The Egyptian government is quite busy these days dealing with continued unrest, instability, and economic woes. Yet it has somehow found both the will and the resources to flood some of the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime attempted on a few occasions to destroy the tunnels, but this policy […]
NGO Human Rights Watch is saying that fighting on both sides of the November 2012 Gaza-Israel conflict violated the laws of war. In two different reports with data and information collected post-fighting, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says that militants in Gaza targeted civilian, non-enemy combatants. They also say that Israel made unlawful attacks on Palestinian […]
With the uneasy ceasefire in Gaza holding (for now), there is opportunity to reflect on the controversial and closely scrutinized Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) social media campaign which accompanied Operation Pillar of Defense. The IDF has used Twitter prolifically in the days since November 14th, when an Israeli airstrike killed senior Hamas military wing commander […]
I have been off the blogosphere this month because of foreign travel and poor internet connectivity. Ironically, two of the countries I visited were Egypt and Israel. The current crisis broke out a couple of days after I returned home. As I write this blog a ceasefire announced last week by Egyptian Foreign Minister […]
Operation Pillar of Defense appears to be over, thanks to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. There have been flareups in the few days since the ceasefire was agreed upon, but for now it seems to be holding. There were significantly less Israeli and Palestinian casualties from this conflict then there were in the last full […]
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest opinion piece by Ayesha Vahidy. Ms. Vahidy is currently working towards her Masters degree in International development at the University of British Columbia in Canada. She holds a BA in Political Science from York University in Toronto, Ontario. Ms. Vahidy works as a consultant in diversity at public […]
Currently an attempt to maintain a cease-fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is taking shape, with conditions based on the halt of rocket fire and artillery from both sides. An obvious conclusion to create a cease-fire is to stop shooting, but the roots of a cease-fire comes from a balance of diplomacy and the […]
Israel’s attack on Hamas in the Gaza Strip has not elicited a strong response from the Arab world. It is as if the Arab Spring has not yet brought an intense focus on one of the core issues of Arab politics, as many assumed it would. While Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi and his Tunisian […]
In May 2010, Israel raided a flotilla of aid ships determined to breach the maritime blockade of Gaza which activists claim violates international law by imposing collective punishment on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Nine activists were killed in the raid, which created a major international incident for Israel and Turkey, where the […]
JERUSALEM—Dozens of international journalists and media workers being held in an Israeli jail were expected to be released by Wednesday evening, local time. Thirty-eight of them were from Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Pakistan, and the U.K. The other 38 were Turkish. Some were identified by the companies they work for and others by their professional associations […]
A year after the Gaza War, the debate rages on about the conduct of forces on both sides during the three-week conflict. By now, major human rights organizations both in Israel and abroad have had their say in what crimes may have been committed during the war, and the UN released the results of their […]
The debate over Israeli and Palestinian conduct during the 2008-2009 Gaza War continues, this time with the release of the UN Human Rights Council report on the issue. Commonly referred to as the Goldstone Report after the head of the special commission, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the 575 page report found that both sides […]