Orientul Mijlociu

Israel’s cabinet on Sunday approved a process to restart land registration in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967, allowing the state to claim land from Palestinians unable to prove ownership.

A week earlier, on 8 February, the cabinet had ratified new measures extending the Israeli state’s administrative, legal, and enforcement authority across large areas of the West Bank that are currently under Palestinian Authority (PA) administration.

One simple observation since the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28 is that solar panel prices have not risen, staying at around $300 for an off-the-shelf, 400-watt commercial panel (7 cents/W for an industrial solar cell). But oil prices have risen, reaching $116 per barrel in the first week of hostilities, a 65% increase from the pre-war mark of $70/barrel, raising energy prices for everyone including American consumers at the pump.

One of the wider consequences of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran has been a rise in reported attacks on perceived ‘Zionist’ and ‘American’ targets in Europe. These attacks- spanning from Greece to Britain- have been claimed on social media by a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (‘Islamic Movement of the People of the Right’). The concept of ‘Ashab al-Yamin’ (‘People of the Right’) is ultimately derived from the Qur’an and refers to the believers who will go to Paradise.

I think the picture sums it up… Iran is not going to negotiate with the Trump administration on Trump’s terms. Iran has set its terms and will not deviate from those. Here is a synthesis of the key demands from recent Iranian statements and reporting:

Iran ‘Gone Wild’ in Dimona: Is Tehran Using Israel-US Madman Doctrine?

The wording is familiar. The urgency is always absolute. The implication is unmistakable: Israel is not choosing war. It is forced into it.

The day after the Hamas-led campaign of terror on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began launching near daily rocket attacks targeting Israel. A year later, Israeli forces finally took the fight to the Shi’ite militia in Lebanon, and on September 27, 2024, a targeted Israeli airstrike on an underground Hezbollah command center killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior Iranian IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan. Their bodies were recovered intact, embracing one another, underscoring the deep, longstanding ties between the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

Renewed warfare with Israel aside, Hezbollah will not be permanently undone unless one of two scenarios occurs: regime change in Iran, or the complete dismantlement of the group’s domestic financial system and political power.

Le sionisme est né en Europe. Pas en Palestine. Il n’a pas pour origine un quelconque lien avec la terre. Il est né de l’esprit d’un journaliste juif hongrois laïc et cosmopolite qui ne parlait pas l’hébreu, n’était jamais allé en Palestine et réagissait uniquement à une crise politique européenne : l’antisémitisme sur le continent.