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Category: War

Qatar pushes to secure Marwan Barghouti’s release in Gaza prisoner exchange deal

Qatar pushes to secure Marwan Barghouti’s release in Gaza prisoner exchange deal

Middle East Eye reports: The Israeli prime minister’s office unilaterally removed Marwan Barghouti’s name from the prisoner exchange list at the last minute, endangering the Gaza ceasefire deal’s implementation, a source close to the prominent Palestinian prisoner told Middle East Eye. Barghouti, who is the most popular Palestinian political figure according to polls, was one of the most valuable names to potentially be traded for the 48 Israeli captives in Gaza. A source close to Barghouti and his family told…

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The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere

The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere

Meron Rapoport writes: We should know better than to take any so-called peace proposal presented by U.S. President Donald Trump along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at face value. But as the world awaits Hamas’ response to Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the war in Gaza, published in conjunction with the pair’s White House press conference on Monday, it is possible to begin drawing some early conclusions about what this all means for Israel and the Palestinians. Before any…

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Norman Finkelstein: Trump plan has no connection to reality in Gaza

Norman Finkelstein: Trump plan has no connection to reality in Gaza

  President Trump has released a Gaza “peace” plan that would put Gaza under a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace”. While some in the international community have welcomed the move, some question the fact that it bypasses Palestinians and offers no path to statehood. So, with Netanyahu pledging not to fully withdraw from Gaza, will this deal bring genuine peace or cement the status quo? This week on an UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with one of the world’s foremost…

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The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history

The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history

Baker Zoubi writes: Palestinians in Gaza City are facing an impossible choice, as the Israeli army works to annihilate what remains of northern Gaza’s last bastion from the air and the ground. Hundreds of thousands of residents have already fled in recent days amid the intensification of Israel’s assault, forced to pay up to $5,000 to relocate in the knowledge that they will likely never see their homes again. Others are staying put, unable or unwilling to flee to areas…

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Leaked document justifies boat strikes as ‘non-international armed conflict’

Leaked document justifies boat strikes as ‘non-international armed conflict’

The Intercept reports: The Trump administration is waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress, according to a confidential notice that was sent to several congressional committees this week and obtained by The Intercept. It marks the most detailed explanation of the legal underpinnings offered by the administration for a series of lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean that began last month. President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a…

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How to end a war

How to end a war

Megan K. Stack writes: On a steel-skied summer day I dropped by the Northern Ireland Assembly to watch legislators discuss anti-immigrant riots, each speaker straining to upstage the last in outrage and fervor. To my eyes, though, the drama of the day’s debate was utterly eclipsed by the improbable scene itself: such a collection of people in such a place as this. There was First Minister Michelle O’Neill, the daughter of an Irish Republican Army member and the first Catholic…

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Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per social media post

Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per social media post

Responsible Statecraft reports: In a meeting dedicated to harnessing pro-Israel media energy on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to a cohort of Israel’s influencers. “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers. I think you should also talk to them if you have a chance, to that community, they are very important.” Being paid by Israel to post on social media is also very lucrative. According to previously unreported recent documents, these influencers are…

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Top Trump aides push for regime change in Venezuela

Top Trump aides push for regime change in Venezuela

The New York Times reports: The push by top aides to President Trump to remove Nicolás Maduro as the leader of Venezuela has intensified in recent days, with administration officials discussing a broad campaign that would escalate military pressure to try to force him out, U.S. officials say. It is being led by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser. Mr. Rubio argues that Mr. Maduro is an illegitimate leader who oversees the export of drugs to…

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At Quantico, Hegseth delivered ‘an inane message of little merit.’ It ‘could have been an email’

At Quantico, Hegseth delivered ‘an inane message of little merit.’ It ‘could have been an email’

Politico reports: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting. Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all. “More like…

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Britain may already be at war with Russia, says former head of MI5

Britain may already be at war with Russia, says former head of MI5

The Guardian reports: Britain may already be at war with Russia because of the depth and intensity of cyber-attacks, sabotage and other hostile activity orchestrated by Moscow against the UK, according to a former head of MI5. Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led the domestic spy agency two decades ago, said she agreed with comments made by the Russia expert Fiona Hill, who argued in a Guardian interview earlier this year that Moscow was at war with the west. Lady Manningham-Buller argued…

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An entire generation of Americans is turning against Israel

An entire generation of Americans is turning against Israel

Felicia Schwartz writes: President Donald Trump is often at his most frank when he plays pundit, and so it went with his recent musings about Israel’s war with Hamas and the political fallout. “They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t,” Trump told the Daily Caller in an interview published earlier this month, referring to Israel. “They’re gonna have to get that war over with. … They may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world…

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Majority of American voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, poll finds

Majority of American voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, poll finds

The New York Times reports: Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, American support for Israel has undergone a seismic reversal, with large shares of voters expressing starkly negative views about the Israeli government’s management of the conflict, a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University found. Disapproval of the war appears to have prompted a striking reassessment by American voters of their broader sympathies in the decades-old conflict in the region, with slightly more voters…

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Democrats in Congress are breaking with Israel like never before

Democrats in Congress are breaking with Israel like never before

Axios reports: Some of Israel’s staunchest Democratic supporters on Capitol Hill are wavering like never before as progressives grow more emboldened in their defense of the Palestinian cause. Why it matters: The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza has soured U.S. public opinion on Israel, and while members of Congress have been something of a lagging indicator, they are now shifting as well. Centrist Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told Axios’ Barak Ravid at an Axios event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on…

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These countries recognized Palestine, but are still sending arms to Israel

These countries recognized Palestine, but are still sending arms to Israel

The Intercept reports: The day before global leaders convened this week in New York City for the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia joined the vast majority of the world’s nations in recognizing Palestine as a state. At the start of the U.N. session on Monday, France and Luxembourg added their nations to the list. Both the French and British heads of state said that they decided to recognize…

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Ukraine’s plan to starve the Russian war machine

Ukraine’s plan to starve the Russian war machine

Anne Applebaum writes: In one section of a sprawling warehouse in central Ukraine, workers have stacked what appear to be small airplane wings in neat rows. In another section, a group of men is huddled around what looks like the body of an aircraft, adjusting an electronic panel. In makeshift locations elsewhere in Ukraine, workers are producing these electronic panels from scratch: This company wants to use as few imported parts as possible, avoiding anything American, anything Chinese. Jewelers, I…

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Trump says Ukraine can win back territory from Russia, shifting his position on the war

Trump says Ukraine can win back territory from Russia, shifting his position on the war

CNN reports: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine could restore its borders from before Russia’s invasion and that he believes NATO member countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace, escalating his rhetoric against the Kremlin as its war in Ukraine drags on. Taken together, Trump’s remarks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly about shooting down Russian aircraft and his later post on Truth Social about Ukraine’s borders seemed to reflect a significant…

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