Author: Hakki Ocal
Seventy-seven years ago, Ghada Abu Muaileq’s grandfather was forced from his home in Gaza. Now Ghada herself is reliving that same trauma in the ruins of that town. Ghada is an English literature and translation student at the Islamic University in Gaza. Also known as IU Gaza, it is (in fact it was) an independent Palestinian university established in 1978 in Gaza City. It is (actually, it was) the first higher education institution to be established in the Gaza Strip. The university has (it had) 11 faculties capable of awarding BA, BSc, MA, MSc, MD and Ph.D. degrees in addition…
When I was being inculcated with the basic rules of reporting (ages ago), I was told that, “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, but if a man bites a dog, that is news.” In other words, the aphorism, attributed to several people and New York Sun editor John B. Bogart among them, points out that an unusual, infrequent event is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday event. You have never read about a plane that did not crash, for instance. Later, I learned that it is a mathematical basic principle of…
U.S. President Donald Trump actually does not have a plan. Intentions and expectations he has but no actual plan to make America great again. There are neocons stashed away in the deep state and – what professor John Mearsheimer calls the “restrainers” (more about them in a second) fighting for ascendancy in the Trump administration. When you have clowns as secretaries and department heads, all you will have in the Cabinet room is a circus. Now, that is the U.S. administration that Trump ended up with. No adults in the room. Here are the four out of seven headlines from…
Did the president of the United States really fluster Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week at the White House when he asked him to be and act “reasonably” in his dealings with his neighbors and Türkiye? Let me clarify a little more: Could a U.S. president disturb or annoy an Israeli leader by interrupting anything in U.S.-Israel relations? No, I think we need a clearer question: Is any U.S. official capable of disturbing any diplomatic, military or financial arrangement the Israeli government has regarding its neighbors? And regarding the U.S. itself. Carter incurs wrath “The Israel Lobby and U.S.…
Thousands of academics, officials, international rights activists and everyday people are horrified by Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Yet at least hundreds of Palestinians are being reported killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza every day since Israel’s war on Gaza restarted. Despite Israeli spies among the Palestinians, Israel has managed to kill mostly women and children, attacking shelters for the displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. In addition, the U.N. estimates about 280,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since Israel broke the cease-fire on March 18. As we all did for 417 days prior to March 18, we are watching…
We knew that all the nations around the world would eventually have to deal with the reality of uncertainty under U.S. President Donald Trump, but the amount of uncertainty, we realize now, is too much even for the Trumpian universe. I am trying to deal with it in my humble capacity. However, even after 60-plus years of experiencing the reality and unreality of international relations, I still find it incomprehensible and laugh whenever I think about it. Like you all, I forced myself to look on the bright side of the appointment of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. I…
“Can I go to the bathroom?” “I don’t know. Can you?” Most of us learned the hard way where to use which modal verb so that we give the correct information about the main verb. We would not always be ridiculed in front of the class! But it was not easy, not only for ESL students but also for natives. Perhaps U.S. President Donald Trump could put an end to the plan that has been seeking to create a Greater Israel and a Kurdish entity between it and Türkiye and Iran. The NeoCons and Globalists, as Trump said last week,…
If it is true that “might make right,” then what does American people’s divorce from the realities of that might make? U.S.-made bombs and American people’s tax money caused the deaths of 45,000 people and left 120,000 people injured and crippled in Gaza in the last 457 days. However, the American people are unaware of anything; they do not know what their government has been doing since Oct. 7, 2023. However, the American people are unaware of anything; they do not know what their government has been doing since Oct. 7, 2023. I think their ignorance of their government’s might…
I am not composing this farewell message to the Year 2024 out of spite. I carry feelings of hurt, jealousy and the desire to lash out, as it has been a year of genocide. A genocide, something we thought was buried in the heap of ashes of history in Europe 80 years ago and in Rwanda and Bosnia 30 years ago, raised its ugly head in 2024 yet again. What makes it even more hurtful is the fact that its perpetrators, this time, are the people of its first victims. What is even more upsetting than that, is that we…
Let’s get some things straight. 1. Syria is not a quagmire. Even if it has not been orderly, what seems to be happening is the ending of a one-party regime and a return to a real multiparty system. The government apparatus, including its army, is cooperating with the people who took up arms against the leader of the one-party regime and against the proxy forces of a foreign country that has been supporting that regime. 2. “A major war in the Middle East” is not inevitable. Nobody in the Middle East is crazy enough to attack a nuclear power. This…