Orientul Mijlociu

This past Memorial Day, as Americans honoured their war dead, the Biden administration was running interference for an Iranian regime whose Supreme Leader has described “death to America” as his official state policy. A report in the day’s Wall Street Journal described how the US was “pressing European allies to back off plans to rebuke Iran for advances in its nuclear programme”. This followed a confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that assessed Iran has increased its stockpile of enriched uranium to more than 30 times the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal — enough to produce three to four nuclear weapons within a week, according to experts.

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is an extremist group formed from al-Qaeda offshoots in Iraq and Syria. Since its formation in 2013, ISIS has worked to sustain a self-declared caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq. Ultimately, ISIS seeks to unite the world under a single caliphate, and to that end the group has begun to establish satellite operations in nine countries. Initially, ISIS gained support within Iraq as a Sunni insurgency group fighting what some Sunnis viewed as a partisan Shiite-led Iraqi government. The group has since garnered additional momentum as a result of the Syrian civil war, and has recruited up to 33,000 fighters from around the world. Thousands of foreign ISIS fighters are estimated to have been killed in battle, while some have returned—or are reportedly planning to return—to their home countries.

Accepting a ceasefire deal with Israel should be a “no-brainer” for Hamas, but the motivations of the militants’ elusive Gaza-based leadership remain unclear, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has announced that its delegation will return Saturday to Cairo to resume long-running talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar that would temporarily halt Israel’s offensive in return for freeing hostages.

U.S. forces persistently conduct military exercises alongside the SDF at the military bases established in eastern Syria, Athr Press says.

U.S. forces, alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), recently conducted live ammunition military exercises at the Vanguard camp (mouaskar al-Tala’ii) , situated east of Hassakeh. Preceding this, they underwent training at their military base established within the Omar oil field in Deir-ez-Zor.

Protests against the government in southern Syria have continued for a second week, marked by demonstrators waving the flag of the Druze minority, burning banners featuring President Bashar Assad, and even raiding offices belonging to his ruling party. Concurrently, clashes erupted between Arab tribesmen and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters across multiple areas in eastern Syria, resulting in at least 10 fatalities and several injuries. This information comes from reports by opposition activists and pro-government media sources.

The Israeli government has criticized others for peddling conspiracy theories related to the Jewish philanthropist.

From The New York Post to The Wall Street Journal, right-wing pundits have lined up to malign students across the United States who have rightfully criticized their schools for supporting the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. As the genocide continues to unfold — claiming the lives of 35,562 Palestinians, including 15,000 children, according to Al Jazeera at the time of this writing — students, faculty and staff have brought overdue scrutiny to the complicity of their universities, whose endowments are altogether valued at more than $839 billion per the National Association of College and University Business Officers and invested extensively in the Israeli economy, including weapons manufacturers profiting directly from Palestinian death. Rather than accept that students oppose their tuition dollars being spent to kill Palestinians, right-wing pundits have instead accused them of being “paid protesters” in the employ of philanthropist George Soros.

Le site de la Commission européenne a informé le monde assoiffé d’empathie et de compassion que «la huitième conférence de Bruxelles renouvelle l’aide internationale en faveur de la Syrie et des pays de la région en récoltant plus de 7,5 milliards d’euros ». Il a ajouté que cet engagement « témoigne une fois de plus de la volonté de l’UE et de la communauté internationale d’atténuer les conséquences de la crise syrienne et de soutenir les populations tant en Syrie que dans les pays voisins»[efn_note]La huitième conférence de Bruxelles renouvelle l’aide internationale en faveur de la Syrie et des pays de la région en récoltant plus de 7,5 milliards d’euros https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/fr/ip_24_2843[/efn_note].

The Biden administration’s plan for the “day after” in Gaza would be disastrous without the promise of Palestinian statehood.

With the war in Gaza in a brutal stalemate, the Biden administration appears to be talking once again of the “day after.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated publicly on May 12 that Washington has “been working for many, many weeks on developing credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding” in Gaza.

Islamists in Turkey do not teach schoolchildren that Jews have been indigenous to Israel for nearly 4000 years — since the Bronze Age — and that the reestablishment of Israel in 1948 was actually an anti-colonialist step.

Iran has recently reconciled with Saudi Arabia, with China’s backing, and it has been seeking to open a new page of ties with Egypt.

The Middle East appears to be perpetually at a crossroads.