The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

  By James M. Dorsey Hi and welcome. if you appreciate this type of content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to help ensure that independent journalism and analysis survive. Without your support this kind of hard-hitting, fact-based analysis would not be possible. To watch a video version of this story   or   listen to an audio podcast click  here.  Thank you for your support and loyalty.  Major General Avi Bluth, the head of Israel’s Central Command, switched roles this weekend. Suddenly, Mr. Bluth, in occupied Hebron to protect Israeli worshippers and settlers during a controversial annual pilgrimage, was not the guardian of vigilante youth but their target . Several dozen protesters, some of them masked, shouted “Traitor” and hurled stones at Israeli troops, including Mr. Bluth and border police. The troops and police were managing tens of thousands of pilgrims, marking the yearly Torah reading of Abraham’s purchase of the Cave ...

  By James M. Dorsey Hi and welcome. if you appreciate this type of content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to help ensure that independent journalism and analysis survive. Without your support this kind of hard-hitting, fact-based analysis would not be possible. To watch a video version of this story   or   listen to an audio podcast click  here.  Thank you for your support and loyalty.  An earlier version of this story appeared on Channel News Asia . Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s world just shrunk considerably. An International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza obliges the Court’s 124 members, or two-thirds of the world’s countries, to arrest Mr. Netanyahu on sight. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s world contracted similarly when the Court ordered his arrest in 2023 for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Even so, Mr. Netanyahu and Israel are...

  Associated Press interviews Mousa Abu Marzouk in US detention. Source: YouTube By James M. Dorsey Hi and welcome. if you appreciate this type of content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to help ensure that independent journalism and analysis survive. Without your support this kind of hard-hitting, fact-based analysis would not be possible. Subscribing will allow you to listen to the podcast, and/ or watch the video. To subscribe, please click here .   Thank you for your support and loyalty.  Hamas political bureau member Mousa Abu Marzouk knows a thing or two about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s decades-long support for the group. In fact, Mr. Abu Marzouk is Exhibit A. Thanks to Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Abu Marzouk operates from the luxury of Doha instead of rotting in an Israeli jail since 1996 when Mr. Netanyahu first became prime minister. In a move never adequately justified, Mr. Netanyahu, in his first year in office, dropped a request by his pred...

  Secretary of State George Shultz listens as President Ronald Reagan warns Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin in an August 12, 1982, phone call. Credit: The New York Times By James M. Dorsey Hi and welcome. if you appreciate this type of content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to help ensure that independent journalism and analysis survive. Without your support this kind of hard-hitting, fact-based analysis would not be possible. Subscribing will allow you to l isten to the podcast, and/ or watch the video. To subscribe, please  click  here .  Thank you for your support and loyalty.  Appalled by Israel’s carpet bombing of Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, US President Ronald Reagan didn’t mince his words with then-Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin. “I was angry. I told him it had to stop, or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7-mon...

  By James M. Dorsey Hi, if you appreciate this type of content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to help ensure that independent journalism and analysis survive. Without your support this kind of hard-hitting, fact-based analysis would not be possible. To watch a video version of this story   or   listen to an audio podcast click  here .  Thank you for your support and loyalty.  Gaza is gearing up to be a war on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s watch that he doesn’t want but may be unable to end. Mr. Trump will likely discover that assembling a Middle East team closely aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist coalition partners will not solve the problem. It’s a lesson Mr. Trump failed to learn during his first term as president when Palestinians from all political walks rejected his “ deal of the century ” that, at best, offered them a semblance of an independent state. Mr. Trump’s ...

  By James M. Dorsey  If you   value independent, fact-based analysis, please consider subscribing to my column and podcast. Paid subscribers help ensure the survival of The Turbulent World’s unvarnished journalism that lets the chips fall where they fall. You can contribute by clicking on the subscription button at https://jamesmdorsey.substack,com and choosing one of the subscription options.  To watch   a video version of this story or listen to a n audio podcast click  here   .  Thank   you for your support and loyalty.  Predicting President Donald J. Trump’s Middle East policy and his attitude toward Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu amounts to reading tea leaves.  The leaves are the cast of characters included in Mr. Trump’s administration when he takes office and who he excluded.  Yet even that could prove to be misleading.  “In the first Trump administration, there was that   ‘tyranny  of the...