„Wir werden dieses Dokument befürworten, weil darin auch unsere Prioritäten mit berücksichtigt wurden. Zudem hatte Russland an dem Text der Resolution mitgewirkt“, sagte der Minister.

Several recent articles have highlighted the importance of pro-Israel donors in influencing the political discourse at universities, in synagogues, and in U.S. elections. Two pro-Palestinian voices have lost their jobs at campuses in part because of such pressure (Steven Salaita, Bruce Shipman). Here are several stories/incidents that underline the importance of pro-Israel money and even blackmail threats. I’m ranging over several years, but the pattern is clear; and as Lawrence Davidson points out near the end of these items, elites are particularly vulnerable to donor pressure, and elites are crucial to the lobby because Israel has lost the grass-roots. In fact, the battle is now raging inside elite opinion, which makes donors crucial.

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Syria is still watching all developments with caution, Ali Haidar, minister for national reconciliation, told Reuters on Wednesday after U.S. warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in a second day of attacks.

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Turkey has requested safe zones in Syria since 2012 from the UN, but could not find the necessary international support.

Along one of the roads in the city of Ariha in the north of the occupied West Bank, merchants Khaldoun and Hassan regularly receive 30 tons of dates produced in the neighbouring Israeli agricultural settlements, in preparation for their transfer to one of the packaging factories built on the outskirts of the city, Anadolu news agency reported. Inside the factory, about 13 miners are working on “screening” the dates and repackaging them in bags that read “dates of the Holy Land” in both Arabic and English and “Made in Palestine” in order to market them locally, in the Arab states and in Europe.

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(4. April)

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Laut Quellen haben Moskau und Peking keine Einwände gegen diese Initiative Washingtons, auch wenn der entsprechende Resolutionsentwurf nachgebessert werden soll.

(22. September) Der vorliegende Entwurf der Resolution, die übermorgen im Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen beschlossen werden soll (Radio Utopie berichtete), repräsentiert nichts anderes als ein Ende des Völkerrechts und einen Bruch mit der Weltordnung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.

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In der zentralen Passage des US-Entwurfs für die Resolution, die SPIEGEL ONLINE vorliegt, heißt es: Jede Nation solle die Rekrutierung, den Transport oder die Ausrüstung von Einzelpersonen verhindern, die „mit dem Ziel in ein anderes Land reisen, terroristische Akte zu begehen oder terroristisches Training anzubieten oder zu absolvieren“.

„Wir sind bei allem dabei, was die USA tun, aber halt ohne Waffen, weil wir neutral sind“ – so kann man die Haltung der österreichischen Bundesregierung in einem Satz ausdrücken. Dies führt nicht nur Bundeskanzler Werner Faymann vor, wenn er Reden hält, sondern auch Außenminister Sebastian Kurz, der gerade in den USA weilt. Somit unterstützt Österreich Sanktionen gegen Russland „wegen der Souveränität der Ukraine“ und ist mit von der Partie (ohne Waffen), wenn die USA die Souveränität Syriens verletzen.

The US moved quickly to justify the aerial attacks as legal. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter that such attacks were permitted under a fundamental principle in the UN Charter that gives countries the right to defend themselves, including using force on another country‘s territory when that country is unwilling or unable to address it.

„The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe havens effectively itself,“ the letter states.

I have called and will continue to call for a full congressional debate and vote on any military action, as required by the Constitution. The American people deserve a public debate on all the options to dismantle ISIS, including their costs and consequences to our national security and domestic priorities.

The rapid escalation of another war in the Middle East underscores the danger of the blank check for endless war passed by Congress in 2001. I could not support this blank check for endless war or the 2002 blank check for war in Iraq. I have introduced legislation to repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force and continue to build bipartisan support for their repeal.

There is no military solution to the crisis in Iraq and Syria. In fact, continued U.S. military action will result in unintended consequences. We must remember the roots of ISIS – President Bush’s ill-begotten war.

The United States informed Iran in advance of its intention to strike Islamic State militants in Syria and assured Tehran that it would not target the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

But it remains to be seen whether this motley global crew, whose members have widely differing goals, can hang together for a mission that Obama has acknowledged could last for years, and which is bound to encounter difficulties – as well as both military and civilian casualties.

Congressional authorization for military action is „long overdue,“ said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and the most senior member of Congress to question Obama‘s legal basis for intervening in the Middle East. „We are living on borrowed time, and we are traveling on vapors.“

(18. September) At his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry used two weak arguments to justify President Obama’s war-making in Iraq and potentially in Syria.

First, he said the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which Congress approved right after 9/11, gives the President the right to go after ISIS, even though ISIS had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and wasn’t even around then.

(18. September) Congress is about to vote to authorize President Barack Obama’s plan to arm the Syrian rebels, but a top Democrat says a broader vote to greenlight the military fight against ISIS is coming after the November elections. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois told reporters Thursday that the Senate plans to craft, debate and vote on a new authorization to use military force (AUMF) when Congress returns from its recess. “I think it’s long overdue,” he said.