The deepening Middle Eastern crisis and new conflicts may lead to a transformation of the political map of the region. Will Palestine become a new state? And if so, what about Kurdistan?

The White House is widely seen as being caught between a rock and a hard place, as it continues to attract harsh and widespread criticism internationally, from the domestic public, and from the powerful Israeli lobby in the US for its unjust unilateral indulgence of Israel in its bloodbath against the Palestinians of Gaza…

Israel’s war in Gaza has led to a virtual genocide of the Palestinian people: the number of dead and wounded has long since exceeded 100,000, many of the inhabitants of the enclave are suffering from hunger, and there is a glaring lack of medical services. But the Israeli authorities have not been able to eliminate Hamas, and their military actions have led more and more young Palestinians to seek revenge for the terrible suffering of their relatives.

The Arab-Israeli conflict will end someday, but the crisis itself will not be resolved unless Palestinian statehood is recognised. Turkey welcomes the beginning of the process of recognising the independence of Palestine, but has itself not yet joined in those efforts. Why?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its intention to prosecute not only Hamas leaders, but also to issue an arrest warrant for war crimes against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister. This caused a storm of protest in Israel, both from the authorities and from public organisations: Israel categorically refused to comply with the ICC decision, calling it shameful…

Israel brazenly carried out a massive invasion of eastern Rafah, despite global concern for the fate of the estimated 1.5 million Palestinian civilians who were unwillingly trapped in this southernmost city in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said its tanks had entered the Rafah crossing, which links the besieged Palestinian territory to Egypt, from the Gaza side and taken “operational control” of the vital border crossing. Israel claims that the Palestinian resistance movement…

The criminal war being waged by Israel in Gaza may be coming to an end as the Israeli military advances to capture Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. This point on the border with Egypt is providing relative security for the more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians forcibly displaced within the territory. The seven-month war, which has killed some 35,000 Palestinians and devastated Gaza’s cities, has led to an increase of tensions in the Middle East and brought Israel and the US to the brink of a military conflict with Iran and its regional allies…

For seven months, Israel has continued its targeted slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – the total number of dead and wounded, including those still under the rubble of homes, is approaching 130,000. Prime Minister Netanyahu continues this slaughter with Washington’s blessing, although outwardly the Americans say that they are trying to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to somehow help the Palestinian civilians…

Palestinian President M. Abbas announced the other day that he was reviewing relations with the U.S., given Washington’s veto of a Security Council Resolution that would have recommended granting Palestine full UN membership. It has become obvious to many that the Americans have never taken into account the interests of the Palestinian people when developing their policies. In fact, the goal of the American strategy has been to strengthen Israel. An ever-greater number of countries are abandoning the American military presence: recently, the authorities of the African state of Niger achieved the withdrawal of American troops from that country…

On 18 April, the US vetoed a draft resolution prepared by Algeria proposing to grant full UN membership to the state of Palestine, effectively blocking a Security Council decision to recognise Palestine as a state. Twelve of the fifteen Council members – Slovenia, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Mozambique, Malta, Japan, Guyana, Ecuador, Algeria, as well as Russia, China and France – voted in favour of the resolution, while the UK and Switzerland abstained (Palestine has had observer status at the UN since 2012). The US representative, speaking at the meeting, argued that Palestine’s full membership in the UN “is a decision to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians”.

In early April 2024, Cairo hosted another round of ceasefire negotiations in the Gaza Strip. However, observers note a lack of meaningful progress between the parties. The point is that the determined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unwilling to make concessions on the release of Palestinian hostages before the ceasefire, seeing such a scenario as a defeat for Tel Aviv at the hands of Hamas. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have a diametrically opposed view. Despite the hopes of the mediators, represented by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, that there would be space between the positions of the opposing sides, no consensus has been reached…

Israel is continuing its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the focus of a devastating war is shifting to the southern town of Rafah, threatening a massive catastrophe for the more than one million Palestinian refugees who have flocked to the borders with Egypt in the hope of humanitarian aid and rescue. Tel Aviv, represented by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the heads of the security services, has repeatedly declared the readiness of the defence forces to launch an operation. Each time, however, Israel has paused and limited itself to targeted military action in this direction.