Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Daud Abdullah
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A challenge from the Palestinian diaspora
The Palestinians Abroad Conference in Istanbul has presented nothing less than a challenge to the national authority installed and supported by Israel’s allies in Ramallah. Despite the best efforts of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Palestinians from the diaspora getting together in this way, well over 4,000 men and...
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Netanyahu's visit is another headache for Trump
Since his inauguration on 20 January, Donald Trump’s presidency has been rocked by one controversy after another. Reports that Russia hacked into the offices of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, triggered a showdown with the powerful Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Similarly, his “total and complete shutdown” of the entry...
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Mexico demonstrates how a state should stand up for itself; Arab world please note
When Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu jumped into the US-Mexican brawl on 28th January he clearly did not expect the fierce response he got from Mexico. Like his soul mate in the White House, who appears to conduct foreign policy via twitter, Netanyahu tweeted, “President Trump is right. I...
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Beware the ‘two-state solution’
“Tomorrow will look different — and tomorrow is very close.”So said Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahuin response to the just-concluded Paris conference on Middle East peace, which he denounced as “rigged”. The Israeli leader sees a conspiracy under every bed, even those of his closest allies. Last month, he accused...
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The UN must not let Resolution 2334 be squandered
If UN Security Council Resolution 2334 regarding Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is to be worth the paper it’s written on, certain tangible steps must be taken. Failure to act will make it worthless. First and foremost, there must be a serious review of Israel’s membership of...
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At twenty-nine, Hamas has come of age
Anniversaries are usually times for both celebration and soul-searching. The 29th anniversary of the launch of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is no exception. Despite many setbacks, including the assassinations by Israel of its founding leaders, the movement has become one of the most formidable political forces in Palestine. As...
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What’s behind Egypt’s ‘new political position’ towards Gaza?
After three years of open hostility, Egypt appears to be resetting its policy towards the Gaza Strip. Whereas in the recent past the Cairo administration has only opened the Rafah border crossing to deliver Palestinian corpses, the authorities have, in recent weeks, opened it more frequently to allow the...
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UNESCO must go one step further with a cultural boycott of Israel
Though depicted by Israel and its allies as “controversial” and “inflammable”, the UNESCO votes were by no means historical oddities...
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This only happens in occupied Palestine
After a visit to Hebron in 1996, the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said wrote, “The present situation cannot last, there are too many inequities and injustices at the heart of Palestinian life.” Two decades on, there is no end in sight to the wretched conditions he deplored back then....
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Mapping My Return – A Palestinian Memoir
Salman Abu Sitta’s Mapping My Return is much more than a personal memoir. Although the author says that it is not a research work, it does intertwine personal tragedy with the Palestinian national Catastrophe known as the Nakba. It tells the story of the author’s struggle and that of...
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Sisi is out of favour; for Egypt’s sake, the West must persuade him to go
It seems as if Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has fallen out of favour with his Western backers; that he has become a liability rather than an “asset”, as intelligence spooks might say. Although it might not be as stark as that, there are good reasons to believe that...
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The Palestinian elections will be far from free and fair; cancel them now
Campaigning has barely started but the planned Palestinian local elections are already turning into a farce. Intimidation, physical attacks and the detention of candidates in municipalities across the West Bank have given rise to questions about the real purpose of the exercise. One view gaining currency is that they...
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Jerusalem is a religious inferno waiting to happen
Given that the ongoing Israeli assaults on the sacred mosque are clear breaches of international law, the least that the Western democracies can do is shut down the charities that fund the occupation......
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Open letter to the Arab League summit
"You cannot issue a perfunctory end of summit declaration saying that you support Palestine, for example, and then embrace the apartheid state of Israel. Nor can you make noises about democratic representation, and then support moves to suppress democratic election results"...
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South Africa must block Israeli Apartheid from making headway within the African Union
At present Israel has diplomatic ties with 11 of the 54 member states of the AU. It has for some time been trying to secure AU observer status along with countries like India, Brazil, Turkey, China and Japan, as well as the EU...
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Erdogan’s Turkey is too important to be pushed off course
Within hours of announcing the normalisation of its relations with Israel, Turkey suffered one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent memory. Not for the first time, Istanbul was the target of indiscriminate violence, resulting in carnage of a kind witnessed in cities like Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and...
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Impartiality and good faith are alien to the US and Israel; the Palestinians must look elsewhere
Of all the many massacres committed by Israel and Israelis against the Palestinian people, that which was carried out on 15th Ramadan in February 1994 was unique. Coming as it did just months after the signing of the Oslo Accords it was clearly an attempt to “derail” what then...
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Israel may have a fig leaf of UN respectability, but it still fears BDS
When Israel joined the United Nations on 11 May 1949 its membership was conditional on it fulfilling several requirements. Apart from being obliged to abide by the UN Charter, it had to declare its borders publicly and allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Sixty-seven years on,...
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Both camps are too embarrassed to discuss Israel in referendum debate
The fact is that they all view Israel as an exception; it is seen as a member of their exclusive club....
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Palestine must not become a vassal state of the UAE
After rejecting the French proposal for an international peace conference, Benjamin Netanyahu claims that he is now willing to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative. The Israeli prime minister has been a long-standing critic of the plan which was proposed by the late King Abdullah when he was the crown...
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Israel’s silent war against journalists in Palestine
There are at least 20 journalists, including one woman, and media students who are being held in Israeli jails in the legal limbo known as administrative detention....
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Executing Palestinians, a sign of Israel’s strength?
To the Palestinians, it hardly matters if Israel legislates to adopt capital punishment. It is, after all, a postscript of a practice that has long been in effect...
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Memo to the PA: what is more important, Israel’s security or your children’s future?
Last month, Palestinian teacher Hanan Al-Hroub was named among the top ten finalists for the 2016 Valley Park Foundation Global Teacher’s Prize; it was both a personal as well as national achievement. The satisfaction that accompanied her success has, however, been overshadowed by a bitter dispute between the Palestine...
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Israeli democracy is a travesty; just ask the pupils of Abu Al-Nawar School
The 12th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) has been a remarkable success, with more than 250 cities worldwide marking the week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Although it doesn’t please everyone, those who criticise IAW activities were brought abruptly to their senses last week when Israel demolished a...
