Tag: Hamas
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Israel’s Campaign in Gaza is a Failure on Every Level. The U.S. Must Stop Enabling It.
On December 14th, CNN aired a devastating peek into life in the Gaza Strip. The dispatch, from Clarissa Ward, marked the first piece of independent reporting from Gaza by a Western journalist since October 7th (all other reports by Western correspondents to date have come from people embedded with the Israeli army who had to…
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There Is No Iranian Nuclear Threat
On April 21, Iran and six world powers resumed the final phase of nuclear talks after a preliminary framework deal reached earlier this month. Iran and the P5+1 countries — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — are expected to reach a final accord by the end of June. Yet hawks in…
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Netanyahu’s Politics of Fear Have Proven Highly-Effective
As the Israeli election results continue to be finalized, it appears that Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has again emerged victorious—likely holding onto 30 of their current 31 seats in the government. The Zionist Union, Netanyahu’s primary opposition, garnered only 24 seats, with the Joint List of Arab candidates rounding out third place with a likely…
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The “Paper-State” of Palestine is Worse than Useless
On Dec. 30, the United Nations Security Council rejected a proposal put forward by coalition of Arab states and the Palestinian Authority calling for “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli forces” from all Palestinian territories seized after 1967, and full Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza by December 31, 2017. The resolution needed…
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Normalize Relations with Iran Now, Not Later
In an administration which has become known for largely continuing the disastrous policies of the previous White House and doubling-down on its own proven failures—President Obama stunned the world with his surprise announcement that the United States would be normalizing relations with Cuba. The President pointed out that the extraordinary sanctions regime, which has been…
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Israel & Palestine: The One State Solution
Throughout the current crisis, Israel’s apologists and spokespeople have attempted to blame the Palestinians, particularly Hamas, for the wanton carnage and destruction unfolding in Gaza. One of their consistent talking points has been that, following Israel’s 2005 retreat from the Gaza strip in the wake of the Second Intifada and Hamas’ 2006 electoral landslide victories,…
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It was Israel which sought out the latest conflict with Hamas
In the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the dominant discourse is that the Palestinian militants provoked the hostilities — while Israel, as President Barack Obama affirmed last week, is acting in legitimate self-defense. Many have attempted to problematize this narrative, for instance by arguing that Israel, as an occupying power, does not have a…
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War is Peace: Al-Sisi, Abu Mazen, Netanyahu and the Cynical Ceasefire
Following Abu Mazen’s too-hasty embrace of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal and corresponding criticism of Hamas, the popular narrative of the ongoing crisis in Gaza is that Hamas has betrayed the truce agreement despite Israel’s hours-long unilateral compliance. The truth of the matter is that Hamas didn’t violate the ceasefire because it never signed onto it.…
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The Semantics of Revolution
Many in media and academic circles seem to pride themselves on having advanced beyond the “Clash of Civilizations” rhetoric that defined the aftermath of September 11th (2001). However, upon analysis is clear that the primary development has been the transformation of these frameworks into euphemistic forms: consider, for instance, the supposed conflict between the liberals…