On January 25, 2011, the Los Angeles-based journalist and publisher Elio Zarmati received a phone call from an old friend in Switzerland he had grown up with in Egypt. Their conversation was about the popular uprising, centered in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square, that had erupted in Egypt and would lead to the resignation of […]
Canonized by the Vatican in 1992, five decades after he was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe was by all accounts a saintly man and a proud Pole. He was incarcerated in Auschwitz in May 1941, when virtually all of its inmates were Polish political prisoners and its image as […]
Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to either end or escalate the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The nearly two-year war, the longest in Israel’s history, has torn the country asunder. While the majority of Israelis have called for an immediate ceasefire to facilitate the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, Netanyahu, backed […]
Germany, in 1941, launched a vigorous propaganda campaign to curry favor with Muslims in the Middle East, the Balkans, Crimea and the Caucasus, territories the German army had conquered or intended to capture. Two of Germany’s major allies, Italy and Japan, made similar efforts to recruit Muslims on their side during World War II. Germany’s […]
Israel has taken a giant leap forward to ensure that a two-state solution remains a two-state illusion. Several days ago, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that 3,000 housing units would be built in the E1 tract of land between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. This ambitious project “buries the idea of a Palestinian […]
This should never have happened. The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), an annual cultural event that enlivens the city in September with a glittering array of movies from every corner of the globe, has belatedly rectified a foolish mistake that tarnished its reputation. Yesterday, TIFF reinstated The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, a Canadian […]
Anas al-Sharif is dead and buried, but the controversy surrounding his sudden death still lingers. Sharif, a 28-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent based in the Gaza Strip and one of the most prominent Palestinian reporters there, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on August 10 while sheltering in a tent near Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza […]
Lebanon is approaching a moment of truth concerning an issue of the utmost importance regarding its stability as a nation. Earlier this month, the Lebanese government, headed by President Joseph Aoun, accepted a U.S. proposal outlining a process that would ultimately lead to the disarmament of Hezbollah, the cessation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon, […]
Germany’s suspension of arms sales to Israel marks a significant shift in its bilateral relations with the Jewish state. From this point forward, Germany will not sell weapons to Israel that can be used in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Never before has Germany resorted to such a drastic tactic to express […]
Israel’s controversial plan to expand and intensify the war in the Gaza Strip by seizing Gaza City is in keeping with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unwavering belief that Israel must retain full security control of the crowded coastal enclave. The decision, taken by the Israeli security cabinet on August 8 after ten hours of deliberation, […]