Latest news with #WestJerusalem
Russia Today
27-07-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Israel to ‘do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin'
West Jerusalem is about to take the Gaza Strip under its full control, US Senator Lindsey Graham has said. Israel will establish long-term occupation of the Palestinian enclave as the US itself did in parts of Germany and Japan after the World War II, the lawmaker told NBC News on Sunday. No other solution but occupation would satisfy the Israeli leadership, the senator believes. West Jerusalem came to a conclusion 'that they can't achieve a goal of ending the war with Hamas that would be satisfactory to the safety of Israel,' according to Graham. Washington also allegedly came 'to believe, there's no way you're going to negotiate an end of this war with Hamas,' the senator stated as the US-mediated peace process between Israel and the Gaza-based Hamas militant group got stalled. 'They're going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin, take the place by force and start over again,' Graham said, referring to alleged Israeli plans. West Jerusalem could also offer Hamas fighters a safe passage out of the enclave in exchange for the hostages' release, he added. Earlier this week, US Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff said that Washington had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations and accused Hamas of lacking a desire to reach a ceasefire with Israel. A US-backed deal would have involved a 60-day truce during which Hamas would release ten living hostages and the remains of 18 more in phases, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The talks have stalled over conflicting demands on how to end the war. Hamas has insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as West Jerusalem has refused to end its campaign until the militant group relinquishes power and disarms. The conflict started in October 2023 after a Hamas incursion into southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. Since then, over 59,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Reports about Israeli plans to permanently occupy Gaza and resettle its estimated 2.3 million-strong population elsewhere have repeatedly emerged as the hostilities continued.
Al Jazeera
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Israeli police scuffle in West Jerusalem
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Israeli police scuffle in West Jerusalem NewsFeed A confrontation unfolded between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and Israeli police in West Jerusalem on Wednesday. The ultra-Orthodox demonstrators were protesting the recent arrests of several men from their group for refusing military conscription orders. Video Duration 01 minutes 43 seconds 01:43 Video Duration 01 minutes 17 seconds 01:17 Video Duration 03 minutes 07 seconds 03:07 Video Duration 00 minutes 54 seconds 00:54 Video Duration 03 minutes 18 seconds 03:18 Video Duration 00 minutes 40 seconds 00:40 Video Duration 03 minutes 00 seconds 03:00
Russia Today
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
A US congressman has nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after nearly two weeks of hostilities. Trump announced the truce just days after the US conducted unprecedented airstrikes on Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear facilities. According to the US president, the sites have been 'completely and totally obliterated.' Tehran has denied that its facilities were destroyed, while flatly ruling out giving up its peaceful nuclear program. Israel and Iran exchanged missile strikes shortly after Trump announced the tentative armistice on Tuesday afternoon. The US president resorted to obscenities while tearing into both sides for violating the ceasefire, saying 'they do not know what the f**k they are doing.' Israel has since backed down from further attacks, according to media reports. In a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Republican congressman Earl 'Buddy' Carter nominated the US president for his 'extraordinary and historic' role in brokering the ceasefire between West Jerusalem and Tehran. 'President Trump's influence was instrumental in forging a swift agreement that many believed to be impossible,' the congressman wrote in the letter, according to a copy posted by Trump on Truth Social on Tuesday. 'Trump also took bold, decisive actions to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions,' Carter claimed. The US president's leadership currently 'exemplifies' the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize, he concluded. Pakistan also formally nominated Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize last week, citing his contribution to brokering an end to the Asian country's conflict with India, which flared up after a deadly terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. New Delhi has denied that it accepted any outside mediation.
Russia Today
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Trump drops ‘F-bomb' over Israel and Iran
US President Donald Trump has resorted to obscene language in blasting both Israel and Iran for allegedly violating a Washington-brokered ceasefire. Shortly after officially agreeing to the truce, West Jerusalem accused Tehran of firing more missiles at Israeli territory and promised a harsh response. Iran has denied attacking Israel. The exact time when the ceasefire was supposed to take effect remains unclear. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they do not know what the f**k they are doing,' Trump told journalists on Tuesday before departing for the NATO summit in The Hague. DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Russia Today
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
The end of Israeli exceptionalism
Israel has now been at war with its neighbours for nearly two years. The latest round began with the Hamas-led terrorist attack on 7 October 2023. In response, West Jerusalem launched an aggressive military campaign that has since expanded to touch nearly every country in the region. The escalation has placed the Jewish state at the centre of Middle Eastern geopolitics once again – this time, dragging in Iran, a state that had long avoided direct confrontation through strategic caution. Now, even Tehran finds itself under fire, with US backing making the stakes far higher. Iran is left facing a grim choice between the bad and the very bad. But this isn't about Iran. It's about Israel, a country that has for decades functioned as the West's forward operating base in the Middle East. Since the mid-20th century, Israel has enjoyed a privileged position – a bridgehead of Western power in a volatile region, while also deeply enmeshed in its politics and rivalries. Its success has rested on two pillars: the unshakable support of the United States, and its own internal capacity for innovation, military strength, and a unique social model. That second pillar, however, has weakened. The clearest sign is in demographics: Israel is facing rising negative migration. In 2024, some 82,700 people are expected to leave the country – a 50% increase from the year before. It is not the unskilled or disengaged who are leaving, but the young and educated. The people who are needed to sustain a modern state are choosing to go. Of course, Israel's troubles are not unique. Like many developed nations, it is struggling under the weight of a decaying neoliberal economic system. The pandemic made things worse, exposing the fragility of the model and encouraging a shift toward a 'mobilisation' mode of governance – rule through emergency and constant readiness for conflict. In the West more broadly, war and geopolitical confrontation have become a way to delay or disguise necessary systemic reform. In this regard, Israel has become a laboratory for the West's emerging logic: permanent war as a method of governance. In the autumn of 2023, the Israeli establishment embraced this fully. Conflict became not just a tactic, but a way of life. Its leaders no longer see peace as the goal, but war as the mechanism for national unity and political survival. In this, Israel mirrors the broader Western embrace of conflict with Russia and China – proxy wars chosen when actual reform is off the table. At the global level, nuclear deterrence limits how far such wars can go. But in the Middle East, where Israel wages war directly, those constraints don't apply. This allows war to serve as a pressure valve – politically useful, even as it becomes self-destructive. But even war has limits. It cannot indefinitely mask economic decay or social unrest. And while conflict tends to cement elite power – even among incompetent leadership – it also drains national strength. Israel is now consuming more and more of its own resources to sustain this permanent state of war. Its social cohesion is fraying. Its once-vaunted model of technological and civic progress is no longer functioning as it did. Some in West Jerusalem may dream of 'reformatting' the Middle East – reshaping the region through force and fear. If successful, it could buy Israel a few decades of security and breathing room. But such outcomes are far from guaranteed. Crushing a neighbour doesn't eliminate the threat; it merely brings distant enemies closer. Most importantly, Israel's deepest problems aren't external – they are internal, rooted in its political and social structures. War can define a state, yes. But such states – Sparta, North Korea – tend to be 'peculiar,' to put it mildly. And even for them, war cannot substitute for real diplomacy, policy, or growth. So has Israel, always at war, truly developed? Or has it simply been sustained – politically, militarily, and financially – as a subdivision of American foreign policy? If it continues down this path of permanent conflict and right-wing nationalism, it risks losing even that status. It may cease to be the West's bridge in the Middle East – and become something else entirely: a militarised garrison state, isolated, brittle, and increasingly article was first published by the magazine Profile and was translated and edited by the RT team.
