Habib Siddiqui

mail Paul Thornton, the Letters Editor of the Los Angeles Times was really angry. By 14 October 2023, he just had to vent, using the LA Times website to do so. So what had riled him up? Well, it had been a week during which he and others had watched as “hundreds of civilian Israelis were massacred for the crime of existing in the Jewish state.” Thornton was aware that this judgment flowed from “a purely gut-level emotion.” Here is how he describes that feeling: “disgust—not just over the attack, of course, but also disgust at the reaction by some…who reflexively blame the victims or engage in endless whataboutism.” What, pray tell, is “whataboutism”? For Thornton, it is “the disgusting” practice of reminding us about Israeli policies toward the people of Gaza and suggesting that those policies, carried on consistently for decades, had something to do with the recent barbaric behavior of Hamas fighters. It would seem that for Thornton, you mustn’t argue this way—indeed, you are not supp...

  (Statement made at the United Nations Economic and Social Council Chamber on October 30, 2023). Good afternoon. My name is Vijay Prashad. I am the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. I am grateful to the Group of Friends in Defence of the United Nations Charter, and in particular to Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Joaquín Pérez Ayestarán of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, for this invitation. My institute, Tricontinental, has spent the past eight years closely studying the impact of unilateral sanctions, looking closely at the laws around these instruments and looking at their impact on the societies that have been sanctioned. Before I begin to present some of our thinking on these issues, I want to say that it is hard to focus on anything, really anything, while this cruel genocide takes place before our eyes in Gaza. That more Palestinian children have died in these three weeks due to the Israeli bombing than have died in total...

  An attack by hundreds of far-right Israelis on Palestinian students at the dorms of Netanya Academic College in central   Israel   on Saturday has left Arab students in Israel feeling profoundly unsafe on campus. "One cannot overstate the fear we experienced," one student recounted to Middle East Eye. "I genuinely believed my life was in jeopardy. We were trapped in our dormitory rooms for over three hours with a hostile crowd outside, chanting 'death to Arabs,' while the police seemed unable to intervene." The recent Hamas-led  incursion  into  Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1300 Israelis on 7 October, and the Israeli military response, which has thus far killed nearly 9000 Palestinians in Gaza, have sparked serious tensions between Jewish and Arab students at Israeli academic institutions. Throughout these hostilities, many  Palestinian students  have reported facing suspensions, typically receiving notifications via email accusing them of...

  Publishing unsubstantiated claims, telling only one side of the story, and painting  Palestinians as nothing more than objects in Hamas’s hands are all unprofessional mi stakes Western media makes while covering the conflict between Israel and Hamas, media experts and Arab journalists say. Experts and journalists who spoke to Al Jazeera said the systemic “bias in favour of Israel” is “irreparably damaging” the credibility of news agencies considered “mainstream” in the eyes of Arabs and others. As Western media organisations “ dehumanise Palestinians”  and “legitimise Israeli violations of international law” as Israel bombs Gaza, it is glaringly obvious that the vital historical context of the trauma Palestinians have been through for the past 75 years is being left out, experts say. One-sided On October 7, Hamas launched an  unprecedented attack  on military outposts and communities in southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and taking more than 200...

Critics are accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using "genocidal" language in a dramatic speech on Israel's war with Hamas in which he invoked the name of an ancient enemy of the Israelites from the Bible. During a press conference Saturday in Tel Aviv in which he  announced  the commencement of an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza, Netanyahu said the military's objective remains the "destruction of Hamas' military and governing capabilities; and returning the hostages home." The prime minister said both the government's war cabinet and security cabinet decided unanimously to launch the delayed ground invasion of Gaza, warning that this latest phase of the war could determine the fate of the state of Israel. The invasion follows the launch of retaliatory airstrikes in response to the Hamas terrorist group's  Oct. 7 attack  that killed over 1,400 civilians in southern Israel.  After quoting Ecclesiastes in his opposition to calls...