June 9th, 20220ALLENDALE — The FBI arrested Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley on Thursday over misdemeanor charges stemming from his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by throngs of then-President Trump's supporters, the Justice Department said.
Kelley, 40, of Allendale, is one of five Republicans in the...
May 28th, 20221BEIRUT — Lebanon’s intelligence chief said Thursday that he met with Biden administration officials this week to discuss ways he could help secure the release of six Americans who are being held prisoner or are missing in Syria, including Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who contributed to The Washington Post.
Maj. Gen. Abbas...
May 14th, 20220- Amer Zahr is a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy and president of New Generation for Palestine
On Wednesday morning, in the occupied Palestinian city of Jenin, Israeli occupation forces assassinated Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Since 1997, Shireen has been the face of Palestine for Al-Jazeera, the...
May 7th, 20220Palestinians are justifiably worried that the mandate granted to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, might be coming to an end. UNRWA’s mission, which has been in effect since 1949, has done more than provide urgent aid and support to millions of refugees. It was also a political platform that protected and...
March 11th, 20220The latest data from the United Nations showed that Israel’s demolitions of Palestinian property since President Biden took office have far surpassed the amount seen under his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Israel has displaced more than 1,300 Palestinians, a majority of whom are children, in the time Biden has been president. According...
January 12th, 20220Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022 as well. These are but a few of the issues.
NATO-Russian brinkmanship
Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the Black Sea region, Moscow has decided to challenge...
January 11th, 20220WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House and Tehran have exchanged harsh words this month, as Iran symbolically sanctioned a list of Americans in connection with the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike.
"We will work with our allies and partners to deter and respond to any attacks carried out by Iran," said White...
January 8th, 20220— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
When I told my parents that I was going to run for governor of Michigan, I could see through the windows of their eyes the emotions battling in their minds....
December 7th, 20210MAINE — The City Council of South Portland, Maine unanimously voted on Monday to elect the city’s first Muslim mayor.
Deqa Dhalac, 53, is believed to be the country’s first Somali American mayor. Dhalac won a City Council seat back in 2018, being the only non-White candidate for a Council seat in the Whitest state in the U.S....
October 31st, 20210When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the U.S. elections last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden administration, compared to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, was the conventional wisdom at the time.
Hence, unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President...
October 26th, 20210JERUSALEM — Jerusalem's mayor dismissed media speculation on Tuesday that a U.S. consulate for Palestinians in the city would be denied municipal services if the Biden administration reopens it despite Israeli opposition.
The rightist mayor, Moshe Lion, also said Washington's plan to reverse the Trump administration's subsuming of...
October 13th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. will push ahead with the reopening of its Palestinian diplomatic mission in Jerusalem, despite repeated objections from top Israeli officials over the development.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the reopening, which is opposed by Israel’s new cross-party power-sharing...
October 4th, 20210DETROIT — At a recent Detroit NAACP dinner, Governor Whitmer vetoed several bills put forward by the state’s Republicans to add voting measures that imply deep irregularities in the state’s voting procedures.
The bills follow a tumultuous November 2020 election, in which former president Trump falsely claimed there was...
September 23rd, 20210This article also appears in Metro Times Detroit through a partnership with the Race and Justice Reporting Initiative and the Detroit Equity Action Lab at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. It has been edited for style.
DEARBORN — Dave Serio, a third-generation Sicilian Lebanese American, came to better understand his Arab...
September 20th, 20210ISRAEL — Israel's former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in a Facebook video posted on Sunday that President Biden had fallen asleep when meeting the new Israeli leader, Naftali Bennett, last month.
A Reuters fact check previously debunked the idea that Biden dozed off, after social media users shared a video clip of...
August 27th, 20210— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
Back in June, well before any of us knew the sordid 20-year American adventure in Afghanistan would come to a crashing end just a few months later, I was asked to...
August 26th, 20210Suicide bombings claimed by ISIS killed dozens at the crowded Kabul airport gates on Thursday, causing havoc and chaos during the final days of the Western airlift of its allies.
Kabul health officials were quoted as saying 60 civilians were killed, including children. Earlier reports said at least 52 were wounded, while witnesses...
August 25th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — Overshadowed by events in Afghanistan, the first White House meeting between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was postponed until Friday. The Israeli leader is expected to push Biden to harden his approach to Iran, with few prospects their talks will lead to renewed movement on peace talks...
August 20th, 20210A unique but critical conversation on Israel and Palestine is taking place outside the traditional discourse of Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian quest for liberation. It is an awkward and difficult — but overdue — discussion concerning American Jews’ relation to Israel and their commitment to its Zionist ideology.
For...
August 20th, 20210The Taliban called on Afghanistan's imams to urge unity when they hold their first Friday prayers since the Islamist group seized control of the country, as protests against the takeover spread to more cities on Thursday, including the capital Kabul.
Several people were killed when Taliban militants fired on a crowd in the eastern...
August 17th, 20210— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
On Sunday, our wayward 20-year war effort in Afghanistan suffered its final death blow. The Taliban rode the U.S.-manufactured Humvees captured from Afghan...
August 11th, 20210Jonah Goldberg and Michael Ledeen have much in common. They are both writers and also cheerleaders for military interventions and, often, for frivolous wars. Writing in the conservative rag, The National Review, months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Goldberg paraphrased a statement which he attributed to Ledeen with reference...
July 23rd, 20210A plan under Postmaster Louis DeJoy, a nominee of former President Trump, could mean slower mail deliveries for people utilizing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
A part of that plan also raises first-class stamps to 58 cents from its current 55 cents, starting August 29. The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), the federal regulator...
July 8th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman said he held "a great meeting" on Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which they explored strengthening U.S.-Saudi ties and reviewed regional developments.
Prince Khalid, the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto...
July 6th, 20210The Biden Administration has extended and re-designated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Yemen into 2023.
TPS allows individuals from nations experiencing war, natural disasters or extraordinary circumstances to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis. Yemen’s TPS status was set to expire on September 3.
The extension...
June 25th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. authorities pursuing a sweeping fraud investigation suspect some 4,000 Iraqis of filing fraudulent applications for resettlement in the U.S. as refugees, and they are re-examining cases involving more than 104,000 others, according to State Department reports reviewed by Reuters.
More than 500 Iraqis already...
June 23rd, 20210CALIFORNIA — The Bay Area’s growing Yemeni community has made strong headways recently, by organizing an effort to secure much needed representation for Yemenis, Arabs and Muslims in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Local Yemeni groups, parents and allied organizations and officials worked towards bringing more...
June 18th, 20210Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is as much American as he is Israeli. While other Israeli leaders have made their strong relationship with Washington a cornerstone in their politics, Netanyahu’s political style was essentially American from the start.
Netanyahu spent many of his formative years in the U.S. He lived in...