Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Abdel Bari Atwan
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Gaza triumphed and has every right to celebrate
Gaza has every right to celebrate. Likewise, all the Palestinian people and Arab and Islamic nations have the right as well to not only celebrate the end of the aggression, but its victory and defeat of the aggression and all those who supported or were involved in it. That...
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Will the US-Iran-Saudi alliance defeat ISIS? If so, to what effect?
When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enters an alliance with Iran and the US coordinates security with President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime (against which, a year ago, America was providing money and weapons for the opposition); and when Iraq’s government led by Nouri Al-Maliki is put into the service...
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The problem is ISIS, not the Brotherhood
Almost a month after the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip began, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, broke his silence when he spoke at a press conference at the end of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting, saying: “Israel does not have the right to self-defence as...
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It is our right to celebrate the capture of an Israeli soldier
“Terrorist” Hamas kills soldiers but “civilised” Netanyahu kills children. I fear that the blood of innocent civilians will have been shed in vain due to Arab mediation and these are my reasons. Those who witnessed the happiness in many Arab cities, and in Gaza particularly, knows how eager the...
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No military coup in Egypt
After being away – I won’t say staying away – from Egypt for over 18 years, I went to Cairo, the capital that hosted me, along with millions of other Arabs and Muslims, in its universities, schools, and hospitals without any discrimination. It is no exaggeration to say that...
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Egypt: betrayal of democracy will benefit Islamists
Egypt’s Minister of Defence, Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, and the leaders of the National Salvation Front underestimated the strength of the Islamic current, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, when they instigated the military coup against elected president Mohammed Morsi. Egypt will pay the price of such misjudgement with a breakdown...
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Egypt declares war on Hamas but who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed?
I used to think that the defamation and incitement campaign against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was limited to a few Egyptian television stations and specific programmes aired on them, supervised by some icons of the former Hosni Mubarak regime. However, the threats made by Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi,...
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Morsi is the strongest, most legitimate person in this farcical trial
Perhaps the military rulers will realise, in the coming days that the presence of the elected president Mohamed Morsi, in the presidency cage would be much more merciful and less costly to them than his presence behind bars or standing in front of the comical courts’ judges. What happened...
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Morsi is being prosecuted on conspiracy charges; do us a favour, credit us with some intelligence, please!
For some Egyptian politicians to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and its leaders is expected; for most of the media to be recruited in an attack against the movement is likely, but this is not the place to discuss this and analyse its reasons. However, for the Egyptian judiciary to...
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Excluding the Muslim Brotherhood will not lead to reconciliation
The trial for the deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was postponed until next February 1st due to weather conditions that prevented him from being transferred from his prison in Alexandria to the court headquarters in the Police Academy in Cairo. Egyptian Interior Minister Major-General Mohamed Ibrahim said that the...
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Winners and losers
In order to get a flavour of the new order in Egypt, I recommend looking at Egyptian state television. Following the forced retirement of ex-President Hosni Mubarak the tone of the programmes and the variety of invited guests on discussions has undergone a distinct change. Who would have believed...
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Israeli spies target Egypt
The Egyptian revolution launched from Tahrir Square in Cairo surprised the world not only with its victory and the efforts and patience of the youth, but also in the changes it brought to the political landscape of Egypt. It has altered the balance of power and allies in the...
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Sarkozy and "Holy Shalit"
It was a humanitarian gesture of some signficance for French President Nicolas Sarkozy to send a letter to Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is being held captive in Gaza, expressing solidarity with him and assuring him that France, of which he’s a citizen, is not going to abandon him....
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The killings continue and so too the uprising
Let’s presume that some of the Arab satellite TV stations exaggerated and inflated the number of martyrs who fell from the bullets of the Syrian security forces in Hama, Homs and Dir al Zur; and before them Dara’a and the outskirts of Damascus. And let’s suppose also that some...
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The Egyptians want to expel the Israelis
There are many attitudes and ideologies which divide the Egyptians; nationals, leftists, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, Muslims and Copts, moderate and extreme. However, the common uniting factor is an absolute hatred of Israel. This suggests a sense of nationalism and nobility, because Israel – with all of its crimes...
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British justice is exposed as a sham
Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague received Tzipi Livni in his office at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office this week. The former Israeli Foreign Minister was welcomed warmly even though she is now simply the leader of the opposition in Israel. It was a black day in the history of...
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Thank you Gingrich... your arrogance is needed
After eighteen years of negotiations and conceding more than 80 per cent of historic Palestine, and signing the Oslo agreement (which added to the legitimacy of Israel and broke its Arab and international isolation), as well as renouncing armed struggle and considering it to be terrorism, we’ve seen recently...
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Political Islam and its supposed dangers
In gaining the majority of votes in the Moroccan election, the Justice and Development Party has put the West on alert, as well as some of the more conservative Arab countries. Long-held fears have been revived by the sweeping success of political Islam across the Middle East-North Africa (MENA)...
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We ask you to arm Gaza too
News about Israel’s latest killing spree against the people of the Gaza Strip has only occupied a small amount of airtime in the news bulletins of Arab TV stations. This is a source of great anger, especially when those channels are in Arab Spring countries seeking to restore dignity...
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Killing African migrants
The Israeli authorities have said that an unknown man was killed and another was wounded by border guards when the two tried to cross the border from the Sinai Peninsula. They were not armed. The Israelis have tried to conceal this crime through hiding the identity of both men;...
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Syria's chemical weapons and the path to global war
The Chinese and Russian veto of a draft resolution proposed by Britain at the UN Security Council which would give the Syrian regime one and a half months to withdraw its heavy weapons from the cities or the Syrian crisis will come under Chapter VII of the UN Charter,...
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First respect Muslims in America, then you can talk about Copts' rights
Officials in Washington act as if Egypt is under a US mandate ruled by an American High Commissioner who receives his orders direct from Capitol Hill. Such is my conclusion at the way that US officials issue provocative directives about internal Egyptian affairs. The US administration is still unable...
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America's failure in Egypt and Syria is a failure of Western intelligence
The widespread impression in the Arab world, and most of the Third World, is that Western intelligence agencies, America’s in particular, know everything about our countries, and pull all the strings. This is not so; quite the opposite, in fact. There is no doubt that Western technology leads the...
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Palestinian successes need to be turned into practical progress
The history books will record November 2012 as the month in which the Palestinian people achieved three major victories which could change the power equations in the region: The important military victory against Israel’s “Operation Pillar of Defence” was represented by the success of missiles fired by the Palestinian...