At the onset, 2021 appeared to be another ordinary year, one of unrelenting Israeli occupation and continued Palestinian misery. While much of that remained true, the dynamics of the Israeli occupation of Palestine were challenged by an unprecedented sense of popular unity among Palestinians, not only in the occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, but among Palestinian communities in historic Palestine as well.
An Israeli local committee has approved plans to build more than 3,500 new illegal settler units in the occupied East al-Quds, irrespective of the international outcry over the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement construction and land expropriation policies.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now reported that the construction of the units would largely cut off the city from the southern part of the occupied West Bank, further complicating any efforts to create a sovereign Palestinian state.
Abstract
On 3rd January 2020, Iranian General, Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in Baghdad under the orders of Former President Donald Trump. Trump argued that Iran was planning an imminent attack, although till today no proof of this claim has been provided by the US. Experts in international law have highlighted that the targeted killing of Soleimani was neither legal, nor necessary. The US failed to prove that Soleimani was a threat, that he was involved in terror operations, or that killing Soleimani was necessary to avert other terror attacks. This paper will examine the arguments presented by Trump, analyse the right to life under International human rights law, and explore the challenges presented by America’s war on terror campaign with respect to human rights and state sovereignty.
Iran and Muslims, indeed even non-Muslims worldwide, have observed and continue to observe a somber second anniversary of the assassination of General Qassim Soleimani.
I happen to share my birthday with the most horrific crime ever committed by the US in the assassination of Al Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.
One’s birthday is fantastic but I will remember, honor, and make it a day for the martyrs, the resistance movement, and all those killed through police brutality.
The year 2022 could see an escalation of tensions between Iran and the United States if nuclear talks aimed at reviving the stalled 2015 nuclear deal collapse.
While analyst believe an agreement is still reachable as ongoing negotiations are entered into the new calendar, the United States and EU countries have warned that there are only “weeks” left to salvage the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA).
The ancient Romans used to say: ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’ (‘If you want peace, prepare for war’). Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, paraphrased this aphorism at last year’s 10th EU–African Union meeting when he suggested that arming African partners is necessary to help to silence terrorists’ guns, which reflected a significant shift in the EU’s foreign and security policy. This new approach—part of the EU’s increasing reliance on military-oriented tools to fulfil its goals to contribute to peace, security and development around the world—is in some measure embodied by the new European Peace Facility (EPF).
The Arab coalition on Sunday released footage and pictures it said provided evidence of Hezbollah and Iran’s involvement in Yemen’s seven-year war and the use of Sanaa airport as a missile launch site.
At a press conference in the Saudi capital, coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki showed footage of Hezbollah instructors training Houthis on how to use drones.
In some videos, boxes of drone parts can be seen stacked with some bearing Hezbollah’s logo.
Shûrâ, Or The Principle Of Collective Deliberation
When one evokes the relation between Islam and democracy, (1) the temptation is great to go to texts (Qur’an and Hadîth) and to Muslim political history of experiences of governance with analogies to modern pluralistic systems. (2) Hence the reformist currents of Islamic thought, which intend to promote the principle of shûrâ, which can be roughly translated as “collective deliberation”. On the theological level shûrâ refers directly to the Qur’anic text, in particular to Sûrah 42, precisely entitled “The Consultation”:
Even as Ankara rolls out a new scheme to contain the country’s currency crisis, the severe losses of millions of low-and middle-income Turks appears irreversible.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s emergency plan to prop up the battered Turkish lira and stop creeping dollarization has reversed the currency’s free fall for now, but the package of new measures offers no remedy to the loss of purchasing power plaguing Turkey’s wage-earners — from unskilled workers to white-collar professionals — amid soaring inflation.
Turkey’s economic turmoil might challenge Ankara’s grip over opposition-held areas in Syria, where in-house rivalries among the armed factions over financial resources have escalated.
With economic turbulence rattling Turkey’s economy, the question is rising of whether Ankara can maintain its grip on Syria’s opposition-held areas where the Turkish lira is the de facto currency.