The past five months have been clarifying. What was supposed to be hidden has been thrust into the light. What was supposed to be obscured has come sharply into focus.

Liberal democracy is not what it seems.

It has always defined itself in contrast to what it says it is not. Where other regimes are savage, it is humanitarian. Where others are authoritarian, it is open and tolerant. Where others are criminal, it is law-abiding. When others are belligerent, it seeks peace. Or so the manuals of liberal democracy argue.

But how to keep the faith when the world's leading liberal democracies - invariably referred to as "the West" - are complicit in the crime of crimes: genocide?

When Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida began a speech marking the 100th day of the war in Gaza, one confounding yet eye-opening proclamation escaped the headlines. Listing the motives for the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, he accused Jews of "bringing red cows" to the Holy Land.

The cows he was talking about are red heifers, which now graze at a secure, undisclosed location in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Some Jews and Christians believe they're key to rebuilding the Jewish temple that once stood in Jerusalem, and to beckoning the Messiah.

To understand, you have to look back almost 2,000 years in the tumultuous history of the Middle East, when the ancient Romans destroyed the last temple in Jerusalem.

To rebuild it, fervent believers point to the Bible's Book of Numbers, which commands the Israelites to offer "a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke."

Whether the U.S. and Europe likes it or not, Iran is a major regional political player.

Looking back to what I wrote in 2012, in the midst of the so-called Arab Spring and its aftermath, it is striking just how much the Region has shifted. It is now almost 180° re-orientated. Then, I argued,

"That the Arab Spring "Awakening" is taking a turn, very different to the excitement and promise with which it was hailed at the outset. Sired from an initial, broad popular impulse, it is becoming increasingly understood, and feared, as a nascent counter-revolutionary "cultural revolution" - a re-culturation of the region in the direction of a prescriptive canon that is emptying out those early high expectations ...

"That popular impulse associated with the 'awakening' has now been subsumed and absorbed into three major political projects associated with this push to reassert [Sunni primacy]: a Muslim Brotherhood project, a Saudi-Qatari-Salafist project, and a [radical jihadi] project.

"No one really knows the nature of the [first project] the Brotherhood project - whether it is that of a sect; or if it is truly mainstream ... What is clear, however, is that the Brotherhood tone everywhere is increasingly one of militant sectarian grievance. The joint Saudi-Salafist project was conceived as a direct counter to the Brotherhood project - and [the third] was the uncompromising Sunni radicalism [Wahhabism], funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that aims, not to contain, but rather, to displace traditional Sunnism with the culture of Salafism. i.e. It sought the 'Salifisation' of traditional Sunni Islam.

"All these projects, whilst they may overlap in some parts, are in a fundamental way competitors with each other. And [were] being fired-up in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, north Africa, the Sahel, Nigeria, and the horn of Africa.

[Not surprisingly] ..."Iranians increasingly interpret Saudi Arabia's mood as a hungering for war, and Gulf statements do often have that edge of hysteria and aggression: a recent editorial in the Saudi-owned al-Hayat stated:

"The climate in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] indicates that matters are heading towards a GCC-Iranian-Russian confrontation on Syrian soil, similar to what took place in Afghanistan during the Cold War. To be sure, the decision has been taken to overthrow the Syrian regime, seeing as it is vital to the regional influence and hegemony of the Islamic Republic of Iran".

Well, that was then. How different the landscape is today: The Muslim Brotherhood largely is a 'broken reed', compared to what it was; Saudi Arabia has effectively 'switched off the lights' on Salafist jihadism, and is focussed more on courting tourism, and the Kingdom now has a peace accord with Iran (brokered by China).

A renowned Moscow region concert venue and shopping centre is on fire on Friday evening, following reports of a mass shooting incident.

At least three gunmen, wearing combat fatigues, burst into Crocus City Hall and fired automatic weapons, injuring dozens of patrons and killing a significant number of them, according to Russian media.

Some media report that 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured as a result of the shooting. No official confirmation has been issued yet.

Press outlets report the use of explosives and video shows black smoke rising above the building. State news wire service TASS suggests up to a third of the huge complex has been engulfed in flames.

Hamas's incursion into Israel on October 7 transformed the politics of the Middle East. Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit (I-Unit) has carried out a forensic analysis of the events of that day - examining seven hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones and headcams of dead Hamas fighters, and drawing up a comprehensive list of those killed.

In October 7, the I-Unit reveals widespread human rights abuses by Hamas fighters and others who followed them through the fence from Gaza into Israel.

But the investigation also found that many of the worst stories that came out in the days following the attack were false. This was especially true of atrocities that were used repeatedly by politicians in Israel and the West to justify the ferocity of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, such as the mass killing of babies and allegations of widespread and systematic rape.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to the Biden administration's attempts to keep the US border open - allowing Texas to enforce a new law giving local police the power to arrest migrants.

With three liberal justices dissenting, the conservative-majority court rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration which claimed that states have no authority to legislate on immigration.

The ruling means that Texas' law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts.

The law, SB4, allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross into the United States from Mexico, and imposes criminal penalties. It also empowers judges to deport people to Mexico.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed more about his Monday phone call with President Joe Biden. He informed a closed meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he made it clear to Biden that there's no way to eradicate Hamas without a ground operation in Rafah.

Biden had reiterated to Netanyahu that the US sees a Rafah invasion as a "mistake" given the presence of over one million internally displaced Palestinian civilians in the city amid an already soaring death toll.

"The Americans asked that we not do an operation in Rafah," Netanyahu told defense officials. "But there is no other choice. We need control over the Philadelphi Route," he continued in refence to the Egypt-Gaza border area.

The US president was told in October that Israeli airstrikes were often carried out without "solid intelligence," the newspaper claims

The White House knew since late October that Israel was regularly bombing civilian targets in Gaza, but President Joe Biden continued to publicly defend the Israeli military's conduct, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

On October 27, three weeks into Israel's war with Hamas, Biden's top foreign policy officials told a small group at the White House that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets," the newspaper wrote, citing three sources familiar with the meeting.

The officials also expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no clear plan for defeating the Palestinian militant group, with one source telling the Post that "from the very beginning, there's been a sense of us not knowing how the Israelis were going to do what they said they were going to do."

President Vladimir Putin has addressed the people of Russia following a historic election victory with over 87% of the vote in his favor, amid a record-high turnout. Here are the key takeaways from his speech and a question-and-answer session at campaign headquarters in Moscow on Sunday night.

Putin's dream

"I dreamed of a strong, independent, sovereign Russia," Putin told the audience, expressing his hope that the results of the vote "will allow us all, together with the Russian people, to achieve these goals."

Record election results

The citizens of Russia realize the dramatic situation the country is going through and understand that much depends on them, Putin said.

"Due to the current situation, due to the fact that we have to literally defend the interests of our citizens, our people with weapons in our hands, to create a future for the full-fledged, sovereign, secure development of the Russian Federation, our homeland."

This year's election was marked by a record-high voter turnout of over 74%, with Putin winning over 87% of the vote. The Russian president stressed that while the results would be good for a mono-ethnic state - for a multi-ethnic country like Russia they are "uniquely exceptional."

Future challenges

The Russian leader noted that while the country faces numerous challenges, its people will be up to the task if they remain united.

"We have a lot of tasks ahead of us. And when we are united, no one can intimidate or suppress us. No one succeeded at this before, it did not happen now and will never occur in the future."

"We have a huge development agenda, and people felt it in their hearts and came to create conditions for the development and strengthening of their Motherland... the results of the election are a guarantee that these tasks will be accomplished and goals will be reached."

Border incursions & 'cordon sanitaire' in Ukraine

Russia has repelled multiple attempts by Ukrainian sabotage groups to break into its territory over the past week, with Putin saying that "the enemy has deployed a group of about five thousand people, and their losses are about 40%. And those who crawled into our territory were destroyed almost 100%... If the enemy likes a 'meat grinder' - we even benefit from it."

Kiev claimed that the operation was staged by paramilitary units, which portray themselves as collaborator forces composed of Russian defectors and fugitive neo-Nazis. Putin likened the saboteurs to the Vlasov army collaborators who fought under German Nazi command during WWII.

"Those traitors, that scum fought on the side of Nazis, and now there are similar people who fight on the side of neo-Nazis," the president stressed, adding: "We all know how they ended up."

In order to protect its people from cross-border Ukrainian strikes, Russia could at some point be "forced" to set up a buffer zone in Kiev-controlled territories. The Russian forces would establish a "security zone that would be quite difficult for the adversary to overcome with its weapons, primarily of foreign origin," if and "when we consider it appropriate," Putin added.

Talks with Ukraine

Moscow has always favored peace talks, as long as the opponents are serious about establishing good neighborly relations in the long term, not just because "the adversary has run out of ammunition," Putin said.

He added that Russia is ready to consider various scenarios, provided that they align with the national interest. But since Kiev barred talks with the current leadership in Moscow, and President Vladimir Zelensky has no intention to hold elections, it will require "painstaking research" to even figure out "who to negotiate with over there," Putin noted.

Conflict with NATO

Weighing in on the possibility of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, Putin said that "anything is possible in the modern world" and warned that it "would be one step shy of a full-scale World War III.""I don't think that anyone is interested in that," he added, stressing that Moscow was well aware of the US-led military bloc's push to deploy troops in Ukraine.

Putin noted that volunteer fighters from NATO states are facing extremely grim prospects, saying "there is nothing good in this, first of all for them, because they die there and in large numbers."

Why is the same western media obsessively reheating five-month-old allegations against Hamas so reluctant to focus on Israel's current, horrifying atrocities?

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised.

No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October - quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel's obstruction of aid.

Last week, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed that some 27 Palestinians seized off Gaza's streets over the past five months are known to have died during interrogations inside Israel.

Some were denied medical treatment. But most are likely to have been tortured to death.

Three months ago, a Haaretz editorial warned that Israeli jails "must not become execution facilities for Palestinians".

Israeli TV channels have been excitedly taking viewers on tours of detention centres, showing the appalling conditions Palestinians are kept in, as well as the psychological and physical abuse they are subjected to.

An Israeli judge recently called the makeshift cages in which Palestinians are held "unsuitable for humans".