Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Asa Winstanley
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Enough conspiracy theories about Yasser Arafat's assassination
Palestinians have long suspected their leader Yasser Arafat was assassinated by Israel. Thanks to Clayton Swisher and his team at the Al Jazeera Investigations Unit, we have new evidence they were right all along. His 2004 death, in then-unclear circumstances, was almost certainly caused by a manufactured radioactive poison –...
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Recognising the right of return is not optional
Fortress Europe’s tyrannical border continues to claim lives. Last week there was another terrible shipwreck in the Mediterranean which claimed the lives of dozens of desperate, fleeing refugees. It came only a week after the last tragedy, off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, which killed more...
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Syria: the revolution that never was
Due to the large number of complaints we’ve received which deemed this article to be offensive to the sacrifices of the Syrian people in their struggle for justice, it has been removed. Asa Winstanley stands by his article. ...
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Israel and America spy on each other
Only a week ago I wrote in this very column of my hope for more revelations about Israel emerging from the cache of secret National Security Agency documents leaked by Edward Snowden. My wish has been fulfilled already. A long article published in last weekend’s New York Times revealed that...
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Israel likely behind cyber-spy hacking on French president
Glenn Greenwald is on a roll. This column has followed his historic coverage of Edward Snowden’s leaked National Security Agency documents with great interest. Last week there was another intriguing revelation that implicated Israel. In a Le Monde article co-written with a French journalist, Greenwald revealed that Israel had almost...
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Time to start talking about Zionist anti-Semitism
During the recent media dust-up over the Daily Mail’s attack on Labour leader Ed Milliband’s father, many people on the left called attention to the right-wing tabloid’s history of support for the Nazis. All well and good, but to me the more salient issue was the Mail’s toxic coverage...
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BDS campaign is erecting counter-siege on Israel
This week, the pop star Rihanna played a gig in Tel Aviv, despite many requests made to her by Palestinian and solidarity activists to observe the cultural boycott of Israel. As usual, BDS campaigners tirelessly posted messages on Facebook and Twitter pages asking her to cancel her gig. She went...
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Nelson Mandela's long history of support for Palestine
The death of South African liberation icon Nelson Mandela last night has brought in floods of well-deserved tributes. But the hypocrisy of many of these, often from the very same politicians who formerly denounced him a “terrorist,” seems to know no bounds. The mythology that has grown up around Mandela...
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Time to shed more light on the Israel lobby
The new Spinwatch report into BICOM, a leading force in Britain’s Israel lobby, makes for essential reading. MEMO is to be commended for funding its publication. The Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, as its full title goes is not a particularly secretive organization. At the same time, however, its...
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In broad daylight, a Saudi-Israeli alliance
The alliance between the apartheid state of Israel and the absolutist monarchy of the Saudi royal dictatorship is no longer merely tacit. After recent diplomatic moves to cool tensions with Iran by the administration of US President Barack Obama, the Saudi royals seem to be engaging in a collective freak-out. It’s...
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Israel's West Bank torture regime
The slow disintegration of living conditions in the West Bank continues apace. But this is no natural disaster or complicated economic malaise. This is a very deliberately created policy, one designed and implemented by a state – the occupying power Israel. The Zionist project in the land of Palestine shares...
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Boycott Israel campaign succeeding despite minimal resources
Two indirectly-related stories from the US this week struck me in a particular way. Firstly, it was a big week for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. The membership of the American Studies Association (ASA) voted in favour of the academic boycott of Israel. The Native American and...
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Shared ideology helps explain US support for Israel
Last month during a debate in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, there was a disturbing comment made by one of the right-wing politicians. It was racist remark that revealed much about Zionism, the founding ideology of the state of Israel. It took place during a debate on the so-called Prawer Plan....
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Egypt's farcical election
The farce continues. Since the July coup that overthrew elected President Mohammed Morsi last year, Egypt has gone from disaster to disaster. As flawed and problematic as his administration was, Morsi was at least elected. Now, with the coup regime of the generals in place, led by Abdel Fatah al...
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Is the power of Britain's pro-Israel lobby on the wane?
In Palestine solidarity circles the debate around the pro-Israel lobby often focuses on the chicken-or-the-egg problem: are Western governments supportive of Israel because the lobby is so influential, or does the lobby only seem influential because governments are so supportive of Israel? A focus on this question neglects another, more...
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UK government conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in Salah trial
Renowned Palestinian activist and religious leader Sheikh Raed Salah was at the UK’s Sheldon immigration court in Birmingham this week. His appeal against the government’s decision in June to ban him from the country is now being heard in earnest, with testimonies from Salah and several expert witnesses on...