Month: October 2023

The Development of Zionism Until the Founding of the State of Israel

This article traces the history of European-shaped Zionism during and after the First World War until the founding of Israel in 1948. Its primary aim is to show how the emerging project of the Jewish settlement of Palestine could withstand external and internal difficulties both under the British mandate and in the shadow of Nazism. From the beginning, political Zionism has been characterized by a triad of controversial partition plans, recurring “civil wars” and terrorism. This constellation gives an idea of why the State of Israel – regardless of some diplomatic successes – has failed, especially in the Middle East, to achieve lasting legitimacy either in a historical-political sense or according to international law.

Gaza ar putea sa fie o mare diversiune islamică. Alte cinci fronturi susținute de Iran se activează împotriva Israelului

Cu 120.000 de israelieni evacuați din casele lor pentru a fugi de proiectile și infiltrații, Israelul se confruntă cu cea mai mare și mai diversificată provocare de la războiul din 1973. Fronturile din Cisiordania, Liban, Siria, Irak și Yemen – toate susținute de Iran – se vor activa cu fitilul aprins de masiva ofensivă militară israeliană împotriva grupării fundamentaliste Hamas.

Intelligence Failures – Again

The failure of the U.S. intelligence community has three components: 1) It has become politically charged and lost focus on its mission protecting Americans, instead engaging in partisan politics. 2) It continues to focus on technological intelligence collection rather than the difficult and risky world of human intelligence collection. 3) It continues to suffer from a lack of creativity in anticipating and understanding the new threats being developed by our enemies.

Gaza: The Combined West opts for genocide

Let us start where we must: I do not support violence. I am not here to support or condemn anything, certainly not anything violent. Commentators, especially Western ones, are far too generous with their supports and condemnations. Analysis is difficult enough without peppering it with pompous gestures. And you didn’t come here to read a list of what I support or condemn. I know why you came here, it’s the same reason you always come here, it’s to find out what the hell happened. Let’s go.

Violence stalks Gaza through history

Palestinians have been the collateral of so many empires

Where does the story of Gaza begin? In this region, history — or histories, given that here there is no such thing as a singular history — is serially and violently contested. “Anyone who tells a story knows that most of the work of the telling is done in the choice of where the story begins,” my old professor Ian Lustick, author of several books about Israel, wrote recently. His point was that if your story begins on 7 October 2023, it is a straightforward tale, in which barbarians slaughter the innocents before the latter, flying the flag of the civilised world, launch their counterstrike, mete out retribution and defeat the aggressors.

Dispute between Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga turns deadly, killing 3

The Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga forces briefly clashed Sunday in a dispute over control of a strategic military post, killing three, Iraq’s military spokesperson said.

The dispute was over who controls three vacated posts previously in the hands of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. It marked further tension in a fragile alliance between the Iraqi military and Kurdish Peshmerga forces of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region inside federal Iraq.

A Catastrophic Success for Hamas?

How the Attack on Israel Could Backfire for the Group

Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks, which killed over 1,000 Israelis, provoked outrage around the world. Politicians from Washington to New Delhi condemned Hamas and offered condolences to the Israeli people. Leading politicians traveled to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The devastatingly high number of fatalities, relative to the size of Israel’s population, prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to describe the attack as “the equivalent of ten September 11s.”

How Will the IDF Handle Urban Combat?

Fighting Hamas in Gaza Will Be Difficult and Costly

Although the details are still difficult to predict, it seems very likely that Israel will mount a land invasion of the Gaza Strip in the near future. If and when that happens, the campaign will feature several elements common to any large-scale, high-intensity urban battle. In the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Mosul, and Ramadi; the Philippine city of Marawi; the Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Mariupol; and many other places, military forces in this century have wrestled with the persistent complications of fighting in urban spaces.

A chaque nouvelle attaque islamiste, je me rappelle ce que mon père m’a dit le lendemain du 11 Septembre

Des jardins d’Isphahan aux rives de la Seine… Djahanguir Riahi, mon père, est né en 1914 à Natanz (Iran). Parti en France poursuivre des études d’ingénieur grâce à une bourse d’études, il se met au lendemain de la Seconde guerre mondiale au service des relations économiques Franco-iraniennes. Installé en Europe depuis la révolution islamique, son intuition artistique hors du commun lui a permis de réunir l’une des plus importantes collections d’œuvres d’art du XVIIIème siècle français. Il est mort dans sa centième année, le 28 avril 2014, après avoir été élevé au grade de Commandeur de La Légion d’Honneur ainsi que des Arts et des Lettres. Grand donateur des Musées Nationaux, une salle du Musée du Louvre porte son nom.