Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Daud Abdullah
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Official Arab alignment with Israel to eliminate the resistance
The media warning issued by the Lebanese Higher Defence Council to Hamas, accusing it of undermining Lebanese national security, not only contradicts the facts that Israel is the one undermining Lebanese national security and violating Lebanese territory through killing, bombing and occupation without deterrence or accountability, but also paves...
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Killing Palestinian children rises to an industrial level
Of all the many crimes for which Israel has gained notoriety, the killing of Palestinian children ranks among the most heinous. Time has not erased the memories of the long list of innocents killed in the most ghoulish manner. They include the 2000 killing of 12-year-old Muhammad Al-Durra cowering...
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Iran’s defiance: US and Israeli efforts to halt its ambitions
Donald Trump’s election will not pose an existential threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Any military action against Tehran would have direct repercussions with Russia, currently an ally of Iran, particularly concerning the future of Ukraine. Trump’s main challenge will be to regain the political initiative lost in...
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The unjustifiable war in Gaza
Writer Ernest Hemingway said in 1946, “Never think a war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” A morally justified war, where the use of force is considered to be the last resort to restore peace, is known as a just war. However, this very...
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Smotrich has confirmed that the quest for ‘Greater Israel’ is real
The leaders of 56 Arab and Islamic countries advocated at the Riyadh Summit last week for the “two-state solution” and the need to establish a Palestinian state on the nominal borders of 4 June 1967, and tried to convince the world that it is the only solution to the...
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Turkiye and Trump: theoretical optimism, but practical concern
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election and his move back to the White House in January, let alone concerns about his nominees for positions within his administration, have led to analysts and governments trying to anticipate his policies and the repercussions around the world in terms of...
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An Israeli air strike on Iran is an escalation without war
Tensions between Israel and Iran have long shaped the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Recent Israeli air strikes on Iran raise the stakes but don’t necessarily indicate a path toward full-scale war. Israel’s immediate focus is securing its borders, while Iran is centred on regime survival. What we’re...
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Prosecution of dual-national Israeli soldiers
Since October last year, Israeli officials have not only made genocidal statements but have been acting upon them physically. As Palestinian health authorities report, Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 42,600 Palestinians so far, the majority women and children. The United Nations also states...
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Israel’s endgame in Gaza, an impossible mission
Throughout the war on Gaza the weapon of disinformation has been used with lethal effect. From the beginning, Israel’s Western allies led the assault on global public opinion. Untruths about the beheading of babies and rape of Israeli women were repeated and overblown without verification. Other fabrications that continue...
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Could the US-China rivalry save the peace process in the Middle East?
The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh risks sabotaging an agreement between the disparate factions leading the Palestinian territories only days after it was signed. The deal, which was brokered by Beijing and was already viewed with scepticism and cynicism by Western pundits. Haniyeh’s assassination lends further fuel to...
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The finish line is just the beginning: gender parity at the Olympics
For the first time in history, gender parity will be achieved at the Paris Olympic Games, a seminal moment in the world of international sports. This milestone is celebrated as a triumph for female athletes and a reflection of broader shifts in societal norms concerning gender equality. The narrative...
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Haniyeh’s assassination unleashes a new era of political violence
The assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a “treacherous Zionist raid” on his Tehran residence has ignited a firestorm of fury, as Iran’s new president vows to make Israel “regret” its “cowardly action”. The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has decreed that avenging Haniyeh’s killing is...
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LFI’s recycled proposals have long been discredited
The Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) could not have chosen a worse time to release their briefing paper on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In the ten days that preceded the release, Israel had bombed eight UNRWA schools in...
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Will Labour’s ‘change’ agenda include Palestine?
Throughout their election campaign the “changed Labour Party” solemnly promised to change the way politics is done. Now, with their absolute majority in parliament, Britons are rightfully expecting a meaningful change of government policy toward Palestine. Armed with all the levers of power there is no justification for the...
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The resistance in Jerusalem is an inextinguishable flame
Occupied Jerusalem embraces an essential part of the resistance map in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) due to the Judaisation plans the city is witnessing and the escalating targeting of both sanctities and residents alike. This is what has prompted more Palestinians to carry out individual operations, participate in...
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Together they arise, united against apartheid
The Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler-colonialism, from Balfour to Biden, is one of the most well-documented of all liberation struggles. Recent attempts to misrepresent its origins, development and significance have been thoroughly exposed and discredited. Israel’s narrative of the 7 October events is one episode that falls squarely...
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Displaced Palestinians in Gaza say they are living a nightmare
According to Abu Ibrahim, 50, a displaced Palestinian living in a dilapidated tent in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, they are “living a nightmare” from which they “hope to wake up.” He has experienced several displacements that began 80 days ago from his home in...
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Contextualisation of events is not anti-Semitism; nobody wants another Auschwitz in Gaza
On 7 October, I went for dinner in Neukolln, Berlin. In the street, German police officers were asking people for their ID cards, dismissing pro-Palestinian crowds, and making sure that people were no longer handing out stickers with the flag of Palestine on them or chanting “Free Palestine”. This...
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Israel-Palestine: the calls for jihad and impending wave of foreign fighters
On 7 October, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement that is the de facto government of the Gaza Strip, launched an aerial and ground offensive on Israel. Mohammad Deif, the leader of the Hamas military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, condenamed the attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”. The movement said that its...
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What next after Hamas’s call to hold municipal elections in the governorates of Gaza?
The extended consultative meeting held by the Hamas Movement on Monday, in Gaza, attended by representatives of the active Palestinian forces in the Palestinian street, and with the participation of political, societal, intellectual and media officials and elites, in which they raised their voice to demand holding local elections...
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Muslim slaves taken to Brazil were expensive, and worked to earn their freedom
During our trip to Salvador in May, we tried to contact people and institutions with information about the 19th-century slave uprisings in the Brazilian state of Bahia, especially the Malê Revolt (January, 1835). The Beninese Yoruba heritage is remarkable in the Bahia Candomble and its Brazilian religious syncretisms. Benin...
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A qualitative comeback for the Islamic Bloc at An-Najah University
We cannot address an issue related to the Islamic Bloc at An-Najah University without recalling its great legacy, which dates back decades, and originated with the founding of the university. We cannot diminish the role of the Islamic Bloc within the scope of the traditional field of any typical...
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‘We will never negotiate under pressure’, ex-Cuba envoy to US says
Jose Ramon Cabañas Rodriguez served in the Cuban diplomatic service for 37 years. In 2015 he became his country’s first ambassador to the United States in 50 years. During his long and distinguished career, Cabañas was involved in some of the most difficult diplomatic challenges Cuba faced in recent...
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Will the successor of Mahmoud Abbas be appointed or elected?
A heated debate is taking place in Palestinian circles about the next head of the Palestinian Authority; how the president will be chosen; what the atmosphere will be like when it happens; and what factors will influence his selection. It is uncertain whether President Mahmoud Abbas will step down,...