FIRST POST

When a senior figure from the Israeli Tourism Ministry was seen greeting Pakistan’s adviser on tourism at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London earlier this month, the brief encounter immediately raised questions about Islamabad’s intentions and shifting alignments, especially in the age of United States President Donald Trump’s renewed West Asia strategy.

Although Israel and Pakistan have no formal diplomatic ties, Pakistan has already found itself referenced in discussions about the proposed International Stabilisation Force for Gaza, an initiative that forms a central part of Trump’s ceasefire blueprint.

How the incident unfolded

The World Travel Market — held annually in London — is a major platform where tourism ministries, national delegations, airlines and travel companies from more than 180 countries gather to promote destinations and negotiate commercial partnerships.

The 2025 edition was held from November 4 to November 6.

A video clip recorded by attendees captured the moment when Michael Izhakov, the Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, walked up to the Pakistani pavilion and shook hands with Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, who serves as the Adviser and National Coordinator to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on tourism-related matters.

The video revealed a cordial exchange, prompting immediate social media buzz.

Israel and Pakistan do not maintain diplomatic relations, and Pakistan’s legal framework explicitly bars its citizens from visiting Israel. This prohibition has long been symbolic of Pakistan’s stated solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

However, a handful of Pakistanis — including a group of journalists and educators — have reportedly travelled to Israel this year despite the ban.

The presence of an Israeli tourism delegation at a major global event is not unusual, yet their visit to the Pakistan pavilion and the friendly nature of the exchange stood out because no official contacts between Islamabad and Tel Aviv have ever been acknowledged publicly.

What the Pakistan tourism adviser said

After the footage gained traction online, Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan issued a formal statement explaining the circumstances and denying that he had prior knowledge of who he was meeting.

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The statement noted that his delegation had independently funded its travel to London and was focused on promoting Pakistan’s tourism sector.

According to the statement, “During the event, a group of individuals from Israel visited the Pakistan Pavilion unannounced and met the Pakistani delegation without introducing themselves.”

How Islamabad reacted

At the weekly briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi addressed repeated questions from journalists about the incident.

He stressed, “I can assure you that if at all such a meeting or such an interaction took place, it was without authorisation, certainly without information to us and certainly without authorisation by the government.”

The spokesperson stated that the Foreign Ministry had neither approved nor been informed of any such contact.

Another major development occurred in September, when Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Daniel Rosen, the President of the American Jewish Congress, during his visit to New York.

Rosen is considered an important figure within US-based political networks connected to Israel.

Andrabi, however, described such attempts to associate the London exchange with larger strategic shifts — including Pakistan’s potential inclusion in the Abraham Accords — as unjustified.

He called such conclusions “too far-fetched” and advised media outlets to avoid excessive conjecture.

When asked about earlier reports indicating that Pakistani individuals had allegedly visited Israel in recent months, Andrabi clarified that such travel had not been authorised and would, if confirmed, fall under passport regulation violations.

He reiterated that interactions with Israeli authorities are not sanctioned by Pakistan’s government.

In another response, he stated, “I have not seen the report or any information on a meeting of the adviser to the prime minister or any public figure with an Israeli representative. I can assure you that if such a meeting or interaction took place, it was, certainly, without authorisation by the government.”

What Pakistani politicians had to say

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by ANDREAS KRIEG

By doubling down on the RSF, Abu Dhabi expanded the brutal civil war. It should now leverage that entanglement to push for deescalation

The fall of el-Fasher has done more than redraw the map of western Sudan. It has crystallised a truth long visible to those watching Abu Dhabi’s statecraft up close: when confronted, the Emirati leadership does not climb down. 

Despite two years of criticism and negative media coverage about its overt and covert entanglements in Sudan, Abu Dhabi has doubled down. Its primary surrogate, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), now holds the logistical heart of Darfur – and with it, a power base that can be monetised in gold, protected by cross-border routes and leveraged against neighbours. 

That outcome is not a fluke of battlefield luck. It reflects a governing ethos in Abu Dhabi that prizes assertiveness, retaliation against perceived slights, and the strategic accumulation of leverage over time. 

Pragmatism, in the technocratic sense, is less important than prevailing. Fifteen years of Emirati statecraft in the era of Mohammed bin Zayed have shown that for the United Arab Emirates, the question is not whether it “wins” a capital; it is whether it can deny adversaries a decisive victory, lock in access to corridors and markets, and outlast the news cycle. Yemen and Libya are cases in point.

This is why the popular shorthand that the UAE “seeks stability” so often misleads. In truly Machiavellian fashion, Abu Dhabi seeks advantage.

It does so with a style that is unapologetically transactional and, at the top, intensely personal. President Mohammed bin Zayed, the architect of this approach, operates as a strategist who sees deterrence and reputation as indivisible. 

Backing down invites predation; escalation resets the terms. Since the Arab Spring, Mohammed bin Zayed has been consistent: tie local actors to Emirati logistics and finance, reward compliance, punish betrayal, and cultivate multiple allies so you never lose your seat at the table.

Reputational cost

The mechanism is what some call “weaponised interdependence”. Over the past decade, the UAE has built a web of ports, free zones, air hubs, trading houses and financial services that reach from the Red Sea to the Sahel, and deep into the Mediterranean – a multimodal axis of secessionists. 

Those physical and financial pipes are matched by a constellation of state-adjacent companies and private vehicles that can move money, people and materials with speed and deniability. When Abu Dhabi backs a partner, it is not only delivering cash or kit; it is opening pathways into an ecosystem centred on Emirati nodes. As long as those pathways remain open, time is on Abu Dhabi’s side.

Sudan shows the model in stark relief. The UAE has invested across multiple layers.

It has engaged civilian figures who could front a technocratic reboot in Khartoum. It has cultivated ties to the regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), because no viable settlement can ignore the officer corps. And most powerfully, it has aligned with the RSF, the paramilitary that turned its Darfur patronage network into a war economy. 

That last choice carries the highest reputational cost, for obvious reasons: the RSF’s genocidal conduct has been widely condemned. Yet the same elements that make the RSF toxic also make it useful to Abu Dhabi. It can police key corridors, extract rents from cross-border commerce and gold, and hold ground in the west, even if the centre of the country remains contested. For an external patron, it is a bet on endurance, rather than on a clean victory.

Criticism from Washington and London has not altered this course, nor have European warnings about sanctions or reputational damage in global markets. 

The response from Abu Dhabi, when pressure mounts, is familiar: contest the facts, widen diplomatic channels, and reinforce facts on the ground to ensure that leverage does not slip. It is an attitude of defiance rather than accommodation, and it flows from a confidence born of structural depth. 

Keeping options open

No regional capital can match the UAE’s current combination of liquidity, logistics and diplomatic access. That confidence explains another hallmark of the Emirati style: keep options live on both sides of a conflict. 

In Yemen, Abu Dhabi cultivated southern secessionists, while hedging with anti-Houthi northern forces. In Libya, it backed renegade general Khalifa Haftar’s eastern campaign, while maintaining lines to businesspeople and municipal networks in the west. 

In Sudan, it can talk to Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian ex-prime minister, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) of the RSF, while maintaining channels to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his circle. If one door closes, another remains ajar.

But there is a price to this posture, and it is rising. Deniability – the lubricant of this kind of power – erodes with each drone video, cargo flight manifest and satellite image.

Middle East Eye for more

EARTH ACTION

Is awarded Francesca Albanese the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories as the person who in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s will has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and for the abolition or reduction of standing armies as well as for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Francesca Albanese has forcefully and unwaveringly worked against Israel’s full-scale war on occupied Palestinian territories, in particular Israel´s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. She has confronted Israel’s systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity in a truly global outreach. Further, she has brought governments, international organizations and people’s groups together to underline the responsibility of the world at large to act and to stop arming, enabling, and profiting from Israel’s ongoing criminal actions.

But first of all, Albanese has lifted up the very core of the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide for all member states to act to prevent and punish those who are perpetrating, complicit in and profiting from these atrocious crimes, and not merely to passively await a possible future verdict in international courts. Francesca Albanese has proven herself to be an exceptionally worthy and true “Champion for Peace.”

Contact Lay Down Your Arms

• Sweden +46 708293197 tomas.magnusson1984@gmail.com
• Norway +47 93039520 jones@networkers.or

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by PETER BACH

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”—the caption of Goya’s 1799 etching—was a warning against moral blindness, against reason stripped of empathy. It may not apply neatly to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, but his rise has had the same somnambulant quality: less a climb than an inheritance.

Installed in the White House by marriage rather than merit, he became his father-in-law’s most indulged adviser—a diplomatic novice handed the Middle East peace portfolio because family outranked expertise. Between 2017 and 2021, this young and slightly mysterious man who once said he relaxed by looking at buildings oversaw the administration’s “peace plan,” culminating in the highly transactional Abraham Accords—deals that normalised Israel’s ties with Gulf monarchies while leaving the Palestinians conspicuously outside the frame. Jordan, as I wrote at the time, kept its caution.

When the first Trump years ended, Kushner did what many former officials only dream of—he turned his address book into a balance sheet. In 2021 he founded Affinity Partners, a private-equity firm based in sun-slapped Miami. Within six months he had secured $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose personal approval overrode internal misgivings. Reuters later reported additional Gulf-state backing, the Senate Finance Committee since noting that Affinity has collected roughly $157 million in management fees—a tasty afterglow of office that would trouble almost anyone but the man himself.

Since leaving Washington, Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism in 2009, have kept a calculated distance from Donald Trump—part image management, part tactical retreat. The separation read as both self-preservation and positioning: close enough to profit from future influence, far enough to escape the chaos that once defined it. It is an image carefully sculpted, not slapped on like wet clay.

By 2024, as Gaza burned, Kushner re-emerged. “Gaza’s very valuable waterfront property,” he said—a phrase that landed like a Freudian slip, reducing catastrophe to real estate. He offered advice on Gaza’s reconstruction even as he pursued mega-deals such as the $55 billion Electronic Arts “take-private”—much to the chagrin of EA gameplayers—with the same Saudi fund that seeded his firm. In October 2025, amid a fragile cease-fire, the Associated Press credited Trump-era envoys—including Kushner—with quiet, back-channel involvement.

Photos of Affinity’s Miami offices show a family office disguised as a global fund: muted décor, small staff, white walls, and the steady hum of expensive air-conditioning. Tom Wolfe would have had a field day. Visitors describe Kushner pacing barefoot during long calls, gesturing with his phone. Meetings, people suggest, often end in polite vagueness rather than decision. The manner is frictionless—calm, confident, faintly antiseptic. Former colleagues recall the same vibe in Washington: rarely angered, never hurried, convinced that numbers could soothe politics. Even so, Kushner’s struggle to secure a permanent top-level security clearance was widely cited in Washington as a red flag.

Counterpunch for more

by JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER

What defines global capitalism today? Are we moving into a new age of techno-feudalism, or is monopoly capitalism still the dominant force? In this in-depth interview, John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review and leading Marxist thinker, joins India & Global Left to unpack the core structure of global capitalism, imperialism, and the new global economic order. Foster challenges the popular idea of “techno-feudalism,” arguing that capitalism—not technology—still drives exploitation and inequality. He explains why this narrative often reflects social democratic illusions about technology, welfare states, and the role of the Global South.

About John Bellamy Foster

John Bellamy Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, is editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. His research is devoted to critical inquiries into theory and history, focusing primarily on the economic, political and ecological contradictions of capitalism, but also encompassing the wider realm of social theory as a whole. He has published numerous articles and books focusing on the political economy of capitalism and the economic crisis, ecology and the ecological crisis, and Marxist theory: (with Brett Clark) The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift; The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology; (with Paul Burkett) Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique (2016); The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014); (with Robert W. McChesney) The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China (2012); (with Fred Magdoff) What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (2011); (with Brett Clark and Richard York) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (2009); (with Fred Magdoff) The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (2009); The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet (2009); (with Brett Clark and Richard York) Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present (2008); Ecology Against Capitalism (2002); Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (2000); (with Frederick H. Buttel and Fred Magdoff) Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment (2000); The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (1999); (with Ellen Meiksins Wood and Robert W. McChesney) Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution (1998); (with Ellen Meiksins Wood) In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda (1997); The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (1986); (with Henryk Szlajfer) The Faltering Economy: The Problem of Accumulation Under Monopoly Capitalism (1984). His work is published in at least twenty-five languages. Visit johnbellamyfoster.org for a collection of most of Foster’s works currently available online.

Monthly Review Online for more

ALTERNATIVES INTERNATIONAL

Interview with Gus Massiah by Catherine Tricot was published in Revue Regards on February 6, 2025

Catherine Tricot: How do you understand these tumultuous times?

Gustave Massiah: We are in a moment of structural crisis in the capitalist mode of production, a change in historical period that goes far beyond the election of Donald Trump. Even if Trump’s election dramatically changes the situation and introduces new uncertainties. Social, ecological, and democratic issues are being challenged and disrupted, and are being redefined at different levels: local, national, regional, and global. We are in a period of rupture, of structural crisis in the capitalist mode of production, but this does not mean an end to capitalism.

What are these disruptions that allow you to talk about a rupture?

I would say: decolonization and the rise of the South; ecology; democracy; and finally, new social relationships, particularly with regard to digital technology.

One initial consequence is that social classes are changing, starting with the financial bourgeoisie. Trump, Milei, and Musk have lost all sense of proportion, and this is the first time we have seen such a violent assertion of the power of billionaires. The productive class is also in turmoil with the transformation of work and skills. And, on a global scale and in every society, the rise of the working poor and the middle class.

A second consequence, linked to ecology, is the crisis of productivism. Class changes and the crisis of productivism are reflected in the rise of social movements that are both complementary and alternative to social classes: the women’s movement, ecology, anti-racism, immigration, indigenous peoples, housing and the city, and education.

These factors lead me to say that we are in a period of historic change, of crisis in the mode of production.

Is the rise of the far right around the world a reaction to these changes?

Yes, in part. But not only that. The rise of the far right is partly due to fear and rejection of social movements that are disrupting the dominant ideology. When Trump attacks women and trans people, he is violently expressing his fear of these changes.

To understand the rise of the far right, I asked myself what had happened in previous changes and crises in the capitalist mode of production. I realized that all the structural crises of the capitalist mode of production began with a rise of the far right, followed by responses from the left and then by a transformation of capitalism. This timing of crises is very striking.

To identify the crises of the capitalist mode of production, we can start with the structural financial crises of 1873, 1929, 1976, and 2008. Each financial crisis marks a rupture; it is the culmination of a period of crisis lasting twenty to forty years, with its social, ideological, and cultural struggles, often accompanied by wars.

The crisis of 1873 was followed by the Long Depression, which lasted from 1873 to 1896. It marked the transition from liberal capitalism to monopoly capitalism with the emergence of large industrial groups, significant intervention by banks, and the development of financial capitalism. The period began with the extreme right (and with Patrice de MacMahon in France) and continued, till around 1890, with the emergence of the new extreme right (with Charles Maurras in France). However, it was during this crisis that the First International was created in London in 1864 and the Paris Commune in 1871. These were the left-wing responses to this crisis of capitalism. This crisis continued with the second industrial revolution, from 1880 to 1914, which saw the rise of electricity, oil, and chemicals.

Alternatives International for more

by EMILY CATANEO

In “Born,” Lucy Inglis reexamines history through the lens of gender roles, medical authority, and bodily autonomy.

In 1545 in the Duchy of Savoy, northwest of what is now Italy, a woman named Isabella della Volpe became pregnant. As she approached full term, Isabella suffered what was then called a brain obstruction — likely a stroke — and died. Her midwife discovered that the baby was still alive, and her attendants pressed the physician to deliver via Cesarean section. But he refused, and by the time a barber-surgeon arrived to cut the baby out, it was too late: The little girl, named Camilla, lived only a few minutes. Amid the horrors, though, there was humanity and compassion: “The women who surrounded Isabella in her final days acted with autonomy and empathy in trying to save her daughter.”

For every Isabella, whose story was recorded in unusual detail, there are billions of other women who’ve experienced the pain, danger, sorrow, love, and communal joy of pregnancy and childbirth. It is this social, medical, and feminist history that historian Lucy Inglis sets out to chronicle in her latest book, “Born: A History of Childbirth.” Inglis started her career blogging and writing about Georgian London, which she followed up with a book about the history of opium. In “Born,” she continues her tradition of examining the sweep of human history through an uncommon lens: the mundane and yet extraordinary process by which human beings are conceived and emerge into the world. Her book joins a recent spate of work, such as Cat Bohannon’s “Eve,” that reexamines human history through an intimate female lens.

BOOK REVIEW — “Born: A History of Childbirth,’’ by Lucy Inglis (Pegasus Books, 336 pages).

“The story of how we are born is the story of us all, and so we must go back to the start,” writes Inglis, and indeed she means the very start. Her narrative begins during the Upper Paleolithic, tens of thousands of years ago, the era to which archaeologists date our first evidence of the history of childbirth: cave paintings of women giving birth among stags and bears. It continues through other glimmers of information about early humans’ experience of and culture around childbirth, from the ginseng and myrrh prescribed to pregnant women in Mesopotamia to the Venus of Hohle Fels, one of the world’s oldest statues. This Venus is a 2.4-inch figurine that was discovered in Swabia, Germany, which depicts a woman with a distended belly, genitals that “appear more like a wound than a sexual organ,” Inglis observes, and spread legs — quite possibly “a ‘real’ woman postpartum.”

In some respects, Inglis’ book is a history of technological advances. In the course of her narrative, we learn about many firsts. The first recorded pregnancy test dates from ancient Egypt, where women would urinate in a bag of barley and a bag of wheat to determine if they were pregnant with a boy, a girl, or not pregnant at all. The first recorded oral contraceptive dates to Cyrene, a North African Greek city-state, where women took a now-extinct herb called silphion to control their fertility. The first obstetrics manual was written in ancient Rome, and the first speculums and forceps likely hailed from Islamic Spain.

Undark for more

Around 900 years ago, a Maya scribe made Códice Maya de México, a sacred book that tracked and predicted the movements of the planet Venus. Today it is the oldest book of the Americas, one of only four surviving Maya manuscripts that predate the arrival of Europeans. A remarkable testament to the complexity of Indigenous astronomy, Códice Maya de México is on display in the US for the first time in 50 years.

Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you’re looking to learn more at home or want to make art more accessible in your classroom. This video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.

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by RAVI KANT

In a democracy, when the politicians thrive but the people don’t, what the system needs is not reform but rescue

When the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, it rode a wave of discontent fueled by corruption scandals, inflation and unemployment. Narendra Modi promised a new era, one built on Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (“Together with All, Development for All”). The promise was of governance, development and an end to “elite culture.”

A decade later, the record shows a more complex reality in which the slogan seems to have benefited the political class more than the people.

The Association for Democratic Reforms has released data showing that 93% of members elected in 2024 to the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, are millionaires, each of whose millions of rupees in assets total more than $120,000 in US dollars. 

India’s democracy is rapidly tilting toward rule by the ultra-wealthy, plutocracy in the making. Leading this trend is the very party that claims to end the elite culture.

A democracy for the privileged

In the general election of 2024, 34 (14%) of the 240 candidates who emerged victorious from the ruling BJP declared assets equivalent to $6 million or more, 130 (54%) claimed wealth between $120,000 to $1.2 million, while another 63 (26%) reported assets between $1.2 million and $6 million.  The assets of just 13 BJP winners (5%) were under $120,000 USD. 

In the main opposition Congress Party, 93% of the 99 elected members are also millionaires. Among other parties with more than 20 seats, about 90% of winners fall in the millionaire category as well.

In 2024, winning BJP members reported an average wealth of nearly $6 million compared with $2.8 million for Congress members.

Asia Times for more

by NADDA OSMAN

Facing global condemnation for war crimes in Gaza, Israel is turning to paid influencers, content creators, and AI tools to reshape its public perception

What was supposed to be a quiet meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a cohort of pro-Israel influencers last month has had a loud impact, revealing what has been described as a desperate attempt by the government to polish Tel Aviv’s perception globally, amid mounting criticism for war crimes in Gaza.

The influencers are estimated to have been paid around $7,000 per post across various platforms, all on Israel’s behalf, according to media reports.

Records filed with the Department of Justice show that the Israeli government hired a firm called Bridges Partners LLC to manage the influencer network, which has been code-named “Esther Project”.

Bridges states its work was to “assist with promoting cultural interchange between the United States and Israel,” while contracts show up to $900,000 in payments to be divided up over several months to cover upfront payments, concept development, influencer fees, production and agency costs.

In the New York meeting with influencers, Netanyahu stressed that social media is a new tool to counter waning public support for Israel and its growing pariah status amid the two-year war on Gaza.

The UN, human rights organisations, and legal experts have all labelled Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, while the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity, and a genocide case is pending at the ICJ.

Public support for Israel in Europe and the United States is at an all-time low, with more Americans now sympathising with Palestinians rather than Israel for the first time since polling began in 1998.

In late September, more countries, such as the UK, Canada, France, Australia, and Portugal, formally recognised a Palestinian state.

Meet the influencers

A range of influencers from different sectors attended the roundtable. Among them were Lizzy Savetsky, a lifestyle and fashion figure, Miriam Ezagui, a US-based nurse who posts on TikTok about Jewish orthodox life and traditions, as well as Zach Sage Fox, who posts pro-Israel videos.

In February, Savetsky shared a video of Jewish supremacist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a violent fanatic who routinely espoused anti-Arab and Palestinian rhetoric. In a caption to one of her social media posts, Savetsky writes, “The only language Arabs understand is force and fear”, paraphrasing Kahane.

Yair Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s son, who has been at the centre of several social media scandals in recent years, was also among the influencers. Most recently, he denied that there was a famine in Gaza, blaming images of starving children on genetic issues.

A New York City-based influencer, Debra Lea, who attended the meeting, posted a photo saying it was an “honour” to meet Netanyahu, calling him “one of the greatest politicians of all time”.

In response to a question she posed at the meeting, Netanyahu hinted at his strategy to have a larger Israeli influence on TikTok.

“Weapons change over time. We can’t fight today with swords or with cavalry, we have these new things – drones – I won’t get into that. But we have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefield in which we’re engaged – and the most important one is social media,” he said.

‘Paid propaganda’

The meeting has garnered a critical response from media commentators and experts, who say that Israel is becoming increasingly desperate in attempts to improve its public image.

New Arab for more