Middle East Press On: Israel, Palestine, Holocaust, Iran, Nuclear: New Age Islam's Selection, 21 August 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
21 August 2025
The War On The Palestinian Thinker: Why Israel Is Systematically Erasing Gaza’s Intellectuals
Israel Needs An Agenda For September's Palestine Recognition, Not A Reaction
When Water Becomes War: The Moral Failure Of Global Governance In The Middle East
Compiled by New Age Islam Edit Desk
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The War on the Palestinian Thinker: Why Israel Is Systematically Erasing Gaza’s Intellectuals
By Ramzy Baroud
August 21, 2025
The killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community’s response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.
More journalists are likely to die covering the genocide of their own people in Gaza, especially since Israel has manufactured a convenient and easily deployed narrative that every Gazan journalist is simply a “terrorist”. This is the same cruel logic offered by numerous Israeli officials in the past, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared that “an entire nation” in Gaza “is responsible” for not having rebelled against Hamas, effectively stating that there are no innocent people in Gaza.
This Israeli discourse, which dehumanizes entire populations based on a vicious logic, is frequently repeated by officials who fear no accountability. Even Israeli diplomats, whose job in theory is to improve their country’s image internationally, frequently engage in this brutal ritual. In comments made in January 2024, Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, callously argued that “every school, every mosque, every second house has access to tunnels,” implying that all of Gaza is a valid military target.
This cruelty of language would be easily dismissed as mere rhetoric, except that Israel has, in fact, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports, destroyed over 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure.
While extremist language is often used by politicians around the world, it is rare for the extremism of the language to so precisely mirror the extremism of the action itself. This makes Israeli political discourse a uniquely dangerous phenomenon.
There can be no military justification for the wholesale annihilation of an entire region. Yet again, the Israelis are not shying away from providing the political discourse that explains this unprecedented destruction. Former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin chillingly said, last May, that “Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy… not a single Gazan child will be left there.”
But for the systematic destruction of a whole nation to succeed, it must include the deliberate targeting of its scientists, doctors, intellectuals, journalists, artists and poets. While children and women remain the largest categories of victims, many of those killed in deliberate assassinations appear to be targeted specifically to disorient Palestinian society, deprive it of societal leadership, and render the process of rebuilding Gaza impossible.
These figures powerfully illustrate this point: according to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, based on the latest satellite damage assessment conducted in July, 97% of Gaza’s educational facilities have been affected, with 91% in need of major repairs or full reconstruction. Additionally, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students have been killed.
But why is Israel so intent on killing those responsible for intellectual production? The answer is twofold: one unique to Gaza, and the other unique to the nature of Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism.
First, regarding Gaza: Since the Nakba in 1948, Palestinian society in Gaza has invested heavily in education, seeing it as a crucial tool for liberation and self-determination. Early footage shows classrooms being held in tents and open spaces, a testament to this community’s tenacious pursuit of knowledge. This focus on education transformed the Strip into a regional hub for intellectual and cultural production, despite poorly funded UNRWA schools. Israel’s campaign of destruction is a deliberate attempt to erase this generational achievement, a practice known as scholasticide, and Gaza is the most deliberate example of this horrific act.
Second, regarding Zionism: For many years, we were led to believe that Zionism was winning the intellectual war due to the cleverness and refinement of Israeli propaganda, or hasbara. The prevailing narrative, particularly in the Arab world, was that Palestinians and Arabs were simply no match for the savvy Israeli and pro-Israeli public relations machine in Western media. This created a sense of intellectual inferiority, masking the true reason for the imbalance.
Israel was able to “win” in mainstream media discourse due to the intentional marginalization and demonization of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices. The latter had no chance of fighting back simply because they were not allowed to, and were instead labeled as “terrorist sympathizers” and the like. Even the late, world-renowned Palestinian scholar Edward Said was called a “Nazi” by the extremist, now-banned Jewish Defense League, who went so far as to set the beloved professor’s university office on fire.
Gaza, however, represented a major problem. With foreign media forbidden from operating in the Strip per Israeli orders, the Gazan intellectual rose to the occasion and, in the course of two years, managed to reverse most of Zionism’s gains over the past century. This forced Israel into a desperate race against time to remove as many Palestinian journalists, intellectuals, academics, and even social media influencers from the scene as quickly as possible—thus, the war on the Palestinian thinker.
The Israeli logic, however, is destined to fail, as ideas are not tied to specific individuals, and resilience and resistance are a culture, not a job title. Gaza shall once more emerge, not only as the culturally thriving place it has always been, but as the cornerstone of a new liberation discourse that is set to inspire the globe regarding the power of intellect to stand firm, to fight for what is right, and to live with purpose for a higher cause.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-war-on-the-palestinian-thinker-why-israel-is-systematically-erasing-gazas-intellectuals/
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Israel Needs An Agenda For September's Palestine Recognition, Not A Reaction
By Jpost Editorial
AUGUST 21, 2025
A new Reuters/Ipsos survey earlier this week found that 58% of Americans say every United Nations member should recognize a Palestinian state, 33% disagree, and 9% did not answer.
The six-day online poll of 4,446 adults, with a margin of error of about two percentage points, also reports that 59% now believe Israel’s response in Gaza has been excessive, up from 53% in February 2024. Sixty-five percent want the United States to do more to alleviate starvation in Gaza.
These numbers emerge as recognition gathers speed among close Western partners. In 2024, Spain, Ireland, and Norway recognized a Palestinian state, followed by Slovenia and Armenia in June. In recent weeks, Australia announced it will recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.
France, Canada, and Malta have also announced plans to recognize a state in September at the assembly, while New Zealand says it is considering recognition. Britain said it will follow suit unless Israel takes specific steps on aid, annexation, a ceasefire, and a political process. This comes on top of well over a hundred countries that already recognize Palestine.
On the one hand, the world’s momentum looks detached from realities on the ground. A one-sided state declared into a vacuum cannot resolve core issues that still define the conflict: Hamas’s rule and arsenal in Gaza, a fractured Palestinian polity, Israel’s legitimate security needs along and beyond the 1967 lines, and the basic requirement that any state exercise a monopoly on force and accept Israel’s right to exist.
Recognition without a workable security architecture, governance reforms, and a credible plan for disarmament risks becoming an act of symbolism that hardens maximalists on both sides and leaves civilians no safer.
On the other hand, the poll also tells us something uncomfortable about Israel’s standing and our own diplomacy. After almost two years of war, it is nearly impossible to maintain broad international support without a clear political horizon, even among Americans who remain instinctively pro-Israel.
When friends move ahead with recognition, it reflects not only their domestic pressures but also their sense that Israel is not offering a plan others can rally around. That perception is sharpened when headlines focus on settlement expansions and coalition infighting rather than a coherent “day after” strategy.
Israel needs to get its diplomatic act together
Israel must get its act together diplomatically, fast, and we should do so on two tracks at once.
First, we need an unapologetically assertive diplomatic campaign aimed at our closest allies. That means naming a senior special envoy with the full backing of the prime minister and war cabinet, empowered to engage Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Canberra, and Wellington daily.
The mission: align expectations ahead of September, reduce surprises, and ensure that any recognition moves are tethered to concrete conditions Israel can live with, including firm commitments on demilitarization, security coordination, and education against incitement.
Second, we must finally table a credible “day after” blueprint that other capitals can support. The outlines are not a mystery: release of all hostages as a starting point for any sustained ceasefire; a restructured, reformed, and demilitarized Palestinian Authority that can govern Gaza and the West Bank with outside oversight – or an international body that would govern Gaza until local forces are able to.
In addition, a phased security regime in and around Gaza that guarantees Israel’s defense and prevents rearmament; a reconstruction fund locked behind strict monitoring and anti-corruption safeguards; and a political horizon that ties progress to performance. The point is not to promise the moon but to demonstrate that Israel has a sequence and a strategy.
Regional diplomacy is essential. Israel should work with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia on a joint framework that couples hard security guarantees with practical steps for movement, trade, and governance. If Muslim partners sign onto a realistic plan, Western governments will find it easier to support Israel’s position, and recognition talk will be channeled into a path that strengthens moderation rather than rewarding violence.
None of this requires illusions about our enemies or denial about the trauma Israelis have endured since October 7. It does require clarity about the political marketplace we are operating in. The American public now tells pollsters that recognition should proceed.
September is around the corner. Israel should arrive with an agenda, not a reaction.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-864836-
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When Water Becomes War: The Moral Failure Of Global Governance In The Middle East
by Peiman Salehi
August 20, 2025
The Middle East today is witnessing a transformation that goes far beyond conventional geopolitics or the competition for oil. One of the most urgent yet underexplored dimensions of its crisis is the question of water, which has increasingly become both a scarce commodity and a weapon in the hands of states and non-state actors alike. According to the Pacific Institute, in 2023 alone there were roughly 350 conflicts worldwide linked directly to water, and the Middle East particularly Palestine accounted for a disproportionate share of these incidents. This reality is not accidental. It reflects the way global climate change intersects with regional inequalities, colonial structures, and authoritarian governance to create a cycle of violence where access to water itself becomes a matter of survival, control, and domination.
For decades, international observers focused on energy as the main axis of power in the Middle East. But as climate patterns shift, it is water that increasingly defines the possibilities of stability or conflict. Israel’s control over Palestinian aquifers and its systematic restriction of water access in Gaza and the West Bank is a striking example of how resource management is turned into an instrument of collective punishment. For Palestinians, the denial of water is not simply a matter of inconvenience; it is a violation of their most basic human right, used deliberately to weaken their social fabric and impose dependency. In this sense, water becomes no different from a siege or a blockade: it is a tool of war under another name.
The instrumentalisation of water is not confined to Palestine. In Iraq and Syria, dams on the Tigris and Euphrates have repeatedly been manipulated by regional powers and armed groups to gain leverage over civilian populations. The deliberate flooding or drying of entire areas has been used both as a tactical weapon and as a form of coercion against communities already devastated by decades of war and sanctions. In North Africa, the tensions between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan over the Grand Renaissance Dam reveal how water disputes are reshaping the geopolitics of the Nile basin. These examples highlight a pattern that is not unique to one country but characteristic of the entire region: water is increasingly governed not as a shared resource but as an instrument of power, deployed in ways that exacerbate fragility and deepen mistrust.
Overlaying these conflicts is the accelerating impact of climate change. The Middle East is warming faster than many other regions, and prolonged droughts are already destabilising entire societies. In Syria, a decade of severe drought preceding the outbreak of civil war played a major role in driving rural populations toward cities, where state neglect and economic desperation created fertile ground for unrest. In Iran, recurring protests over water shortages reveal how ecological stress translates directly into political instability. In Yemen, the depletion of groundwater has compounded the devastation of war and famine, pushing communities into cycles of displacement and despair. These are not isolated events; they are symptoms of a systemic crisis in which the environment is no longer a neutral background but an active driver of conflict.
From the perspective of the Global South, the crisis of water in the Middle East cannot be separated from broader patterns of structural inequality in the international system. Just as natural resources such as oil or minerals have long been subjected to forms of colonial extraction, water too has been folded into systems of control shaped by external powers and neoliberal institutions. Privatisation schemes, often promoted by global financial institutions, commodify access to water and place it in the hands of corporate actors whose logic of profit directly contradicts the principle of universal human rights. For vulnerable populations in Gaza, Basra, or Sana’a, the question is not merely ecological but profoundly political: who controls the flow of life itself?
The human cost of these dynamics is staggering. Water scarcity strikes hardest at the most vulnerable children, women, refugees, and the poor who bear the brunt of disease, malnutrition, and displacement. When families must choose between buying water or food, the very notion of human dignity is stripped away. In refugee camps across the region, inadequate water supply is linked to rising health crises, while urban populations face soaring prices as corporations exploit scarcity. To speak of water in the Middle East is therefore to speak of justice, of whose lives are considered expendable in a system that treats water as a weapon rather than as a shared right.
At the same time, the weaponisation of water reveals a profound moral failure of the international community. Global powers that once justified their interventions in the Middle East with rhetoric about human rights remain silent when basic rights are violated through the denial of water. This silence reflects a double standard in which ecological violence is normalised when it serves geopolitical interests. It also underscores how little regard is given to the voices of the Global South, where communities consistently insist that climate justice cannot be divorced from political justice. To demand fair access to water is to demand a reordering of priorities that places human survival above strategic advantage.
The irony of the current moment is that while the West proclaims its commitment to universal values, it is in fact the countries of the Global South that articulate a more compelling vision of planetary justice. In Latin America, Africa, and Asia, movements have emerged insisting that water is a common; inseparable from human dignity and beyond the logic of commodification. This resonates deeply in the Middle East, where communities understand that peace cannot be built on pipelines of oil or weapons, but only on the guarantee that every person can drink, irrigate, and live without fear of thirst. Such a vision requires not only local cooperation but also a radical shift in global governance, one that dismantles the structures of environmental colonialism and affirms water as a fundamental right.
The Middle East stands today at a crossroads where climate change, conflict, and inequality converge. If water continues to be treated as a weapon, the region will face not only deeper wars but also the erosion of any possibility of trust among its peoples. Yet the very urgency of this crisis also opens a space for a new discourse one that reframes water not as an object of control but as a foundation for coexistence. To imagine such a future is not naïve; it is the only realistic response to a world where climate shocks are intensifying and old paradigms of power are collapsing. For those of us in the Global South, the lesson is clear: the struggle for justice in the twenty-first century is inseparable from the struggle for water. To defend the right to water is to defend the possibility of peace, dignity, and life itself.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250820-when-water-becomes-war-the-moral-failure-of-global-governance-in-the-middle-east/
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