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The Path of Benjamin Netanyahu

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Benjamin Netanyahu as a Leader The Israeli response to the October 7 Hamas attacks has been disproportionate and genocidal. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been held responsible for this unnecessary killing of thousands of Gazan people, though it is a collective decision taken by Israel’s leadership to wage a brutal war until they destroy Hamas completely.  Netanyahu’s public approval has eroded even in Israel. A s a leader and a politician, Netanyahu has navigated through pernicious and tenebrous political waters. He is a fervent follower of a right-wing and liberalism-based world order and a strong believer in military solutions over peace processes and negotiations. People close to him have observed that he believes himself to be “a messiah with a duty to protect Israel”. His one peculiar trait is that he can unflinchingly make unpopular decisions if he believes they are necessary to protect Israel. During his many years in the prime ministership, he has been ...

What is Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar's Legacy?

  Israel killed Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, one of the few leaders who was left in Gaza to lead the war on the Palestine side. For many in the Western world, Yahya Sinwar will be just a terrorist, and for many in the Middle East, he will remain a hero. It is difficult to answer who he really was amidst the chaos of misinformation and troubled history that has turned this region into a hellhole of violence and mistrust.  Obviously, Sinwar was a strong leader, a man capable of making the hardest of hard decisions, as witnessed in the October 7 attack of Hamas against Israel. The last interview that Sinwar gave to foreign media was with VICE News and journalist Hind Hassan in 2021. Al Jazeera Television has interviewed Hassan in the aftermath of Yahya Sinwar’s assassination.  Hassan remembers Sinwar as a man who unceremoniously walked out of a mosque in Gaza, surrounded by his colleagues, amidst an escalation of the conflict in 2021. She and her TV crew could walk up to ...

The World Must Have a Plan for Refugees; They Need a Home

  A Case For Refugees We have been witnessing a right-wing surge against accepting refugees. The latest in a series of refugee-related decisions, and the gravest of all rather, Donald Trump and his team have begun random deportations of "illegal" migrants in the name of his 'America first' policy. Yet, the reality constantly signals that all countries must revise their refugee policies generously and prepare to take in as many refugees as possible if we still claim our share of humanity. Understandably, people are afraid of their country taking in refugees in hundreds and thousands. The fear that a huge influx of people outside their cultures into a country might destroy its financial security, reduce their job opportunities, and change the familiar social fabric is real.  This fear fails to consider our long cultural history of accepting people from outside cultures.  Our ancestors, wherever their homeland was, shifted from one place and settled in another for many r...