Worldcrunch
The blind spots began appearing in the first hours and days after more than 1,200 civilians were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, who breached the border from Gaza. A former Israeli military intelligence operative guides us through the mistakes that allowed it to happen.
Even as the borders close and the siege tightens, most of the Palestinians also deeply fear leaving, convinced that (like their forebears) they’ll never return.
Over the past week, Gaza has been officially under siege, even if the roots have long been planted in the confined territory. Others may say that Israel itself has long felt under siege, surrounded by hostile nations. It’s worth tracing the origins of this policy of war that targets entire populations, from Troy in ancient Greece to Leningrad in World War II.
October 16 – October 22, 2023
The Oct. 7 Hamas attacks are as devastating on Israel as the Sep. 11 were on the U.S. But like it did 20 years ago, such an attack also has the power to reshape politics inside Israel and around the region in a way that risks making everything worse.
Elon Musk has been criticized before for his management of Twitter, now known as X. But it was not until Saturday that the social network revealed just how inept and dangerous it had become, as fake news spread far and wide. It may never recover.
Blaming intelligence and military failure for the Oct. 7 assault diverts attention from Israel’s real weakness — a distracted and divisive political leadership that ignored the fact that people just a few miles across the border are confined in a living hell.
Iran says European courts have ordered repayments of $1.7 billion more of its money frozen in Western banks, which risks being transferred to help fund Hamas’ war with Israel. Other observers suspect the news is meant to stop financial panic in Tehran.
In response to the attack by Hamas, Israel promises to eradicate the group, but what does this really look like? With the promise of a high toll in human lives and the complex network of the Gaza Strip, an operation to retaliate against Hamas may be even more difficult that one may think.
There will be a before and after to October 7, 2023, so unprecedented and traumatic have the events of the last 48 hours been for Israel, followed by massive retaliation. We can already draw several lessons from this.
The signing of the Oslo Accords 30 years ago was followed by a failure that set back the very idea of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. A look back at this historic episode and the lessons we can learn from it today.
? Dumêlang!* Welcome to Thursday, where the U.S. says it will supply Ukraine with controversial uranium-based anti-tank shells, Mexico throws out all criminal penalties for abortions, and Venice will soon start charging daytrippers. Meanwhile, for French economic daily Les Echos, Leïla Marchand looks at the “Wild West” of bosses monitoring their remote workers. [*Northern Sotho, […]
The Israeli army’s operation last week in the Jenin camp was particularly striking in its scale and violence, further undermining any hope of appeasement in the region or the newfound alliance with Arab countries, or even among American Jews. What if Israeli politics, instead, was inspired by the nation’s Netflix series scriptwriters?
Israel’s military operation in Jenin is the latest escalation of bloodshed. Once again, the language of violence has prevailed because there is no political solution on the horizon.
In the West Bank, tensions are at a new high after the death of a 15-year-old boy during a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters. The incident, coupled with the growing influence Israel’s far-right political figures and an intensified use of force, is pushing the region to a critical point.
The U.S. is set to rejoin UNESCO, after Donald Trump pulled the country out in 2017, accusing it of being biased against Israel. The reasons for the return include artificial intelligence and pure geopolitics.
A Palestinian has died from a hunger strike in an Israeli prison, exacerbating the cycle of violence in the region. Israeli’s protesting Benjamin Netanyahu”s right-wing government have little to offer to resolve the eternal crisis of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Praise in the West has been heaped on the popular protests in Israel that have halted undemocratic judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government. But this supposedly noble fight for democracy doesn’t apply to 20% of its citizens, not to mention the policies carried out in the Occupied Territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power with the most right-wing government in the country’s history has revealed a deep schism in Israeli society between settlers and secularists.
By challenging Israel’s constitutional system and launching a crackdown on the Occupied Territories, Benjamin Netanyahu is playing a high-stakes game opposed by half his country and the country’s allies. It can’t last much longer.
On this day in 1994, Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein entered the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site for Jews and Muslims, and opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 29 people and injuring more than 100 others. Who was Baruch Goldstein? Baruch Goldstein was an American-born Israeli physician and member of the far-right Kach party. […]
After forming a governing coalition with right-wing extremists, will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu face a chill in relations with the West? The reshuffled geopolitical cards offer a fair share of paradoxes.
Less than a week after being sworn in for the sixth time as Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was defied by a highly charged visit his far-right coalition ally, Itamar Ben-Gvir, made to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, that has enflamed the entire Muslim world. Netanyahu has a choice to make.
The World Cup in Qatar has been political on many fronts. Right now, with the event in an Arab country for the first time and Morocco as the first Arab team to make the quarterfinals, the Palestinian question is now very much on the agenda.
Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll! This week featuring: TW: […]
Israel’s vocal support for Iranians protesting the regime will lay the grounds for ties with a future democratic Iran, whenever that may come.
On the same day that Bethlehem’s Mayor Anton Salman inaugurated the Christmas holiday season earlier this month with an impressive fireworks display and tree lighting in the town square, residents of the West Bank city’s three refugee camps — Aida, Dehaishe and Jibrin, also known as Azza Camp — continued their daily protesting against the Palestinian Authority. The protests, which have included burning tires and blocking roads, aim to gain the release of several Palestinians arrested by Palestinian security forces for waving banners of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine during the funeral of 14-year-old Amjad […]
The peace accords signed between conservative Arab states and Israel are the start of an inevitable opening for the Middle East, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan means a new post-American, post-oil future.
Even as other Muslim leaders were treading more carefully on the Palestinian question, Turkey’s leader knows no better way to express his global ambitions than a frontal assault on Israel.
For fear of losing legitimacy to Hamas, supporters of the ruling Fatah party have joined the riots that have left at least 19 people dead since Friday.
Israel had struck Iranian interests in recent months without significant reprisals. Meanwhile, Iran is growing impatient that nuclear talks in Vienna are stalling, and may have turned to the Palestinian groups it arms to provoke the violence.
The current spiral in the Middle East is a stinging reminder for the world, and particularly the United States under Joe Biden, that the violence will always return.
Also known as al-Khalil — the friend — the historic, contested city is steeped in enmity and overshadowed by Israel’s commanding military presence.
A Manifesto for Tali’at, a new movement seeking to put the feminist cause at the center of the battle for Palestinian rights.
On a recent trip to Sicily, Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua was reminded of the Mediterranean’s still powerful role as a meeting place of peoples and cultures.
The UN culture and patrimony organization’s new chief, Audrey Azoulay, a former French culture minister, shares her vision for reviving UNESCO after the U.S. and Israel have announced their withdrawal.
RAFAH — It has been one month since the Rafah Border Crossing was opened, marking the longest window in which Gaza residents have been permitted to leave and reenter their besieged territory since 2013. What was initially purported to be a four-day opening was extended on May 17, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that […]
-Essay- CAIRO — As someone who fully supports the Palestinian cause, it is challenging to write an article about boycotting Israel for fear of being dragged into the particulars of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In a world that is very much manipulated by biased media, it is hard to resist the urge to first rebut Israel’s […]
The Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus has been the site of a grueling “zero-hour” offensive since last month.
Basic health care services are hard to come by.