I am on vacation this week but thought it would be useful to republish a painful story I did two decades ago for the New Yorker about a group of US army soldiers who went out of control amid a war in Iraq that, so they were told, was being waged against the terrorism that struck America on 9/11. What the GIs did then are what any army does in war when hating and fearing the enemy is encouraged and runs through the ranks, from the lowest level grunts to the senior generals. It takes a special leader, as you will read…

The problem isn’t ‘global inaction’ to prevent mass atrocities, as the Guardian claims. It’s intense US and UK support for atrocities so long as they bolster their global power How do politicians, diplomats, the media and even the human rights community keep us politically ignorant, docile and passive – a collective mindset that prevents us from challenging their power as well as the status quo they benefit from? The answer: By constantly misrepresenting reality to us and their own role in shaping it. And they do it so successfully because, at the same time, they gaslight us by flaunting the…

In response to the Oct. 7 attacks and subsequent bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip, most media outlets and think tanks concluded that Hamas initiated the war to sever the path toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Prior to the Hamas strike, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) said his country was moving steadily in the direction of normalizing relations with Israel. In turn, Israelis were eager to proceed as well; while Hamas’ leadership feared that Israeli normalization with the Saudis would further isolate Hamas from the Arab world. However, in light of the now-more-than-two-month-long deadly conflict in Gaza, with the…

Israel has intensified its assault on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 100 people at the Maghazi refugee camp, with Palestinian authorities reporting that 250 people have been killed in a wave of strikes over 24 hours. “My entire family is gone. All five of my brothers are gone. They didn’t leave me any brothers. … All of them!” a wailing woman said on Monday at the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Palestinians lined up to touch the shrouded bodies of those killed in Israeli strikes on the camp in a funeral on Monday, commemorating dozens of people who…

Because of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, wars and violence ripped the Middle East for many decades. Most people are not aware of the reasons behind the ongoing fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the Land of Peace: Palestine. The following is a summary of the main stages of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the last hundred years. In last decades of 19th century, the Zionist movement was very active in Europe. The Zionists called for establishing a national home for the Jews in Palestine depending on vague historical claims. Logically, Jews around the world today had no right to claim…