US Press
Washington wakes up to a boycott vote as its Iran war flares
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
The Newsdesk gathers reporting from wire services and primary sources and rewrites every story in-house before publication. How our journalism is made →
The American front pages, read from Palestine.
Wednesday and Thursday's papers, and the one thing a Palestinian reader should take from them: Congress spent its last legislative day before the midterms on a bill about boycotting Israel, while the war the capital is actually fighting sat on every front page.
The New York Times led its Middle East file on Iran: the night of American strikes and Iranian retaliation, a wedding hit in a small Iranian town that the paper's visual analysis attributed to an American bomb, and JD Vance's first White House briefing, where he declined to call the conflict a war and said its end was "up to Tehran." Two stories reached Palestine directly: the paper's report from al-Mughayyir, where residents said soldiers killed two youths in a raid that began with a livestock dispute, and Israel's release of Lebanese prisoners as "a rare sign of progress."
The Washington Post carried Iran's missiles at Kuwait and Vance's remarks, and reported that the Republican-led House has scrapped two weeks of legislative work before the midterms, which is why Thursday's anti-boycott bill is likely the last Israel-related vote before November.
Axios reported Barak Ravid's scoop that Steve Witkoff met the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser last weekend on next steps against Iran, a meeting the White House did not announce, and wrote that markets "can't ignore the war anymore" with diesel futures at an all-time high. The oil story is a Palestinian household story too: the West Bank imports its fuel through Israel at Israeli prices.
The Intercept reported that Marc Rowan, a Board of Peace member, has given 1.5 million dollars this year to AIPAC's super PAC, which this paper covers separately.
Foreign Policy asked whether another war would help Netanyahu win re-election and answered that the West Bank is the likeliest stage; a second essay argued that the US attack on the International Criminal Court gives American allies a chance to show solidarity on shared values.
Think tanks. Responsible Statecraft, the Quincy Institute's restraint-minded outlet, published two Israel pieces in one day: the House boycott vote and an investigation into Israeli military research funding at US universities.
FDD, the hawkish shop close to sanctions policy, framed its Gaza note around 29 ceasefire violations the Israeli army reported between 19 August and 3 September and called the Board of Peace's stabilisation plan stalled. CFR wrote about mail-in voting and Treasury buyers, and nothing on Palestine.
The loudest Washington argument of the day was the one on the House floor, where a Republican said boycotts of Israel are antisemitic in design and a Democrat replied that no American university has ever adopted one.
