Category: Middle East

Hypocrisy, Manipulation, Middle East, Politics, War, ZionismLeave a comment

How Israel Supported Hamas Against the PLO

Fernando Kaskais

by Jeremy R. Hammond Since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has been executing a devastating assault on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, blocking humanitarian aid, internally displacing 75% of Gaza’s population, systematically destroying civilian infrastructure, and otherwise bombing indiscriminately. To date, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 9,500 women and over 14,500 children.1 More than 10,000 additional Palestinians are missing under the rubble, and over 77,000 have been injured.2 Children have been dying from hunger and malnutrition due to Israel’s use of starvation as a method of warfare.3 In a case brought against Israel by the government of South … Continue reading How Israel Supported Hamas Against the PLO

Freak Religion, Middle East, Military, Politics, ZionismLeave a comment

An ultra-Orthodox ultimatum, and the future of the ‘Jewish’ state

Fernando Kaskais

(Photo Credit: The Cradle) The widening schism between Israel’s secular and ultra-Orthodox communities impacts not only the state’s military and economic wellbeing, but poses an existential threat to the stability of the entire Zionist project. By Robert Inlakesh Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, known as the Haredim, is the fastest-growing segment of the country’s population. This demographic shift is occurring amid escalating tensions between secular right-wing and religious-nationalist factions in Israel, raising concerns about the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition – particularly over contentious issues like Haredi military conscription. Projected to constitute approximately 16 percent of the occupation state’s population by … Continue reading An ultra-Orthodox ultimatum, and the future of the ‘Jewish’ state

Middle East, Military, Politics, WarLeave a comment

The Axis of Asymmetry takes on the ‘rules-based order’

Fernando Kaskais

Photo Credit: The Cradle World War III is here, playing out asymmetrically in military, financial, and institutional battlefields, and the fight is an existential one. The western Hegemon, in truth, is at war against international law, and only ‘kinetic military action’ can bring it to heel. By Pepe Escobar The Axis of Asymmetry is in full swing. These are the state and non-state actors employing asymmetrical moves on the global chessboard to sideline the US-led western rules-based order. And its vanguard is the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah.  Ansarallah is absolutely relentless. They have downeda $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k … Continue reading The Axis of Asymmetry takes on the ‘rules-based order’

Islam, Middle East, Military, War, ZionismLeave a comment

In Gaza, Satellites Show 157,200 Damaged or Destroyed Buildings

Fernando Kaskais

Top: On February 21, 2024, a boy stands atop a damaged building following Israeli air strikes in Rafah, Gaza. Visual: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images As the field of conflict remote sensing grows, experts are leaning on satellite images for humanitarian purposes. BY RAMIN SKIBBA ON OCT. 22, 2023 Israeli warplanes bombed buildings near Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, according to Reuters. Over the following weeks, airstrikes hit near the medical facility and neighboring structures, with some damage documented on video by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. By Nov. 12, in need of both electricity and generator fuel, Gazan health officials were forced to shut down both … Continue reading In Gaza, Satellites Show 157,200 Damaged or Destroyed Buildings

History, Islam, Middle East, Politics, RightsLeave a comment

Secularism in Iran

Fernando Kaskais

Iranian women visit the International Book Fair in Tehran, Iran, 12 May 2023. Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA/Reuters Postcolonial intellectuals and Iran’s rulers agree that secularism is just Western imperialism in disguise. They are wrong Patrick Hassan is a lecturer in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University in Wales, UK. He is the editor of Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy (2022) and the author of Nietzsche’s Struggle Against Pessimism (2023). Hossein Dabbagh is assistant professor in applied ethics at Northeastern University London and an associate member of the Oxford Department of Continuing Education. He is the author of The Moral Epistemology of Intuitionism (2022). The latest … Continue reading Secularism in Iran

Middle East, Music, Psychology, Terrorism, WarLeave a comment

As war rages, music forces us to confront political complexity. We mustn’t look away

Fernando Kaskais

The Gaza strip has seen hundreds of civilian casualties in recent days. Image: Yasser abu raya, via Wikimedia Commons You could argue that looking at art, particularly music, as a vital life force at this hinge moment in history is facile. I think it is more important than ever By PAUL MCNAMEE I’ve been losing myself in Times Echo, a new book by Jeremy Eichler. Subtitled ‘The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance’, it is on the face of it an exploration of four key works and how they bear some kind of witness to the horrors of … Continue reading As war rages, music forces us to confront political complexity. We mustn’t look away

Islam, Middle East, Politics, War, ZionismLeave a comment

When Victims Become Executioners

Fernando Kaskais

Ibrahim Rayintakath for Noema Magazine Converging shifts in the Middle East erupt in the Israeli-Hamas war. BY NATHAN GARDELS – editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine. The threads of conflict go back ages in the Middle East and never seem to end. Antipathies gestating from long-ago wounds are triggered by some current set of circumstances into fresh bouts of violence and war that conjoin with and compound past harms. What’s worse is that the impassioned hostility arising from existential stakes has intensified over the years into the horrifically unspeakable face-to-face brutality witnessed in the Hamas attack followed by the collateral toll from Israeli … Continue reading When Victims Become Executioners

History, Islam, Middle East, PoliticsLeave a comment

The Arab Kingdom

Fernando Kaskais

Sharif Hussein (centre, c1923-24), Amman. Photo courtesy the Library of Congress Amid the chaos of the First World War, a new pan-Arab empire was proclaimed. It faltered, but its historical lessons remain Adam Mestyan is associate professor of history at Duke University in North Carolina. He is the author of Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt (2017), Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo (2021) and Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (2023). In December 2022, Abdullah II, the king of Jordan, gave an interview to the CNN anchor Becky Anderson. Sitting close to the … Continue reading The Arab Kingdom

Architecture, Middle East, Technology, UnbelievableLeave a comment

Forget Skyscrapers: Dubai Architecture Firm Proposes a Sky Circle

Fernando Kaskais

ZN | Era’s Downtown Circle would surround the Burj Khalifa By Rain Noe  From Dubai-based architecture firm ZN | Era comes this interesting proposal: The Downtown Circle, a massive elevated circular structure that would surround the Burj Khalifa. (Think supersized version of Apple’s headquarters, in a configuration ill-suited for acrophobes.) “As a response to the dilemma of how to build densely while retaining liveability, the Downtown Circle project establishes a sustainable and a self-sufficient vertical urbanism. As a singular mega building complex, it aims to create a hyper efficient urban center that gives back to the environment. The proposed 550 meter … Continue reading Forget Skyscrapers: Dubai Architecture Firm Proposes a Sky Circle

Middle East, Military, Politics, Psychology, WarLeave a comment

THE CRYING IN IRAN IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS

Fernando Kaskais

by Hussein Kesvani In the West, we think of politicians shedding tears as inauthentic, unmanly and fragile. We’d be foolish to read the mourning of Qassim Suleimani the same way For all the glee in certain segments of the West over the death of Qassim Suleimani, in Iran his demise was almost universally met with tears — whether it be a member of the public, the military or the government. The best example might have been on Iranian state TV when a senior Revolutionary Guard officer wept so intensely that the host, also with tears in his eyes, had to console him. Tears … Continue reading THE CRYING IN IRAN IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS