By Oren Ziv KAMPALA, Uganda — “Why should Uganda take in the people Israel doesn’t want?” asks Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda, a Ugandan member of parliament who joined us in a cafe in central Kampala. “If they’re being sent by the UN, they’ll be treated like all refugees, in a temporary manner because of the problems in their countries,” Nganda continues. He insisted on meeting us, after hearing that a small delegation of Knesset members was visiting his country from Israel. “Uganda will not become a dumping ground that whoever thinks they cannot host people — that you throw them in…

Israeli officials often imply that African asylum seekers sent to Rwanda will receive legal status and the ability to build a life there. Testimonies collected in a new report paint an entirely different — and much grimmer — picture.  “I saw 400 people [in the Mediterranean]. They drowned […] many children died, I remember. I don’t have the strength to talk about it.” “[In the Sahara] people died and we buried them […] At night it returns to our head. It returns. I don’t want to remember. It wakes me up, what I saw, people dying, no food.” "[In Uganda] they…

Five years after they toppled the tyrants of the Arab world, the youth of the revolutions find themselves caught between the hammer of unemployment and the anvil of ISIS. By Houda Mzioudet TUNIS — When Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, few thought it would spark what would later become the Arab Spring. Five years on, with civil wars raging in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and the so-called Islamic State positing itself as the alternative to democracy, the region has witnessed radical changes. [tmwinpost]   In late January of this year, Ridha…

Video by extremist Sunni group shows execution of three Eritrean asylum seekers coerced into leaving Israel last year. At least three Eritrean asylum seekers who lived in Israel and were deported to a third country were executed by Islamic State militants in Libya this past week, according to family and friends who recognized them in a video released by the extremist Sunni group. The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants is checking the possibility that additional Eritreans deported by Israel were also executed. [tmwinpost] "I recognized my relative, T., from the photos published by ISIS that appeared on Facebook before the…

I wanted to believe that my mother's cries, who for years woke up in the middle of the night, crying in a mix of Arabic and Italian, were not heard by a single writer of Israeli history. By Yossi Sucary I wanted the believe that the Nazis' bullets, which struck the heads of my mother's 12 and 13-year-old cousins with frightening precision, accidentally missed the history books of the State of Israel. I wanted to believe that my grandmother, who was taken from the blazing heat of the Sahara Desert, where she lived as a free and loving woman, on…

Between the years 1948 and 1952, thousands of babies, children of mostly Yemenite immigrants to the newly-founded State of Israel, were allegedly taken away from their parents and given up for adoption to Ashkenazi families. Now a group of activists is telling the stories of the traumatized families who vow never to forget. (Translated from Hebrew by Maayan Goldman) The baby in the photo is younger than my Abigail. His name is Rafael - a tiny baby, seen here in his mother's arms. She wandered from Damascus to Beirut and onto the shores of the promised land, before being placed…

America and its Western allies should either reinstate the military draft or put down their arms, because their way of going to war these days is too unjust, too inequitable to abide.    Whenever I read or hear somebody say that America, the West, the world must intervene militarily in Syria, I think, very cynically, that if such an intervention were to get messy, as military interventions have been known to do, it’s not America, the West, or the world that will be risking its life – it will be Bill Jones of Omaha and Jane Smith of Denver and…

After a diplomatic disaster following the 2011 Security Council vote on Libya, and with popular opinion in Germany against him, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle realized he could not isolate Germany again. By Anselm Kiersch "... and, what a surprise, Germany!" So said Moussa Ibrahim, Muammar Gaddafis spokesman, when he listed the countries that had abstained from the vote for Resolution 1973, which legitimized the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya. Even South Africa voted for the resolution, though it bitterly regretted doing so when it saw how the operation was unfolding. In abstaining, however, Germany broke out of the Western alliance and appeared…

The real challenge facing the Muslim world today is how to stop violent protesters from becoming the face of the religion. In order to do that, we need more Muslims to get rid of their indifference and speak against the misrepresentation of Islam.  Research shows that the people behind "Innocence of Muslims," the film which disrespects Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and set off riots across the Middle East after it was uploaded to YouTube, are nothing more than a few Islalmophobic individuals. They produced a very a low cost, low quality film which aims to mock the Prophet Muhammad, and…

The U.S. Ambassador to Libya was killed by Islamic anti-American fanaticism. By now there's no need to point out the right-wing, anti-Muslim bad guys in the story surrounding Tuesday's attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Mitt Romney is one of those heavies, and the Egyptian Copt and American hardass in California who made the film "Innocence of Muslims," along with all those who promoted it on YouTube, are the others. (By now it should also be known that there was no "Israeli-American real-estate developer" named Sam Bacile behind the movie, nor was it financed…

The end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya proved that U.S. President Barack Obama’s doctrine of “leading from behind” was a success. But the Obama Doctrine is not only a new approach to war - it extends to foreign policy on the whole, and therefore has already begun to affect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict When U.S. President Barack Obama decided to let other nations take a leading role during the war in Libya, the criticism was quick to come from every corner. They claimed he was doing too little, that he didn’t consult, that he was scared of using the air…

The El Hana International is located on one end of Tunis’ famed Habib Bourguiba Avenue, directly opposite the Tunisian National Theatre. It is said to be a five-star facility, but at the moment, it resembles more of a hospice than a hotel. That is because leaders of Libya’s National Transition Council, the NTC, apparently made a deal with El Hana’s manager that fighters who fled from neighboring Libya could recover in their premises. Now, eighty percent of the hotel’s capacity is said to be injured Libyans recuperating from their wounds. On Thursday night, many of them gathered in the hotel’s…

People get their news in different ways. I learned that Gaddafi had been killed (or injured, or captured...as was be reported at various moments through the day) not by watching TV but rather via an unusual observation. I was just checking-in to my hotel in Tunis when I ran into the CNN crew. They were checking OUT, and are now on their way to Tripoli. Indeed, my hotel – strategically located across from Tunisian Television headquarters and the Tunisian Foreign Ministry – was a natural gathering spot for the international press. But now, it is quickly draining of guests, leaving…