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2 weeks ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyThe winds didn’t just blow hot when Donald J. Trump recently touched down in Qatar on the first visit ever to the Gulf state by a sitting US president, which generated deals worth US$s1.2 trillion. They also blew cold, chilled by a long-standing, Israel-inspired campaign aimed to sully Qatar’s reputation.
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3 weeks ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyFive months after toppling President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is struggling to hold the state together and fend off financial collapse. Mr. Al-Shara’s efforts to prevent Syria from splintering into ethnic or sectarian statelets are complicated by the country’s powerful neighbours, Israel and Turkey. The two countries exploit Syrian minority aspirations in competition with one another and want to shape the country in their mould.
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1 month ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyRepresenting a gas and oil-rich state with revolutionary credentials, Algerian ambassador to the United Nations, Amar Bendjam, has been a driving force in getting the UN Security Council to condemn Israel’s war conduct and impose a ceasefire in Gaza, albeit with limited success.
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1 month ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M. DorseyPrime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu knows he doesn’t need to bother about this week’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on Israel’s legal humanitarian obligations to the Palestinians. Two months into blocking the entry into Gaza of all food and medical supplies, Mr. Netanyahu is correct to assume that the Court’s findings are a non-binding foregone conclusion. The hearings highlighted Israel’s international isolation.
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1 month ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyWith the United Nations World Food Program saying it had run out of stocks in Gaza and could no longer supply hot meal kitchens, Mr. Trump said he was pressuring Mr. Netanyahu to lift the blockade.
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1 month ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M Dorsey As he embarked on a Middle East tour, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto this week offered to accept an estimated 1,000 wounded Gazan Palestinians and “traumatised, orphaned children.” Mr. Prabowo, the leader of the Muslim world’s most populous country and democracy, was careful to limit those that would qualify to Palestinians in medical or psychological need and to insist that Indonesia would host the evacuees until they have fully recovered from their injuries and the...
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2 months ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyLike much else in the Middle East, Gaza’s fault lines are less linear than meets the eye. At first glance, it’s Israel, backed by the United States, against the rest of the world. This week’s United Nations Security Council debate spotlighted that divide, with US Interim Ambassador Dorothy Shea as the only representative to accuse Hamas rather than Israel of breaking the ceasefire, reigniting hostilities, and worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
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2 months ago | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyIsraeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s effort to reshape the Middle East aligns neatly with US President Donald J. Trump’s notion of big power geopolitics. In 2023, Mr. Netanyahu outlined elements of his vision in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. The prime minister held up a map that erased Palestine and showed the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, as part of Israel.
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Mar 5, 2025 | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M DorseyThere is logic to Donald J. Trump’s madness. Irrespective of the merits of the US president’s ethics, policies, and style, Mr. Trump’s grenade-throwing shock-and-awe approach has galvanised Arab states into action over Gaza, much like it did with the Europeans regarding their defense and Ukraine policies. “Love him or hate him, Trump has shaken things up… Before him, Gaza had no real roadmap. Now, the Arab world is singing a new tune: No Hamas, No Arms,” said journalist Amjad Taha.
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Mar 1, 2025 | 
southasiajournal.net | James M. Dorsey |James focuses
by James M Dorseysraelis and Palestinians jockey for position and attempt to move the goalposts as the fragile Gaza ceasefire teeters on the edge of collapse. Any number of things could spark the collapse. Israel has sent a delegation to Cairo a month behind schedule, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, not to negotiate the terms of the ceasefire’s second phase but “to see whether we have common ground to negotiate. ”Israel could conclude that the two sides have no common ground.
