Middle East

from Russia Today, 12/09/2018 Seventeen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government and media outlets have decided that Al-Qaeda is now a rebel group worthy of our sympathy. The cynical narrative change is par for the course, experts told RT. As somber newspaper headlines mark the anniversary… »

By David Swanson Last weekend I was on Iranian TV being asked about the meeting in Tehran at which the presidents of Iran and Russia had refused to agree with the President of Turkey to stop bombing people in Syria. I said Iran and Russia were wrong. I also said… »

Moni Ovadia is an Italian theatre actor, musician, singer and author. He has long been engaged in the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which earned him the Premio Colombe for Peace in 2005; we asked him for his opinion on recent events.   Those who criticise Israel’s… »

The Syrian crisis has greatly set back the economy of this once middle-income country, bringing about direct losses up to 120 billion U.S. dollars to the country as a whole and an alarming 268 billion U.S. dollars to the industries. It has stymied the annual growth since 2000, 7.9 percent… »

By Haggai Matar, Published August 12, 2018 Palestinian citizens of Israel, joined by their Jewish Israeli supporters, demonstrated against the Jewish Nation-State Law in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.  Over 30,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel and their supporters demonstrated in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Saturday evening against the… »

“We have lived a frightening life in the past three years under the IS control. They robbed our house and furniture but did not give us money. When the Syrian army bombarded here, we escaped to the valley. Soldiers came over telling us not to escape because this area is… »

By Dr Binoy Kampmark The world of the terrifying hypothetical is programmatically standard in the Trump White House.  Periods of tense calm are followed by careless flights of fury, digs and remonstrations.  Mortal enemies become amenable comrades; reliable allies turn into irresponsible skinflints who ought to fork our more for… »

Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman are released after eight months behind bars for slapping an Israeli soldier. By Oren Ziv Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager who was arrested after being filmed for slapping an IDF soldier in her family’s yard, was released from Israeli prison Sunday morning, along with her… »

Damascus, Jul 21 (Prensa Latina) More than 750,000 internally displaced persons and about 13,000 Syrian refugees returned to their homes in the first six months of this year, United Nations sources reported today. A statement from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), published here, indicated… »

By David Swanson Israel has passed a law allowing its Minister of Education to ban from its schools any person or group who criticizes Israel — apparently something that no teachers or students in Israel are supposed to do either (though some do). The hasbara, or pro-war propaganda, spin on this… »