For centuries, it was the dream of the Jewish people to reach the “Promised Land,” to have a place they could call home. 125 years ago, in the Swiss city of Basel on the banks of the Rhine, that dream began to take shape.

Unsuspecting of the horrors that the 20th century had in store for them – the Holocaust, mass migration from Europe and the exodus from Arab countries – 204 Jews from 17 countries came together to formulate the first political program of the Zionist movement, paving the way for the eventual creation of the Israeli state.

Though this historic event took place in Switzerland, it would not have been successful without participants of Russian origin. It was the Russian Jews who founded the first Jewish settlements in the territories that would become the state of Israel, developed financial support programs for their compatriots and even proposed the national symbol – the star of David.

For the Jewish people, the road towards a shared political program was not an easy one. Originally, the First Zionist Congress was to be held in Munich. Ironically, it was the German rabbis who opposed this: speaking out strongly against Zionist ideas, and especially against the creation of a ethno state based around the faith.

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https://www.rt.com/news/561709-125-years-of-zionism/

On Monday, 29 August, two Palestinians were arrested and eight others were wounded with one of them left in critical condition during a raid by Israeli military occupation forces in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

According to Mohammad Habash, the local secretary of Fatah in Qabatiya, “The Israeli forces raided the town at around 6:00 am, just as people were getting ready for the first day of school.”

According to Israeli media, the soldiers came under fire and were forced to respond, making one arrest in the process.

The IDF also raided targets in the town of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Allegedly in response to an attack on Israeli troops in the village of Tell.

“Israeli forces raided two neighborhoods of the city at dawn,” Palestinian journalist, Ameen Abu Wardeh, said. “There were no new clashes or casualties reported in the city, but Israeli forces arrested two Palestinians,” he added in his statement.

In the central West Bank, Israeli occupation forces closed the Palestinian town of Silwad, east of Ramallah. The closure of Silwad blocks off supplies for at least ten villages east of Ramallah and closes the access to the city. Forcing Palestinian to use unsafe mountain passes to access their workplaces and supplies. 

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https://thecradle.co/Article/News/14955

Syrian air defenses intercepted “a number” of Israeli missiles on Wednesday evening but several broke through and damaged the international airport in Aleppo, the Syrian state news agency SANA has reported.

The outlet said it was citing claims from military sources. “At around eight o’clock this evening, the Israeli enemy targeted Aleppo International Airport with a missile strike, which caused material damage,” it quoted one as saying.

Explosions were also recorded in Damascus, with eyewitness reports speaking of damage to residential areas and possible victims. There was no official confirmation yet, however.

According to one report, at least three missiles struck the Aleppo airport runway, taking it out of service until further notice. 

Much of Syria’s air traffic was redirected through Aleppo after a similar strike in June destroyed the runways at the Damascus International Airport. Israeli satellite photos showed significant damage to the airport. Syrian officials informed Russia that repairing the damaged runways may take “significant time.”

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https://www.rt.com/news/561924-israel-attack-aleppo-airport-syria/

DAMASCUS, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. forces have stolen 398 tankers of Syrian oil since Thursday and sent them to its bases in Iraq, Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.

SANA reported tha the U.S. sent 65 oil tankers from Syria to Iraq on Tuesday through the al-Mahmoudiyeh crossing, an illegal route established to send oil tankers from Syria into Iraq.

Recently, the U.S. is sending oil tankers into Iraq on daily basis from Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah, it added.

The U.S. forces, which have taken control of key oil and gas fields in Hasakah with the help of local Kurdish rebels, regularly smuggle the fuels out of Syria.

On Saturday and Thursday, a convoy of 89 and 144 tankers respectively loaded with stolen oil was sent to the U.S. bases in Iraq through the same crossing, it added.

The incident is part of America's ongoing violations of international principles and their involvement in plundering the natural resources of other nations and starving their peoples, noted SANA.

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https://english.news.cn/20220817/437cb1bd33ea40999cda96c521f31d21/c.html

While Washington is playing a leverage game, Lebanon is slowly collapsing.

Gas from Egypt

Under the agreement signed with Cairo, 650 million cubic meters of natural gas will be exported annually via the AGP. As it turns out, the actual supply of gas, as per the World Bank’s conditions, awaits US approval to exclude Egypt from sanctions imposed on the passage of goods through Syria.

The AGP is already a functioning pipeline that has supplied Lebanon with Egyptian gas in the past, but operations were halted in 2011 when Syrian pipelines were damaged during the country’s armed conflict.

Under the deal, Egypt will pump gas through the pipeline to supply Lebanon’s northern Deir Ammar power plant, which can then produce 450 megawatts of electricity – adding four hours of additional electricity supply per day. It is a modest but necessary improvement over the barely two hours of electricity currently provided by the state.

The World Bank has pledged to finance the deal on the condition that the Lebanese government implements much needed reforms in the electricity sector, which has created tens of billions of dollars in public debt.

The Syrian equation        

For the Syrian government, the arrangement is perceived as a diplomatic victory as it confers ‘legitimacy’ to the state and represents a step toward its international rehabilitation. The AGP deal was also hailed by Syrian Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Bassam Tohmy as one of the most important joint Arab cooperation projects.

According to Will Todman, a research fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the agreement is “a win for the [Bashar al-]Assad government. The deal represents the first major move toward Syria’s economic integration with the region since Arab Spring protests shook Syria in March 2011, halting previous integration efforts.”

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https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/14508

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