Israel’s Illegal Occupation of the Golan Heights Remains an Obstacle to Peace

Israel’s Illegal Occupation of the Golan Heights Remains an Obstacle to Peace

During the period of the last Labor government in Australia, the general policy of that government, which was in power for six years from 2008 to 2014, was to abstain on votes in the United Nations critical of Israel. When the Liberal government has been in power, as it has continuously since 2014, the vote…

Two Deep Mysteries of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War

Two Deep Mysteries of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War

Forty-seven years ago, Egypt and Syria launched a massive surprise attack on Israeli forces dug into fortifications along the Suez Canal and Golan Heights. The ‘limited’ Arab objective was to recapture both strategic areas that had been seized from the two Arab states in Israel’s victorious 1967 War. Re-armed with modern – but by no…

Syria: Russia challenges the US through the Levant Gate

Syria: Russia challenges the US through the Levant Gate

In 2011, a significant Western-Arab coalition joined together and invested huge finance, media support and military resources in attempting to topple the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For this purpose, the alliance had established military operating rooms where US, British, Turkish and Arab intelligence services were established in northern Syria, Jordan and Turkey to prepare for…

Syria Between the Ottoman Hammer and the Israeli Anvil

Syria Between the Ottoman Hammer and the Israeli Anvil

Syria, uncomfortably and vulnerably, finds itself sandwiched between the Ottoman hammer to the North and the Israeli anvil to the South. Both power houses are, hostile, expansionist and occupy Syrian territory. When one thinks of a ‘safe zone’ along the Syrian-Turkish border on the Syrian side, one is reminded of the American-Mexican border. Both borders…