“Oct 7 2023”

The last few months unfolded with a marked escalation in the activities of Iran’s proxies, militias and terror groups. Iran’s proxy Hamas launched its attacks on Israel, unleashing a barrage of violence across the region. Simultaneously, Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq escalated their assaults on US bases and personnel. Another proxy of Iran, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, also caused turmoil in the Red Sea, which is vital to maritime traffic. Their actions not only threaten regional stability but also sent shockwaves through global trade routes and raised concerns about the broader implications of their destabilizing activities.

Harvard is set to host a controversial Palestinian professor who said Hamas’ October 7 attack was ‘just a normal human struggle’ and blamed Israel for ‘making us take their children and elderly as hostages’.

Dalal Saeb Iriqat, an Associate Professor at the Arab American University, is due to appear at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy school on March 7.

Her appearance is part of a series entitled Middle East Dialogues, billed as conversations to ‘understand what is happening and to expose them to the best thinking on how peace may be achieved’.

China’s navy has started escorting Chinese cargo ships through the Red Sea, according to a shipping company and Chinese state media reports. This comes as many cargo shipping companies have decided to avoid the globally important trade passage because of attacks from Houthi rebels.

Since November, Iran-backed Houthis have launched scores of drone and missile attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea, acts that they say are in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in the war with Israel.

Many reports and pictures about the suffering in the Gaza Strip have circulated on social media platforms in recent weeks and months. But while some are accurate, others are fakes generated by AI.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is looking into sanctions against Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the territory.

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued financial sanctions against Israelis living in illegal settlements. Washington says the sanctioned individuals are connected to “escalating violence” against Palestinians.

“We are looking at sanctions on extremist settlers,” Trudeau told reporters Friday after an unrelated announcement in Waterloo, Ont., where he offered no update on a Canadian missing in the Gaza Strip.

With Iran seemingly intent on intensifying its confrontation with the US, it is hard to imagine a worse time for the Biden administration even to consider withdrawing any of the US forces currently based in the Middle East.

Prior to the latest Iranian-sponsored attack on US forces based in Jordan, in which three serving American service personnel were killed and another 34 were injured, the White House had already opened negotiations with the Iraqi government on the future of US and other allied troops based in the country.

Not sure Old Genocide Joe has much of a say in the matter.

Pro-Palestinian protesters spewing anti-cop chants clashed with police at a rally outside Columbia University on Friday — leading to nine arrests over several hours.

The “All Out for Palestine” demonstration kicked off at 3 p.m. and less than two hours later protesters waving Palestinian flags could be seen in footage posted to social media scuffling with NYPD officers in the street.

“NYPD, KKK. IDF they’re all the same,” the group chanted as at least one protester was seen being detained by police.

🇺🇸🚨‼️ At Columbia university… pic.twitter.com/H7mmyaQXrR

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) February 2, 2024

#BREAKING Multiple Protesters arrested at "All Out for Palestine" rally at Columbia University in New York City. pic.twitter.com/gDjyB4i4X0

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) February 2, 2024

Fears that the Biden administration’s bear hug of embattled Israel is the prelude to eating it alive were dramatically enhanced this week.

On Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the administration was “actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with real security guarantees for Israel.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Friday, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

President Joe Biden said in a statement: “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”

Biden and other top U.S. leaders had been warning for days that America would strike back at the militias, and they made it clear it wouldn’t be just one hit but a “tiered response” over time.

#BREAKING: As a result of the #USAF's airstrikes at the #IRGC linked targets in #Iraq, #KataibHezbollah has lost tons of its rockets and ballistic missiles. Watch explosion of the rockets as a result of the fire caused by a US airstrike at one of the KH's warehouses in #Iraq! pic.twitter.com/EW2KAkmE6r

— Babak Taghvaee – The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) February 2, 2024

The reason academic politics are so bitter is because so little is at stake, it’s said.

But to Paul Finlayson the stakes of his suspension from the University of Guelph-Humber are high indeed. Teaching is his career and his passion, and it has been taken away from him, without process or explanation, by an employer that appears to have been cowed by cancellers and bullies.

Trudeau condemns mosque attack, says Islamophobia ‘has no place’

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday condemned an attack against a mosque in the city of Mississauga, which is being probed as a hate crime and which rights advocates described as being part of a rise in Islamophobia.

Police said someone threw two rocks through the window of a Mississauga mosque on Sunday, on the eve of the anniversary of a mosque attack in Quebec city that killed six people in 2017. CBC News said no one was injured in the incident.

“Islamophobia has no place in any of our communities,” Trudeau said on X, formerly called Twitter.

No proof it was hate motivated, but like the Hijab hoax truth doesn’t matter to Trudeau.