Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is America’s Frankenstein. The United States empowered him, and now it is trying to get rid of him. Plucked from obscurity by Washington in 2006 to succeed Ibrahim al-Jaafari as Iraq’s next prime minister, Maliki, a Shiite, has been a thorn in its side ever since. Volatile and mercurial, Maliki is currently […]
I‘ve voted for the Green Party of Canada in the last two federal elections, even as I realized that its chances of forming a government were realistically nil. I cast my ballot for the Greens because, as a tree hugger, I liked its sincere and earnest approach to politics and its fresh and progressive ideas […]
The guns have finally fallen silent in the Gaza Strip. After a 29-day war, the fourth pitting Israel against Hamas in eight years, Israel has unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza and repositioned its army along the border in case of a flareup. Both sides are observing a 72-hour truce and have sent delegations to Cairo in […]
If nothing else, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is consistent. On Aug. 3, in his latest anti-Israel rant since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted, he compared Israel to Hitler and accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers. Speaking to supporters at a rally in Istanbul about a week before the Aug. 10 […]
Spanish movie stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem may be fine actors, but their understanding of current events in the Middle East is nothing short of abysmal. Recently, they added their names to a vitriolic open letter, signed by dozens of artists in Spain, denouncing Israel’s just military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Calling the […]
A few hours before a 72-hour humanitarian truce in the Gaza war was supposed to start, followed immediately by talks in Cairo with the aim of achieving a more durable ceasefire, White House spokesman Josh Earnest scolded Israel. An Israeli artillery strike that had mistakenly hit a United Nations school in Gaza, causing 15 fatalities, […]
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the current war between Israel and Hamas, the third in six years. As the Canadian branch of Amnesty International notes, Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the fighting. While innocent Palestinians die needlessly, their homes and businesses pulverized, Hamas leaders and […]
Amid the acrimonious charges and counter-charges they’ve hurled at each other since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted 19 days ago, Israel and its arch enemy, Hamas, concur on one salient point: Neither side wants to return to the status quo ante that prevailed before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8. What […]
Shimon Peres, one of the last members of Israel’s founding generation, vacated his position as Israeli president on July 24 after an illustrious six-decade career as a politician, statesman and civil servant. He stepped down as Israel continued to wage its third war against Hamas in six years. Typically, he was in the thick […]
On July 18, two days before the deadline for reaching a permanent agreement on the future of Iran’s controversial nuclear program was due to expire, six major powers and Iran agreed to extend the talks by four months to Nov. 24, matching the day an interim accord was signed in Geneva in 2013. In commenting […]