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Tag: Middle East

Israel Receives $3.1B In US Aid While The Middle East’s Poor Struggle To Survive

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Every year, Israel receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid, despite the fact that its citizens enjoy a standard of living well above that of neighboring countries. And while the Middle East struggles through a historic refugee crisis, Israel is using U.S. taxpayer money to fuel its war crimes against Palestine and oppression of refugees.

The average income of Israel’s citizens is $34,990, based on 2014 data provided by the World Bank. For neighboring countries, that figure is far lower: Residents of Lebanon earn an average of $9,800 annually, followed by other Israeli neighbors including Jordan ($5,160), Egypt ($3,050), and Syria, where the average resident survived on just $1,860 in 2014, according to the World Bank’s data. For occupied Palestine, the World Bank offers a data sheet on the West Bank and Gaza, which estimates that the average resident makes $3,060 annually.

Against this backdrop of relative financial comfort for its residents, Israel received over $3.1 billion in foreign aid from the United States in 2015, the same amount received in 2014. The money goes directly to its military budget, where it fuels Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian population, as well as its defense of its illegal occupation of the Golan Heights.

13M Children Forced Out Of School By Western Destabilization Efforts In Middle East

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Years of war and unrest devastated education in the Middle East and North Africa, leaving more than 13 million children without safe or reliable schools across the region, according to a new report from UNICEF.

The report, “Education Under Fire,” which was released on Sept. 3, details the bitter cost of war on the future of millions of children. The report focuses on nine countries where millions have been displaced by near constant conflict and bombing since 2011.

More than 8,850 schools in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen are unusable “because they have been damaged, destroyed, are sheltering displaced families or are occupied by parties to the conflicts,” the authors noted. Just in 2014, 214 schools were attacked in the region.

Is The US Involved In 134 Acts Of War Or 0?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The United States could be fighting in dozens of conflicts around the world or none at all, depending on how one defines “war” or “conflict.” And despite repeated failures of U.S. military intervention to create global stability, American troops continue to be sent into more nations and more battles, usually without congressional approval.

Timothy McGrath, writing in September for MintPress News, made the claim that the U.S. is fighting between zero and 134 wars, depending on the definition of the word “war.”

The notion that the U.S. is involved in zero acts of war hinges on the premise that the country hasn’t officially declared war — with formal congressional approval — since 1942.

Iran Has 0 Nukes While Israel’s 80 Nuclear Weapons Are Real Threat To Peace

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

While the Iran deal is often touted as the only possible solution to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, both U.S. and Israeli intelligence reports suggest that country never intended to build a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Israel, one of its regional neighbors, possesses not only 80 functioning nuclear warheads but also the capability to use them.

Israel’s nuclear weapons program probably dates back to the 1950s, when U.S. surveillance flights first detected suspicious activity, according to a report from Bruce Riedel, a columnist with Al-Monitor, a news site offering analysis of events in the Middle East.

“President John F. Kennedy pressed Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion very hard not to proceed with a weapons program, arguing it would precipitate a regional nuclear arms race,” noted Riedel. “Under pressure from Kennedy, Israel agreed to American inspections of its French-supplied Dimona reactor, but then systematically blocked any serious inspection process.”

4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

It may never be possible to know the true death toll of the modern Western wars on the Middle East, but that figure could be 4 million or higher. Since the vast majority of those killed were of Arab descent, and mostly Muslim, when would it be fair to accuse the United States and its allies of genocide?

A March report by Physicians for Social Responsibility calculates the body count of the Iraq War at around 1.3 million, and possibly as many as 2 million. However, the numbers of those killed in Middle Eastern wars could be much higher. In April, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed argued that the actual death toll could reach as high as 4 million if one includes not just those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the victims of the sanctions against Iraq, which left about 1.7 million more dead, half of them children, according to figures from the United Nations.

Leader Of Iran’s Jewish Community Calls Netanyahu ‘Delusional’ Over Iran Deal

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, continues to campaign in favor of war with Iran despite last week’s historic nuclear deal. But a recent, important critic of his rhetoric comes from his own faith.

Haroun Yashayaei, leader of Iran’s Jewish community, took to the local media to strongly criticize the Israeli leader and voice his support for the Iran deal.

The opinion piece, titled “Your Time Is Over, Mr. Netanyahu,” was originally published in Iran’s Shargh Daily shortly after the nuclear deal was announced and appeared last Thursday in an English translation on IranReview.org. Yashayaei, who is chairman of the board of the Tehran Jewish Committee, was blunt about his views on Netanyahu: