction and loss of life, this war in Gaza is a victory for the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.”

The first reaction to the Saudi Foreign Ministry's statement came in the Israeli newspaper "Jerusalem Post", where it considered that the United States had hoped that "Israel's" willingness to engage in a "peace" process towards a two-state solution would be sufficient to allow the issue to move forward, but, within hours Saudi Arabia made clear that this was not the case, issuing a sharp statement in the middle of the night.

The newspaper saw that Saudi Arabia linked the normalization process to the war on Gaza, and said that to achieve the normalization agreement, “the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip must stop and all Israeli occupation forces must withdraw from the Gaza Strip.”

The newspaper commented by saying, "Israel's willingness to make peace is not enough for the Saudis."

Commenting on the statement, Israeli commentators were quick to consider it “an expression of Saudi anger at the statements of US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who touched on the normalization talks that preceded the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation - October 7 during a press conference earlier this week, and pointed out that These discussions are continuing, and his country has received positive reactions from both parties (Saudi Arabia and Israel), within what he described as a separate track and not specifically related to trying to reach a truce in Gaza.

This comes after what Reuters reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia would be ready to accept a political commitment from Israel to establish a Palestinian state in order to conclude a defense agreement with Washington before the US presidential elections.

According to Reuters, in order to create room for maneuver in the talks on recognizing “Israel” and putting the American agreement back on track, Saudi officials told their American counterparts that Riyadh would not insist that “Israel” take concrete steps to create a Palestinian state, and that it would “accept, in lieu of This includes a political commitment to establishing a Palestinian state within the two-state solution policy.”

Also, one regional source told Reuters that Saudi officials secretly urged Washington to pressure Israel to end the Gaza war and commit to a “political horizon” for a Palestinian state, saying that Riyadh would then normalize relations and help finance the reconstruction of Gaza.

Earlier, the American newspaper "Washington Post" reported that the United States informed "Israel" that the Saudi normalization agreement should begin within the next two months.

Given that it is an election year in the United States, according to the newspaper, such a deal would likely receive Senate approval by June, “and if it is delayed, it will be buried under campaign politics.”

Two days ago, Saudi Arabia resumed talks with the United States regarding establishing closer “defense relations” after stopping them following the events of October 7, 2023, according to what the American “Bloomberg” agency reported, citing sources.

It is noteworthy that the administration of US President Joe Biden is pressuring Saudi Arabia to conclude a normalization deal. In return, the Saudi Crown Prince sets conditions for its completion, including “obtaining security guarantees from Washington and helping to develop a civilian nuclear program.”

Monday, February 05, 2024

Media review: CNN faces pressure from its employees because of its bias towards Israel

Monday, February 05, 2024 No comments

The Guardian newspaper said that the American CNN network is facing violent reactions from its employees over editorial policies that they say adopt the Israeli narrative, while censoring the viewpoints of Palestinians in the network’s coverage of the war on Gaza.

Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the United States and abroad say the broadcast was skewed by administration rules and a topic approval process that resulted in very partial coverage of the October 7 attack and the Israeli war in Gaza.

“Most of the news since the war began, no matter how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel,” a CNN employee said, adding that CNN’s coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza amounts to journalistic malpractice.

According to accounts from six network employees in multiple newsrooms, and more than a dozen internal memos and emails obtained by The Guardian, daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of direction from CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, which sets strict guidelines on coverage.

They include severe restrictions on quoting the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and conveying Palestinian views, while Israeli government statements are taken at face value. In addition, every war story or news item coming from the Jerusalem office must be deleted.

The American network's journalists say that the tone of the coverage was set by its new editor-in-chief and CEO, Mark Thompson, as some employees are concerned about Thompson's willingness to tolerate external attempts to influence coverage, as Thompson previously served as director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and was accused of caving in to government pressure. In a number of positions, including calling for the dismissal of one of the network’s most prominent correspondents in Jerusalem in 2005.

In early November, David Lindsay, the network's director of news standards and practices, issued a directive banning the publication of most Hamas statements, describing them as "inflammatory speech and propaganda."

CNN sources admitted that no interviews had been conducted with Hamas and its leaders since the October 7 attack. CNN correspondent Sarah Synder faced criticism for repeating the alleged Israeli story that Hamas beheaded 40 children at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. The correspondent later apologized for the story.

One of the network's journalists told the Guardian that there are selected individuals who edit all reports with an institutional pro-Israel bias, and often use language and phrases to absolve the Israeli army of responsibility for its crimes in Gaza, and downplay the number of Palestinian deaths and Israeli attacks.

While other employees said that some journalists with experience covering war and news in the region are avoiding assignments related to Israel, as they believe that they will not be free to tell the whole story.

One employee said there is a lot of internal conflict and opposition within the network, and some employees are looking to leave.

Sunday, February 04, 2024

Biden denounces anti-Arab rhetoric after an article described Dearborn as “the jihad capital of America”

Sunday, February 04, 2024 No comments

US President Joe Biden on Sunday denounced anti-Arab rhetoric following an opinion article published by the Wall Street Journal that pointed the finger at the city of Dearborn, Michigan, and described its mayor as “fanatic” and “anti-Islam.”

The newspaper published the article on Friday entitled “Welcome to Dearborn, the jihad capital of America.”

The city's mayor and human rights advocates at the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee denounced this article as anti-Arab and racist because it suggests that city residents, including religious and political leaders, support the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and extremism.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud described the Wall Street Journal article, written by Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, as “reckless, fanatical, and anti-Islam.”

“New procedures will be effective immediately,” the mayor said. “Dearborn Police will intensify their presence in all places of worship and major infrastructure sites.” “This is a direct result of an inflammatory opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that has led to an alarming increase in bigoted and anti-Islamic rhetoric on social media targeting the city of Dearborn.”

Biden, without mentioning the newspaper or the author of the article by name, said on the X platform that it is wrong to blame “a group of individuals based on the words of a very few of them.”

He added, "This is exactly what can lead to Islamophobia and Arab hatred. This should not happen to the residents of Dearborn or any (other) American city."

Dearborn is one of the American cities in which a majority of people of Arab origin live, as census figures show that about 54 percent of its population are Arab Americans.

The Islamic Center of America, Dearborn.

Media review: Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times: What can we tell the children of Gaza?

Sunday, February 04, 2024 No comments

Nicholas Kristof, in his column in the New York Times, started by the story of a 10-year-old girl in Gaza. Her father was an X-ray technician. She was smart and spoke English well. She was accepted into an international exchange program, and had to travel to Japan to meet... A bright future awaits her, but now she lies in a hospital bed with a severe wound to her thigh and part of her femur bone missing as a result of a bomb explosion.

Dr. Samer Al-Attar, the orthopedic surgeon who cared for the girl and told me about it, says Nicholas Kristof, says the girl needs to have her hip amputated to save her life, and her father is struggling to come to terms with how his life and the life of his daughter have collapsed.

Nicholas Kristof mentions that he covered many bloody wars, and wrote scathingly about how governments in Russia, Sudan, and Syria recklessly bombed civilians, but this time the matter is different, because “my government stands by what President Joe Biden referred to as indiscriminate bombing, and because I am this... "This time, I'm helping pay for the bombs as a taxpayer."

While the writer understands Israel's reaction, the military response is not just one of two options without a third. Israel chose to respond with bombs weighing about two thousand pounds, destroying entire neighborhoods, and allowing a small amount of aid to enter the region, which is now teetering on the brink of famine. The result is This does not appear to be a war against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), but rather against the entire population of Gaza.

Nicholas Kristof wondered how Americans, with their conflicting views due to the war, could confront their friends from Gaza, pointing out that they might remain silent, or look away, instead of entering into a bitter and polarizing debate that might cost friendships, but “indifference is the most insidious danger.” Not at all,” says writer Elie Wiesel, who also said that “human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”

The writer warned that the suffering of children - and half of Gaza's population is children - "should raise our particular concern," noting that estimates by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) indicate that there are at least 17,000 children in Gaza who are unaccompanied or separated from their families. In the midst of the chaos of war and displacement.

Some will blame all of this on Hamas, but - for Nicholas Kristof - this seems to be an evasion of moral responsibility, because Israel and America have the ability to act, and “the atrocities suffered by Israeli civilians” do not justify leveling Palestinian neighborhoods to the ground.

The writer wondered how Biden criticizes Russia for bombing civilians and undermining the rules-based international order, while he himself supplies Israel with bombs that wipe out neighborhoods in Gaza, and how he gives diplomatic cover to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when the residents of Gaza are facing famine, especially since he suspended funding for His country to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA), which is responsible for providing assistance to them.

The writer concluded that decisions related to waging war are painful, because innocent civilians always suffer, stressing that a smart 10-year-old girl in Gaza is as valuable as the life of any American or Israeli child, “and therefore we Americans must bear responsibility.” “We are complicit in its tragedy and the tragedy of Gaza as a whole.

To date, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that 27,365 people were killed, more than 70% are children and women; 66,630 Palestinians were injured, since October 7.

The ministry added that the occupation army committed 14 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, claiming 127 deaths and 178 injuries, during the past 24 hours.

A number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, while the occupation army prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them..

Saturday, February 03, 2024

As a global superpower, US foreign policy can sink presidential elections, Should Biden worry given his stance on Gaza war?

Saturday, February 03, 2024 No comments

A 1-2% segment of the population might be insignificant in national elections. In the US however, there is no national elections even for the president. A candidate must win elections in each state, and each state they would win will provide the candidate with electors needed to secure a win which is 270.

This structure gives power to the so-called battleground states more than it give power to most populous states that tend to be reliably for one party or another. For these reasons, the presence of Muslim and Arab Americans in the swing state of Michigan is bringing attention to community there ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. This article sheds some light on the attention given to the Muslim and Arab communities and their allies.

Read the article...

Friday, February 02, 2024

A First: More than 800 Officials from ally nations across the Atlantic have united to publicly criticize their governments over the war on Gaza

Friday, February 02, 2024 No comments

More than 800 officials in the US, the UK and the EU released a public letter of dissent against their governments’ support of Israel in its war in Gaza, The New York Times reported on Friday.

According to current and former officials spearheading or supporting the initiative, the letter marks the first time that officials from ally nations across the Atlantic have united to publicly criticize their governments over the war.

The officials argue that they are speaking up because they, as civil servants, consider that it is their duty to help improve policy and to work in their nations’ interests, and that they are speaking up because they believe their governments need to change direction on the war.

“Our governments’ current policies weaken their moral standing and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice and human rights globally,” The New York Times quoted the letter as saying.

There is a “plausible risk” that their governments’ policies are contributing to “grave violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it added.

According to the newspaper, the document protected the identities of signers as they fear reprisal, said one organizer, an official who has worked in the State Department for more than 20 years.

But about 800 current officials have given approval to the letter as it has quietly circulated among employees at the national level in multiple countries, the official was quoted as saying.

The effort reveals the extent to which pro-Israel policies among American, British and European leaders have stirred dissent among civil servants, including many who engage in foreign policies of their governments.

Noting that some 80 of the signers are from American agencies, with the biggest group being from the State Department, one organizer said the governing authority most represented among the signers is the collective EU institutions, followed by the Netherlands and the US.