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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Sunday, May 21, 2017, to participate in the inaugural opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The Middle East nearly disappeared from U.S. media coverage in 2017

Allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. elections dominated the news cycle last year. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict hardly made a dent, confirming that the American public no longer cares a great deal about the issue. By Jim Lobe Except for the ongoing war in Syria, coverage of the Middle East by the evening news programs of…

By +972 Magazine February 8, 2018

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen with Israeli soldiers of the IDF Armored Corps during an army exercise in the Golan Heights, northern israel on October 15, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The Syrian ceasefire in the Golan is good for Israel

Netanyahu called Trump and Putin’s ceasefire in Syria a ‘bad deal.’ But it could be the one thing that prevents Israel from being dragged into war — whether by miscalculation or military escalation. By Shemuel Meir The dramatic announcement by presidents Trump and Putin of a ceasefire in “south-west Syria” earlier this month was greeted…

By +972 Magazine July 20, 2017

Illustrative photo of a bombed out building in Homs, Syria (FreedomHouse/CC)

The Syria that was once an icon of enlightenment and education has been erased, crushed under barrel bombs and proxy power struggles, as the world watches and waits to see how it will all end. What, after all, have we learned from history? Run, run away all you strong and invulnerable Israelis, and all you Palestinian…

By Samah Salaime December 16, 2016

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A Veteran marches in Moscow, May 2015 (Photo: Haggai Matar)

Israel’s forgotten heroes of the Red Army

This Holocaust Memorial Day, a group of young Russian-speaking Israelis is calling attention to the stories of their grandparents — Soviet heroes who defeated the Nazis, living on the margins of Israeli society. By Edi Zhensker and Berry Rosenberg A lot of us stare at them and wonder: who are these elderly people who speak…

By +972 Magazine May 4, 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears on state-owned television station Russia Today. (Photo by The Kremlin)

Why I quit ‘Russia Today,’ and why it remains necessary

Working for Russia’s state-owned media was supposed to be an opportunity to tell the ‘other side’ of the story. But it turns out that the U.S. and Russia — along with their mainstream media ecosystems — are equally horrendous. The inside story of nepotism, click-bait and propaganda at Ruptly. By Paula Schmitt The first thing I…

By +972 Magazine December 23, 2014

A sign marks the entrance to Birobidjan. (Photo by Yakov Rabkin)

A land without a people?: A visit to Russia’s Jewish autonomous region

A visit to Birobidzhan, where Jewish autonomy hasn’t exactly worked out — and yet, the sign for Lenin Street is still written in Yiddish and public monuments commemorate Sholem Aleichem. By Yakov Rabkin Last summer, after three months of teaching in Japan, I decided to return home to Montreal via Birobidzhan, in Russia’s Far East. The Jewish Autonomous…

By +972 Magazine December 15, 2014

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a joint press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry following their meeting in Jerusalem, December 5, 2013. (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The world is letting Israel get away with it again

The assault on Gaza has hurt this country’s image, and it doesn’t care. There’s no doubt that this past month of heavily televised overkill in Gaza – well, heavily televised everywhere but here – has hurt Israel’s standing in the world. The IDF has killed too many civilians, wiped out too many families, bombed too…

By Larry Derfner August 11, 2014

Catherine Ashton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (European Union / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Why the EU needs to rein in Israel’s settlement policy

An Israeli academic makes the case for Europe to contain Israel’s settlement policy with greater determination and more concrete measures. By Nurit Peled-Elhanan Times are very tough for both Israeli and Palestinian families. The death toll in Gaza currently stands at more than 1,000, the majority of whom are civilians. The death toll in Israel stands…

By +972 Magazine July 26, 2014

Illustrative photo of a militant (Photo: Shutterstock.com)

Syria: The moral imperative to act

Some left-wing writers and spokespeople look to Syria and see Vietnam. They are terribly wrong. The moral and historic duty of any progressive person is to stand by the Syrian people’s struggle for freedom and help them topple the genocidal Assad regime. By Assaf Adiv (translated from Hebrew by Ann Lavi) The U.S.-Russian Geneva agreement on…

By +972 Magazine September 21, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Obama puts U.S. on collision course with Russia

The Syria crisis doesn’t look like it’s going away. It looks like it’s escalating. What if Russia doesn’t get Assad to hand over his entire chemical weapons arsenal, as Obama – backed loudly, of course, by Netanyahu – is demanding? Is Obama going to bomb Syria like he’s been threatening? At this point, with…

By Larry Derfner September 12, 2013

World boxing champion Vitali Klitskchko at rally in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct 25, 2012 (photo: DS)

WATCH: World boxing champion makes bid for Ukrainian parliament

World Boxing Champion Vitali Klitshchko is running for parliament in Ukraine’s elections on Sunday. KYIV, UKRAINE – A popular personality in a country where sports figures do quite well, Klitshchko is promising to rock the political status quo. Some have said the boxer is being used by political elites to further their own causes,…

By Roee Ruttenberg October 27, 2012

Why aren’t we up in arms about Jordan’s nuclear ‘threat’?

Jordan, Israel’s neighbor, has a nuclear program. And, unlike Iran, Jordan and Israel actually have a history of military confrontation. So why isn’t Israel barking? Yes, Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan, but if the Israeli and American hawks set their sights on Jordan’s nuclear ambitions, they would shriek that a peace treaty is…

By Mya Guarnieri Jaradat April 9, 2012

Why a strike on Iran could amount to a suicide mission

By Jalal Nali The failure of diplomatic efforts aimed at providing Tehran with incentives to suspend its uranium enrichment in exchange for a transparent civilian nuclear program under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision has the international community worried that Tehran can no longer be engaged in meaningful negotiations. Suspicions are…

By +972 Magazine March 10, 2012