Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Asa Winstanley
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Israel's sham elections
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week announced plans to hold fresh elections in March. The last election, resulting in the current hard-right coalition government, was held in January 2013. Internal schisms within Netanyahu’s coalition led to him calling this election early. Essentially, Netanyahu wants rid of ostensibly (by Israeli...
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The changing Zionist narrative on Ferguson
In August, unarmed African-American teenager Mike Brown was shot dead while his hands were up. White police officer Darren Wilson gunned him down in the suburb of Ferguson, St. Louis. A long history of police racism and violence against black people there meant there were immediate protests, a movement that...
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Is Israel behind the 'Regin' cyber-threat?
Last weekend the anti-virus company Symantec released details of a newly-detected piece of malware that it had intercepted and been decoding for some time. Several other anti-virus vendors released their own papers on this advanced piece of malicious software soon after. “Regin”, a sophisticated spying tool, is highly likely to...
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Israel's Mossad and its 'moderate' Saudi allies
Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit’s piece in Israeli newspaper Haaretz this week gave some good indications of the thinking and strategy of a certain influential segment of liberal Zionist elites. In my previous column, I looked at what Shavit had to say about BDS, the Palestinian-led movement to boycott, divest...
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The Mossad's strategy against BDS
Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit had a most notable opinion piece printed in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz this week. Entitled, “For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism,” there are several lessons to learn from this article. Not the lessons Shavit wants readers to learn of...
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Egypt's Israeli tactics in Sinai
An attack against the Egyptian military in the Sinai peninsula on Friday resulted in the death of 31 soldiers. No group has yet claimed responsibility, but reports suggest that the deadly assault was likely carried out by al-Qaida-inspired groups in the area. The military regime wasted no time taking advantage...
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Israel's internment regime
Watch the BBC’s coverage and it may have you believing that Israel is a small, embattled outpost of modern “civilisation” in the war-ravaged Middle East. A “villa in the jungle,” as racist former war minister and Israeli killer Ehud Barak once infamously put it. After all – the propaganda has...
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What kind of Palestinian state?
The vote last week in the House of Commons to recognise the Palestinian Authority as the “state” of Palestine rallied a large degree of popular support. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign was mobilised around the issue for months in advance, sending out regular updates and constantly lobbying for a Yes...
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Why did Israel target and kill Hebrew speakers in Gaza?
With the eyes of the world’s media well and truly off of Gaza and onto the hideous situations in Iraq and Syria, the Palestinian people are once again neglected; their dead go unnoticed. But the consequences of Israel’s latest and deadliest war against the civilian population of Gaza this past...
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The UK and al-Qaeda agree on perpetual war
British jets began bombing Iraq yet again last week. Another war against this beleaguered country, an Arab country that has been decimated and torn apart by decades of Western-imposed war. These wars have included a vicious and protracted civil war, one that seems to perpetually bubble under the surface,...
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British bombs will help ISIS recruit
Today, Friday 26 September, the House of Commons is slated to take yet another vote on yet another war in Iraq. This time, the putative bombing campaign (already started in both Iraq and Syria by the Americans) would target the so-called “Islamic State”, the fanatical terrorist organisation which controls...
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The PA undermines Palestinian liberation
Al Jazeera this week revealed an explosive letter from the office of the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In it, Fatou Bensouda recounted a meeting with Riad Malki, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister. On the very same day last month that he was making a show in front...
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Don't be fooled: protest can work
Over the course of 51 bloody and terrible days of Israeli slaughter in the Gaza Strip in July and August, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed by Israel. According to UN figures, the vast majority, some 75 percent, of these were civilians, with some 500 of the dead being...
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The Tricycle Theatre should be applauded for refusing "Brand Israel" cash
As Palestinian bodies are still being dug out of the rubble, it is too soon to tell the final death toll of Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip over the last month. But as of 5pm yesterday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health had tallied 1,886 dead. Exactly 432 of these...
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Hamas is waging a just and defensive liberation war in Gaza
On Tuesday night there was a dramatic media event. People all across Palestine, and Arabs all over the world, watched transfixed. Al-Aqsa TV, a channel affiliated to Hamas, released an audio statement by the enigmatic leader of the Islamic resistance movement’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. It was aired...
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Organise boycotts to inflict defeats on Israel
In my role as an editor over at The Electronic Intifada, I deal with comments submitted from readers, moderating them as they come in. Over the last couple of weeks we have had record traffic to the site, as more and more people want to find out about the...
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Is search for missing Israeli settlers just a smokescreen?
Two weeks ago, three Israeli settler youths went missing while hitch-hiking in the occupied West Bank. Israel has officially blamed Hamas, Palestine’s Islamic resistance movement. But government officials have offered no evidence of this claim – and Hamas has denied it. As a rule, Hamas makes a point of declaring...
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Blame the West for Iraq's ISIS disaster
Much ink has been spilled this past fortnight, since the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) swept through and occupied a large swathe of Iraq. While it seems doubtful that the al-Qaeda-linked extremist group can hold all the territory it just took, there is no doubt it has made...
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In Lebanon wars, the rules have changed for Israel
During the last Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, the Lebanese resistance forces, led by Hezbollah, mostly stayed north of the border. Aside from a brief border skirmish that resulted in the capture of several Israeli occupation soldiers, the resistance largely fought a defensive campaign. To defend against the massive...
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The de facto Israeli death penalty
Israel is sometimes praised by clueless liberals because it does not carry out the death penalty. This is sometimes even contrasted with many of the surrounding countries that do carry out executions. But the reality is quite different. In practice, Israel does have a death penalty. But not for domestic...
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US intel relations skewed in favour of Israel
The publication of Glenn Greenwald’s new book this week has been eagerly awaited – not least by myself. Giving the inside story of how he broke one of the most important stories of our time, Greenwald discusses how Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked thousands of classified documents. The...
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Few believe Israel denials of spying on US
Veteran American security correspondent Jeff Stein writes the SpyTalk column for Newsweek, and published a most telling piece on their website yesterday. It provided the latest insight into the contradictory, and sometimes surprisingly hostile relationship between US and Israeli spy agencies. Israel has been seeking to join the US visa...
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Palestinian Prisoners' Day remains central
Thursday here in Palestine was Prisoners’ Day, and demonstrations of solidarity were held across the West Bank and Gaza. The annual event calls for the release of Palestinian political prisoners from Israel’s jails, and freedom from its kangaroo court system of military injustice. As of 1 March this year, 5,224...
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Israel's doomed 'lawfare' strategy
A report in the Jewish Chronicle last week stated that a “secret conference” had been held in London whose aim was to combat the “delegitimization of Israel”. The three-day event was reportedly held amid heavy security and was attended by representatives of Israel’s spy agencies and by Israeli Strategic...
