Gaza is back in the headlines, grabbing, if only for a moment, the fickle international spotlight. The two million Palestinians living in the 141-square-mile spit that hugs the Mediterranean have no such luxury.
It should be no surprise that Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies—who have long had daggers drawn and pointed at our fellow NATO member Turkey—are now reconciling with our Syrian enemy President Bashar al-Assad.
The latest evidence of the evolving nature of the war in Syria was on display Saturday, Feb. 10, when Israel mounted what a senior Israeli officer called “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has conducted against Syrian air defenses” since the 1982 Lebanon war. The unprecedented encounter was precipitated by the intrusion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace and led to the downing of a top-of-the-line Israeli F-16 by Syrian air defenses.
Donald Trump’s promise of “a deal of the century” to end the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is getting legs. After a year of discussions led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the main elements of the president’s design are coming into view. But it’s not exactly what the Palestinians want to see.
The Trump declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the U.S. embassy there is as historically significant to Israel’s control of Jerusalem as the Balfour Declaration was to recognizing the rights of the Jewish people in Palestine.
In 1595 Mehmed III became sultan of the Ottoman empire. In order to preempt any challenges to his power, he ordered aides to strangle all 19 of his brothers, some of them no older than infants. They were buried in their father’s tomb near the Topkapi Palace complex.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is well on the road to a military victory over his numerous enemies. A coalition of Syrian government, Iranian, Lebanese, and Russian forces now control upwards of 80 percent of the country, signaling an approaching end to the six-year war.
The remarkable run of international attention aimed at solving the Israel-Palestine conflict has run its course. In the decades from the Security Council deliberations leading the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 242 in 1967 to Secretary of State John Kerry’s peripatetic wanderings, no other issue so animated international diplomacy. This sustained, top-level attention was no mean feat in a world where disasters are the order of the day. But although it often seemed to be the case, the “peace process” could not rivet the world’s fickle attention forever.
This month, Chinese naval vessels departed the port of Zhanjiang for the East African country of Djibouti, the site of China’s first overseas military base, which is set to begin operations later this year. An editorial in the state-run Global Timestrumpeted the deployment, confirming that China will base troops there, which is a stunning development—it’s the first time that a major Asian power outside of the U.S. (or Russia) has extended its military and logistics reach into the developing world.
Gaza is back in the headlines, grabbing, if only for a moment, the fickle international spotlight. The two million Palestinians living in the 141-square-mile spit that hugs the Mediterranean have no such luxury.
As Palestinians confront U.S. President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century,” the debilitating effect of endemic, internal division within their ranks continues to define their domestic political landscape.
It should be no surprise that Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies—who have long had daggers drawn and pointed at our fellow NATO member Turkey—are now reconciling with our Syrian enemy President Bashar al-Assad.
The latest evidence of the evolving nature of the war in Syria was on display Saturday, Feb. 10, when Israel mounted what a senior Israeli officer called “the biggest and most significant attack the air force has conducted against Syrian air defenses” since the 1982 Lebanon war. The unprecedented encounter was precipitated by the intrusion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace and led to the downing of a top-of-the-line Israeli F-16 by Syrian air defenses.
Donald Trump’s promise of “a deal of the century” to end the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is getting legs. After a year of discussions led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the main elements of the president’s design are coming into view. But it’s not exactly what the Palestinians want to see.
Annexationists of all stripes are crowing about Donald Trump’s blockbuster decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
