These days, Otto the Great, a German Emperor, found his final resting-place in Magdeburg Cathedral, Eastern Germany. Reason enough to focus on a forgotten chapter of German history: The long-distance slave trade crossing wide parts of medieval Europe and which was impossible to realize without imperial protection.
The Israeli military has told [Israel's] Supreme Court that residents displaced from the Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps will not be permitted to return at this stage, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The newspaper said the army intends to maintain a military presence in the northern West Bank camps in order to preserve what it describes as operational and security control, and has not provided a timetable for residents to return.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the three camps since the start of large-scale Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank. Palestinian residents and aid organisations have described the evacuations as abrupt and highly disruptive, leaving many families dependent on limited humanitarian assistance.
According to Haaretz, Israeli forces have also carried out extensive demolition and engineering works inside the camps, including widening roads and creating new routes intended to facilitate the movement of military vehicles.
The Israeli military has said such changes are necessary to improve access for security operations and prevent armed groups from rebuilding infrastructure inside densely populated camp areas.
Palestinian officials and rights organisations argue that the destruction and prolonged displacement are fundamentally altering the camps and could prevent residents from returning to their homes.
Human Rights Watch has previously accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with forced displacement and destruction in the northern West Bank. Israel rejects such characterisations and maintains that its operations are directed against Palestinian armed groups and are necessary for security reasons.
[Middle East Monitor on August 27]
[شبكة قدس الإخبارية, independent Palestinian news center on August 26]
.........................
Related Subject:
History of Palestine
Hanan Ashrawi (*1946), who quoted the above X-post, is a Palestinian politician, activist and scholar. Ashrawi started her career as a scientist at Birzeit University in 1990. She became a member of the PLO's Leadership Committee, serving as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. In 1996, she was appointed Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Palestinian Authority under Yassir Arafat. She became an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from where she resigned in 2020.
Count Folke Bernadotte (1895 - 1948) was a Swedish diplomat and nobleman who served as the Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II. He became the face of international humanitarianism in the final, desperate months of the conflict, negotiating directly with Heinrich Himmler for the release of prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. His work was a solitary race against time to save the last remnants of the Holocaust.
In the chaos of early 1945, Bernadotte successfully negotiated with the collapsing Nazi regime for the release of prisoners. This mission, known as the White Buses operation, rescued approximately 15,000 people, including thousands of Jewish men and women who were among the last survivors of camps like Ravensbrück and Neuengamme.
According to sources quoted, the absolute numbers might differ as for the total of people rescued or the amount of Jews among them. Nevertheless, the whole operation ended as an extraordinary success.
Editor's Note:
And there should have been even more. I remember a TV documentation I watched in my youth and which was about some other Swedish diplomat, not Count Bernadotte, at the embassy in Berlin who should have tried to save refugees from Nazi persecution with 'illegally provided' German passports in 1945, only weeks before the end of the 'Reich'. While the heavily bombed Swedish embassy had already been transferred to Hamburg, there was still an 'emergency bureau', left in a bunker on the abandoned embassy compound. That diplomat later allegedly tried to contact a commander of the Soviet 'Red Army' whose troops were just approaching Berlin. After his attempt to cross the military front at a rather quiet place, he should have disappeared without a trace. - I am sure that this wasn't just 'great cinema' about some mysteries of World War II but a pictorial record of what had really happened. Yet, I haven't heard the same story, still present in my memory, again at any time later.
Maybe Hanan Ashrawi, born into a Palestinian family in 1946, might have heard from her parents about the Jewish refugees that came to Palestine during the war. Those were probably much different from other Jews, followers of a Zionist doctrine, who simultaneously or later invaded Palestine, pressing for the foundation of Israel as a 'State of the Jews' in 1948.
يُختزل التوتر بين إيران وبعض الدول العربية في كثير من الأحيان في كونه صراعًا مذهبيًا بين السنة والشيعة، لكن هذه القراءة المبسطة لا تعكس التعقيد الحقيقي للعلاقات في الشرق الأوسط. فهذه العلاقة تشكلت عبر قرون طويلة من التفاعل الحضاري والتنافس السياسي والتحولات الجيوسياسية. وبين الإرث التاريخي للصراعات الإمبراطورية، والتحولات التي شهدتها المنطقة بعد الثورة الإيرانية عام 1979، والعوامل المرتبطة بالجغرافيا السياسية للشرق الأوسط، تتداخل عدة عناصر لفهم طبيعة هذه العلاقة المتشابكة. ومن هنا تبرز الحاجة إلى قراءة استراتيجية أعمق تتجاوز التفسيرات الاختزالية وتضع التوترات الحالية في سياقها التاريخي والسياسي الأوسع.
The tension between Iran and some Arab countries is often reduced to a sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, but this simplistic reading does not reflect the true complexity of relations in the Middle East. This relationship was formed through long centuries of civilizational interaction, political competition, and geopolitical transformations. Between the historical legacy of imperial conflicts, the transformations that the region witnessed after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and factors related to the geopolitics of the Middle East, several elements overlap to understand the nature of this intertwined relationship. Hence the need for a deeper strategic reading that goes beyond reductionist interpretations and places current tensions in their broader historical and political context.
إيران والعالم العربي: قراءة استراتيجية في جذور
التوتر بين التاريخ والمذهب والجغرافيا السياسية
Iran and the Arab World: A Strategic Reading at the Roots
of Tension Between History, Sectarianism, and Geopolitics.
Another related article written for blueprint news can be
found here. It is about the peak of Central Asian culture
at the times when Islam reached the Sassanid kingdoms
and the ruler was honoured as a 'defender of the faithful'.
The United States has threatened to exclude countries that continue to trade with Iran from the dollar-based financial system, and Iraq may be an example of how it implements that threat.
Washington has already imposed sanctions on a number of Iraqi banks accused of dealing with Tehran, but it has avoided taking measures that would destroy the economy of the two countries' strategic ally.
US President Donald Trump warned that any country that provides Iran with vital economic support will face dire consequences.
This may put Iran's main trading partners in the past few years, namely China, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and the Sultanate of Oman, in the targeting circle.
..........
Since its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has exercised effective control over Iraqi oil revenues in dollars, primarily through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, giving Washington exceptional influence over Baghdad's affairs.
Iraq is a rare ally of both the United States and Iran and maintains reserves exceeding $100 billion in the United States, and relies heavily on Washington's good faith to ensure the continued flow of its oil revenues and money.
In late 2024, Reuters revealed a fuel oil smuggling network that generates at least $1 billion annually for Iran and its agents in Iraq.
Other countries neighboring Iran involved in similar schemes may similarly face US scrutiny.
..........
Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at the British-based Chatham House think tank, said US pressure had raised the costs and risks of financial dealings with Iran, forcing Iraqi institutions to improve compliance.
But this pressure did not sever Iraq's economic relations with Iran, which bypass the financial system, leaving Baghdad stuck between its dependence on both Washington and Tehran.
«Countries like China or Turkey have larger economies and a broader ability to withstand pressure, Quilliam said. As for Iraq, it has much fewer alternatives and capacity for financial resilience.
Former Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab Affairs, Ambassador Mohamed Badr El-Din Zayed, said on Thursday that the tension between Turkey and Israel in Syria will not develop into a direct confrontation, noting that Ankara is a strong country and a member of NATO «NATO».
Badr al-Din Zayed's statement comes after Israel bombed Abu al-Duhur Air Base in Syria, warning that Syria was about to violate the status quo in security matters with Israel, by allowing Turkish forces to deploy at the air base.
The American envoy to Syria and the American ambassador to Ankara, Tom Barak, warned that Israel's targeting of Abu al-Duhur Airport in Syria could have led to a confrontation with Turkey, especially since it is located near the Turkish border.
The former Egyptian diplomat added, during his participation in the «Madar Al-Ghad» program with journalist Sami Kleib, that tensions between Turkey and Israel are currently escalating for reasons related to rearranging the Middle East, indicating that each party realizes that its expansion comes at the expense of the other party, which leads to a conflict during which each party seeks to maximize its tools and strategic presence in various files.
...............
For his part, the senior researcher at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Dr.Samir Al-Taqi, said that there are many controversial issues between Israel and Turkey in more than one file, including oil and the future of the Syrian army in the period after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Taqi added that the tension between Israel and Turkey is not new, noting that Israel wants to send a message that it will not allow Turkey to arm Syria, in light of the existing differences between the two countries regarding the future of the situation in Syria.
He explained that the media of the two countries do not know when the crises between Israel and Turkey will end, pointing out that the differences overlap with a number of regional files that witness competition between the two sides.
Trump: J'ai demandé au président sud-coréen s'il souhaitait se joindre à nos efforts pour désarmer l'Iran de ses armes nucléaires, et sa réponse a été négative.
Trump: I asked the South Korean president if he wished to join our efforts to disarm Iran of its nuclear weapons, and his answer was negative.
[Al-Jazeera الجزيرة on August 17]
Palestine Westbank
أحد السكان المحاصرين في بلدة القصرة بالضفة للجزيرة: لن نخلي بيوتنا ولن نرضخ للتضييقات التي يفرضها الاحتلال علينا
- الاحتلال أغلق الطريق ومنعنا من التزود باحتياجاتنا الأساسية
- الاحتلال يمنع أي زيارات ويسمح بوصول المستوطنين لبيوتنا لمهاجمتنا
One of the besieged residents in the town of Al-Qasra in the West Bank to Al Jazeera: We will not abandon our homes and will not succumb to the restrictions imposed on us by the occupation:
- The occupation closed the road and prevented us from stocking up on our basic needs.
- The occupation prevents any visits and allows settlers to reach our homes to attack us.
[Al-Jazeera الجزيرة on August 15]
Information confirmed by Al-Arabiya العربية on its Arabic radio station. They seemed to have had a telephone call from Nablus with one of the besieged Palestinians.
Latest News on August 17:
On early morning of August 17, AL-Jazeera الجزيرة reported on its Arabic X-account that a huge unit of Israel's occupation army has stormed a village near Ramallah.
مراسلة الجزيرة: قوة كبيرة من جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي تقتحم قرية المغير بقضاء رام الله
Nour News, Iran, on its English site on August 11 (above).
A foreign user comment was later republished on the Arabic site on August 13 (below).
[Editor's Note: Only days ago, I heard on CNN that some US journalist questioned Trump about an "unusual security measurement". Trump downplayed the matter and said he was used to accept everything the secret service would ask him to do without going into the details.]
Iran in Arabic on August 13 provided the picture of how Trump avoided an alleged assassination threat (below).
