Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-American political commentator and media host. He is the creator of The Young Turks
“We have to have two state solution immediately. I’m asking Israeli not out of hate….So many of my friends I grew up with are Jewish. This is not good for them. This is not good for any body. Please look into your hearts. Look. Be the moral that I know you can be. I’ve been to the Passover dinner where you pray for your oppressors. Now I breaks my heart. But I have to tell you, you have to pray for those you’re oppressing. And saying you’re not oppressing them after brutalizing them for 56-long years. You’re kidding yourself. And as a friend and an ally, I’m trying to get you wake up. You can not keep doing this.
Jewish peace activists staged a sit-in on Capitol Hill, where they called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war on October 18.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockCNN —
As Rabbi Alissa Wise scrolls through social media, her feed is littered with videos of dead Palestinian children, parents holding their lifeless bodies with screams caught in their throats and eyes sunken with grief.
Like millions around the world, she has been haunted by the gruesome scenes flooding out of Gaza, where civilians have endured more than two weeks of an Israeli siege and bombing campaign that has collapsed homes, destroyed vital infrastructure and sparked a humanitarian crisis.
The airstrikes have killed more than 4,600 Palestinians so far, including an estimated 1,900 children, and wounded at least 14,000 others, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Another 1.4 million people have been internally displaced, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
U.N. secretary general: I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies at the scale needed. Everyone must assume their responsibilities. This is a moment of truth. History will judge us all.
I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies at the scale needed.
It’s been over two weeks since the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent bombardment and siege of Gaza, which has taken thousands of Palestinian lives. The United States has stood firmly behind Israel, giving it a carte blanche to do whatever it wishes – without critique and consequence. And U.S. news media has followed suit. In this special episode of Backspace, Sana Saeed looks at how the U.S. news media protects Israel from criticism and condemnation.
President Erdogan’s recent troubles with the United States have prevented Turkey from playing a potentially constructive role in the early phases of the Israel-Hamas war.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers remarks at a youth organization’s convention in Ankara, Turkey. Murat Kula/Anadolu/Getty Images
The timing and scope of the war between Israel and Hamas have put Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a challenging situation.
At first, shocked by the violence perpetrated by Hamas, Erdogan reached out to his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog. However, the strength of public support for Hamas in Turkey, the mobilization of the Israeli military, and the start of the Israeli aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip almost immediately made him shift his position. The tone of his criticism of Israel for its campaign in the Gaza Strip has progressively become more strident.
This has not prevented Erdogan from seeking to play a mediation role; he initiated several phone calls to regional leaders, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Missing was U.S. President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched a whirlwind tour of regional capitals as soon as the crisis erupted, seeking ways to prevent further deterioration. He appears to have deliberately sidestepped a visit to Ankara, preferring to confer with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, by telephone. The Biden-Erdogan relationship has been strained for some time; Biden, too, has limited his contacts with Erdogan and been unwilling to invite him, for instance, for a state visit to Washington.
A major ground campaign in the Gaza Strip will display Israel’s overwhelming military force, but the country faces a steep challenge in its goal of eradicating Hamas, as well as in finding a workable post-combat plan for the territory.
What does Israel intend to achieve with a ground war in the Gaza Strip?
Israeli officials have repeatedly said their goal is to eliminate Hamas. By crushing the terrorist organization, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to reassert Israeli deterrence and show Israel’s enemies the high costs of attacking it. Israel has already launched a massive bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip and, more recently, raids on the ground, while signaling that it will soon launch a major ground offensive.
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