Orientul Mijlociu

The IDF is registering great achievements in Operation Guardians of the Walls, but meanwhile the house appears to be collapsing from within.

As Israel battles its way through one of the most intense conflicts the country has experienced in recent years, the IDF is pushing how strongly it is striking Gaza and how far it’s setting Hamas back in Operation “Guardians of the Walls.” But while the IDF is standing strong against Hamas, the country is being torn apart by a war from within.

The German-Ottoman jihadization of Islam during World War I led to the development of the first Sunni theory of Islamism. It called for Islamic lands to run their regions under one global brotherhood and to fight enemies according to Islamic rules. Abd al-Malik Hamza Bey developed the theory during World War I; he favored an interfaith coalition with “friendly states” (the Central Powers) against “enemy states” (the Allied Powers of England, France, and Russia). Once glorious lands would seek peace when the colonialists left, assured Hamza, who justified an anticolonial jihad. Since his theory led Islamists into global struggles, it is important to analyze the text that he printed with his co-editor Abd al-Aziz Jawish.

La polémique autour de la grande mosquée de Strasbourg a révélé l’ampleur de l’influence grandissante de l’islam turc sur le sol français. Cette communauté minoritaire s’est imposée dans les instances musulmanes et près de 50% des imams détachés en France sont issus de ses rangs. Le président Erdogan est à la manœuvre. C’est une grande partie du problème…

Russia is expanding its navy base at the Syrian port of Tartus and planning to construct a floating dock to boost the port’s ship repair facilities, according to Russian military officials.

The move comes only weeks after the Russian military extended one of the runways at its Hmeimim airbase, adding to its military foothold in the eastern Mediterranean. The floating dock is scheduled to be completed next year, says Russia’s TASS news agency, quoting military officials.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says samples taken from the Natanz nuclear facility show Iran has enriched uranium to up to 63 percent, and that the purity level is “consistent with the fluctuations” announced by the Islamic Republic.

“According to Iran, fluctuations of the enrichment levels… were experienced,” the IAEA said on Tuesday in a confidential report to its member states, seen by Reuters.

Several commanders of the Hamas militant group have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Israel announced Wednesday, as clashes between the two sides escalate.

Hamas said in a statement that the leader of its military operation in Gaza City, Bassem Issa, and other senior military officials were killed in the attacks.

The rapid escalation of violence, including Israeli air attack, resulting in civil war type conditions in parts of Israel and Palestine territories is deeply distressing and coming as it does in pandemic times threatens to move towards serious humanitarian crisis. The crisis can also widen, leading to violence and tensions in other parts of the volatile region.

The rapid escalation of violence could not have happened just like that on its own. It appears that Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his fifth and highly criticized as well as unstable term as Prime Minister, used a time of tensions to incite violence in such a way as would secure his endangered position in the top post of the country.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has rejected the Pentagon’s claims that speedboats belonging to the elite Iranian force sparked an encounter with the US vessels, warning the Americans not to endanger shipping security in the Persian Gulf through “provocative” and “unprofessional” behavior.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the IRGC said the US navy’s account of the encounter in the strategic Hormuz Strait was “untrue” and part of an “escape-forward” strategy, calling on the American navy to refrain from “unprofessional behavior” and respect maritime regulations.

The Palestinians are upset because Jews are being permitted to tour the Temple Mount. The Palestinians do not want to see Jews visiting their holy site; they do not want to see Jews in Jerusalem, and they do not want to see any Jew at all in the land that stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

No one is disputing the Palestinians’ right to protest Israeli policies. Yet when the protests turn into large pro-Hamas demonstrations, with calls for bombing Tel Aviv and killing Jews, they expose the true deadly intention of the protesters.