Salman Rafi Sheikh

With more than 30,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, dead in Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine in Gaza since October 2023, Israel is still far from achieving its key strategic objective, i.e., to completely eliminate Hamas. Hamas, first of all, is not simply an entity that can be bombed out of existence; Hamas is an idea with deep penetration into Palestinian society. The idea it represents – which also led it to launch its October 7 attacks – is that a violent struggle…

With Russia able to withstand – and virtually defeat – the combined military strength of NATO in Ukraine, its foreign policy and its diplomatic outreach to the rest of the world is bound to gain not only confidence but also become a lot more assertive than it was during the first year of this conflict when Washington launched its so-called “isolate Russia” project. Translating its military gains in Ukraine, Moscow, for instance, recently hosted Palestinian factions to unify the…

Following French President Macron’s remarks about sending NATO troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, shadows of a wider conflict in Europe are looming large. If that happens, it will be a conflict triggered by Washington’s obsession with expanding NATO to include Ukraine and the subsequent inability of the combined NATO forces to defeat Russia and/or beat it into negotiations – a failure that is now reinforcing European states’ fear of Russian dominance (another Washington narrative) in Europe…