by Alistair Lyon | 6 Jun 2025 | Israel-Palestine, Middle East, Politics
Standing by while a whole people gets massacred doesn’t absolve countries of their responsibility in that. There is complicity in silence. A Palestinian woman holds the body of her 8-year-old daughter who was killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, at...
by Alistair Lyon | 15 Oct 2024 | History, Israel-Palestine
The assassinations of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, an invasion of Lebanon and the all-out assault on Gaza beg the question: Does Israel have an end game? Iranian demonstrators hold posters of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israeli protest in...
by Alistair Lyon | 31 Jul 2024 | Asia, Decoder Replay, History, Politics
Change in leadership in the two countries brings the possibility of rapport. But there is a long history of hostility that is hard to overcome. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, speaks after giving his official seal of approval to newly-elected President...
by Alistair Lyon | 27 May 2024 | Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Human Rights, Israel-Palestine, Middle East, Politics
The world’s attention is on Gaza. But Israel’s neighbors worry about their own stability as they fear the chaos will spread. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud attends a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and...
The world’s attention is on Gaza. But Israel’s neighbors worry about their own stability as they fear the chaos will spread. News Decoder correspondent Alistair Lyon decodes the conflict’s effects on the region.
Exercise: Use the article as a starting point to understanding conflict and the effects of conflict on neighboring nations. Divide the students into groups. Each group represents a country in or bordering the conflict of your choice. Get students to research the root causes of the conflicts and the effects on their given country. Hold a crisis meeting in which each group voices its concerns about the conflict. Present and debate.
by Alistair Lyon | 24 Jan 2024 | Decoder Replay, History, Human Rights, Middle East
The Houthis, battle-hardened from years of fighting a civil war in Yemen, have proven to be a formidable adversary to Israel and its allies in the Red Sea. A Houthi forces helicopter approaching the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on 19 November 2023. Yemen’s Houthis...