WAR

MIKO PELED—As the world is trying to come to terms with the catastrophic results of the creation of Israel, the actual executioners, those charged with committing the crimes, are hard at work to show themselves as heroic, caring, friendly and humane. The Israeli military public relations campaign on the different social media platforms is sickening. Young men just back from committing heinous crimes are asked by a young military reporter, “What is the first thing you will do when you get home?”

BRIAN BERLETIC—US government-funded polling via the Levada Center indicates Russian President Vladimir Putin as of 2024, has an 86% approval rating, very close to the 87.3% electoral outcome of President Putin’s re-election. Conversely, President Putin’s “fiercest opponent,” according to the same US government-funded polling organization, had single-digit approval ratings as of 2023. US government-funded polling validates the outcome of the Russian elections, the US simply doesn’t like the outcome, and through concerted propaganda is trying to undermine the credibility of the elections. This is only the latest example of the US and Europe interfering in and undermining, not upholding democracy and self-determination around the globe.

THIERRY MEYSSAN—The Biden Administration has therefore invited General Benny Gantz, the former alternative Prime Minister and since October 12 Minister without Portfolio, to consult in the United States, despite the opposition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a kind of backlash to the way the latter was invited to deliver a speech before Congress against the advice of President Barack Obama, in 2015. The United States is keen to show that it is in charge and no one else.

The United States feels compelled to act. Russia has invited sixty Palestinian political organizations to Moscow. It urged them to unite and convinced Hamas to accept the PLO charter, i.e. to recognize the State of Israel.

ERIC ARNOW—Seems like Blinken has a selective or defective memory. Blinken told his stepfather’s story as a tale of one-sided U.S. beneficence, but Samuel Pisar remembers it differently: “I was saved by the Battle of Stalingrad, which was the turning point of the war, and the Red Army offensive,” he said in a 2010 interview with Russian media outlet RIA Novosti. “For me, during the Second World War, Russia was a savior. I consider my saviors to be the Russian and American armies. You can criticize Stalin, the Gulag, and other things that happened in Russia from 1920 to 1930, but the heroism, sacrifice, and victory of Russia in the war against Fascism cannot be questioned. It’s sacred.”

LAITH MAROUF—Thousands of years of cultural exchange and intermarriage exists between East African peoples, and Arabic peoples and their ancestors. For one, there is not one Somali family that is not intermarried to a Yemeni family; thousands of years of sailing back and forth between what is now Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Yemen and Hijaz. The cultural exchange, trade and intermarriage along the Nile basin from Egypt to Ethiopia was as significant as the movement across the Red Sea. Finally, we can not forget the failed invasion of Mecca by the King of Abyssinia on the day of the birth of Prophet Mohammad, and the complete opposite 40 years later, the granting of asylum by the Christian King of Abyssinia to the first Muslims who were escaping assassins.