In the light of the present security crisis in Israel, where Israel just agreed to a cease-fire after facing a barrage of almost 500 rockets and mortars being fired into the southern part of the country, a group of Indians decided to demonstrate in support of Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism. “Today’s demonstration in New […]
According to research conducted by the Center for Near East Policy Research, Palestinian youngsters currently attending Hamas summer camps are learning methods of attacking and killing Jews. This is a blatant violation of children’s rights. Palestinian children living in Gaza should be given the opportunity to reach their full educational potential. According to the Universal […]
Since the Egyptian military ousted former President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government in a coup in July 2013, a stricter and an increasingly oppressive rule governs Africa’s third most populous country, but one that may not be that unwelcome with the U.S. or its allies.
The Egyptians may not be receiving fulsome applause at the U.N. this week for their diplomacy to date, but quietly, Israeli, Gulf, and American leaders are clapping, in large part due to Cairo’s reaffirmation of a hardline stance against Hamas this past summer.
The head of the Palestinian community in Jordan Mudar Zahran, who is presently living in the West Bank and reporting live what is happening in Operation Protective Edge, stresses that Gazans now hate Hamas more than Israel, but Palestinians in the West Bank now are increasingly supporting Hamas. JerusalemOnline reported this week that the mass […]
Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney, activist, educator, and an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East. She is an Assistant Professor at George Mason University, teaching international human rights law in the Middle East. She is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya, an online magazine focused on the Middle East produced by the Arab Studies Institute […]
The renewed turmoil in Gaza — the third such clash since Hamas seized power there in 2007 — has elicited a great deal of commentary, as it deserves to do. Much of it, however, focuses on the facts of the moment rather than the underlying causes. Indeed, even the fairly numerous demands to address the […]
As the war between Israel and Hamas nears the two-week mark, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) released the results of a very relevant poll. A survey of Palestinians conducted from June 15 to June 17 found that 70 percent of Gaza respondents agreed that Hamas should maintain a cease-fire with Israel both in the […]
When I think back to 2012, I will inevitably think back to Twitter as the lens through which I saw elections, natural disasters, and major political events unfold. When it comes to foreign policy and cross-border issues, Twitter is playing more of a role than ever. Highlights from the past year in the international Twitterverse […]
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 […]
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 […]
Over the decades the opportunistic Turkey has dictated its Middle Eastern relations based on shifts in the regional balance of power. In the early 1990s up until around 2006, Turkey was finely enmeshed in Western sentiments and policies. But beginning in 2006 it recognized a leadership vacuum in the Middle East and began attempting to […]