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Since the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, Cheney has consistently been cast as the chief villain of what has proved to be one of the largest foreign policy blunders in U.S. history, and nearly 10 years after he left office, Vice only served to bolster his image as a mastermind of evil. He was so universally despised that when he left office in 2009, he had an approval rating of 13%, a mark so low that no major-party figure has even come close to it in recent memory.

Last week, Cheney followed the lead of his daughter Liz, a former member of Congress, and released a statement about the 2024 election in which he pledged to support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris, for her part, welcomed the endorsement of Cheney and his daughter.

“What they both, as leaders who are well respected, are making an important statement that it’s OK and if not important to put country above party,” Harris said.

For a Democrat to call Cheney “well respected” is akin to hell freezing over. The party that once called for his prosecution as a war criminal has embraced him wholeheartedly in one of the most remarkable about-faces of all time and one that reeks of political opportunism.

Shortly after Kamala Harris released her policy agenda on Sunday evening, users on X spotted something in the metadata: Much of the language appears to have been lifted from Joe Biden’s campaign website.

On Sunday night, X user Corinne Green pointed out that the issues section of Harris’s website contained metadata with language urging voters to reelect Joe Biden. This language was visible when links to the campaign site were shared, and in the website’s description on Google searches.

All of this creates the impression that at least some of the Harris campaign’s policy language was copied and pasted from Biden’s documents. That would be an embarrassing miscue from the Harris campaign, which partly came into being because of a perception that a refresh was needed to garner enthusiasm in the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t help that the section on her website about her Israel-Palestine policy seems very similar to what Biden’s campaign was saying.

Brown will become the first Ivy League university to hold a vote on divestment since the war on Gaza began

When the student encampment in support of Gaza was dismantled at Brown University in Rhode Island back in April, it was incumbent upon one request from protesters: that the university hold a vote to divest from companies engaged in Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.

That rare vote is scheduled to take place next month, and with the anniversary of the 7 October attacks approaching, pro-Israel voices on campus are now stepping up pressure on the Corporation of Brown University - its board and leadership - to avoid the vote entirely.

On Monday, a group of students made up of members of Brown Students for Israel, among others, are making the case in front of the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM) that a vote on divestment is “functionally antisemitic” and that “there is no genocide in Gaza”, according to a memo that has not yet been released to the public.

Middle East Eye has examined the 39-page document drawn up by the students, entitled ‘The Case Against Divestment’. It insists that “investment in military equipment producers keeps Israelis… safe.”

Israeli air strikes on a so-called "humanitarian zone" in southern Gaza's al-Mawasi killed at least 40 people on Tuesday, according to health authorities in the enclave.

The strikes targeted at least 20 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal area near the city of Khan Younis.

Eyewitnesses told AFP that at least five rockets fell in the area, with emergency services saying the strikes created craters up to nine metres deep.

Officials in the United States have said that Washington still does not “know with full certainty what transpired” when a US citizen was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last week, stressing that they were waiting for the findings of an Israeli investigation.

The US on Monday also appeared to reject calls for an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to acknowledge that Eygi was killed by an Israeli soldier, but he called for the process to “play out and for the facts to be gathered”.

He also urged Israel to “quickly and robustly conduct” its probe and make the findings public but confirmed the administration is not planning to independently investigate the killing — as Eygi’s family requested.

In an interview posted on her account on X, Wilkinson said: “The bail conditions have been removed… Six of the seven bail conditions are completely inhumane and disabled me from being able to sort of live in this area. All the bail conditions have been removed, apart from I cannot talk about the Palestinian resistance but I can use social media.”

At the end of August Wilkinson’s house was raided by Counter Terrorism Police and she was arrested. According to reports she was asked to give up details of her contacts in Gaza.

“They had absolutely no intention of this going to court,” she said of the police’s actions. The police raid by officers wearing balaclavas “terrorised this end of town. Was it really worth it?”

The budget deficit to the country’s GDP ratio was at minus 8.3 per cent in August, increasing from minus 7.6 per cent in June and minus 6.2 per cent in March and minus 4.1 per cent last December.

The budget deficit was at 84 billion shekels ($22.38 billion) this January to August, versus a surplus of 0.3 billion shekels ($79.9 million) in the same period last year.

While the country’s expenditures jumped 31.8 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months, revenues rose just 4 per cent, Israeli Finance Ministry data showed on Sunday.

In August alone, the budget deficit was at 12.1 billion shekels ($3.22 billion).

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. chief said Monday that the United Nations has offered to monitor any cease-fire in Gaza and demanIded an end to the worst death and destruction he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s “unrealistic” to think the U.N. could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a U.N. role.

“Of course, we’ll be ready to do whatever the international community asked for us,” Guterres said. “The question is whether the parties would accept it, and in particular whether Israel would accept it.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have accused the U.N. of being anti-Israel and have been highly critical of U.N. humanitarian operations in Gaza, including accusing U.N. workers of collaborating with Hamas. He also has voiced skepticism about peacekeeping missions, saying only Israel can protect itself.

“Call me Yakov,” the burly, red-bearded settler told the Palestinian villagers who lived in his shadow. They should, it was understood, consider him their mukhtar, their chief, mayor and sheriff.

It was only after he was singled out for sanctions by the US government last week that they learned his real name: Yitzhak Levi Filant.

On paper, Filant is merely the security coordinator (ravshatz) of the Yitzhar settlement, perched on a West Bank hilltop south of Nablus overlooking a string of ancient Palestinian villages strung out on the steep slopes below.

Reservists such as Filant were called back into duty and he has recruited young male settlers to form what is known locally as “Yakov’s army”. Yitzhar’s religious school, or yeshiva, is known for teaching Jewish militancy, and was closed for more than a year in 2014 on the grounds it served as the base for attacks on Palestinians.

On the afternoon of 18 June, that militia descended on Burin and went on a rampage, attacking anyone they found out on the street.

“I could see people running away and first I thought it was the army, then I saw the men attacking us were naked from the waist up and had their T-shirts around their heads to hide their faces,” Najjar recalled. “They set fire to a car, and attacked the driver, and they attacked the grocery store here.”

US actor Mark Ruffalo has slammed ongoing US support for Israel following the recent deaths of six Israeli captives held by Hamas, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and the fatal shooting of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The Hulk star cited the US government's unwavering support for Israel during the war on Gaza - which has killed at least 40,972 Palestinians - and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as proof of its complicity in the deaths of the two Americans.

"If [US President Joe] Biden remained steadfast to American law concerning military aid, his ‘red lines’ and the world outcry, his ability to use American law to leverage a ceasefire, these beautiful, young people would be alive today," Ruffalo continued.

The army refused to send a delegation to Switzerland, partly due to the involvement of the UAE, the RSF’s main patron, as a moderator. After 10 days, no clear breakthrough was achieved, despite the announcement of the opening of two humanitarian corridors intended to save Sudanese civilians from famine and the ongoing war.

A member of the Sudanese army-aligned delegation that met mediators in Cairo at the end of August said they thought the RSF was stalling for time by claiming a commitment to peace.

“The RSF wants to pass the rainy season [March to October, with most rain falling between June and September], which obstructs the movement of its forces due to the inaccessibility of the roads and difficulties to sustain the supply, then it will carry out wide attacks,” the source, who requested anonymity due to not being authorised to speak to the media, told MEE.

Sudanese political analyst Elwathig Kameir said that the army had made significant gains from the last round of talks, including US recognition of Burhan as the president of Sudan’s sovereign council and de facto head of state, as well as clear US condemnation of RSF atrocities.

However, he criticised the army’s leadership for boycotting the Geneva talks, arguing that they risked losing credibility and missing the chance to represent their position. He also stated that the UAE’s participation was an insufficient reason for staying away.

“In my opinion, the presence of the UAE as an observer does not harm Sudan in any way. Indeed, the UAE remains accused of its role in fuelling the war by supporting the RSF, making it a stakeholder,” he wrote.