Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The leaders of Syria and Israel, countries with a bitter enmity, as well as the Palestinian and Lebanese presidents together marked France's Bastille Day today in a diplomatic coup for French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Other leaders from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, also attended the traditional Bastille Day parade where troops in their finery marched down the tree-lined Champs-Elysees, and jets trailing smoke of red, white and blue roared overhead.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the more than a dozen other leaders stood on the official grandstand, looking up the Champs-Elysees toward the Arch of Triumph. The leaders had stayed over following a summit Sunday that launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean, a brainchild of Sarkozy's aimed at securing peace across the restive region.
Forty-three nations, including Israel and Arab states, agreed at the summit to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction in launching the Mediterranean union.
Deep divisions still slice through the region and its population of 800 million people, and surfaced during yesterday's summit, highlighting how hard it will be to parlay the meeting's good will and words into real progress.
Assad refused to shake Olmert's hand, and Morocco's king snubbed the meeting attended by the president of rival Algeria. It was also unclear how the countries would enforce their pledge to "pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction."
Still, Sarkozy reveled at having brought so many leaders to the same table for the first time. His office brushed off critics' complaints that Assad should not have been allowed to stay for today's military ceremonies because of Syrian human rights failings and suspicions that Syria was implicated in a 1983 bombing in Lebanon that killed 58 French soldiers.
Campaign group Reporters Without Borders called Assad an "enemy of press freedom" whose government is guilty of "ruthless censorship."
Assad, in dark glasses, showed no emotion as French actor Kad Merad read aloud an extract from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in front of the grandstand where the leaders were seated.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments