Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
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The Arab League summit was business as usual
The Arab League has just concluded its thirtieth summit in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, where leaders of Arab countries gathered for one day of discussions aimed at finding pan-Arab solutions to their many divisive and complicated problems. Was this anything new? Hardly. The umbrella group of Arab countries, is...
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Could the Afghan model rescue Libya?
Finally, the United Nations’ special envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame announced the dates and venue for his long-awaited Libyan National Conference (LNC). It is now scheduled to take place from 14-16 April in the Libyan south-western town of Ghadames. A historical town which once was a tourist attraction in...
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Trump snuck into Iraq. Rouhani was welcomed with open arms
US President Donald Trump had to sneak in to Iraq, a supposed US ally, arriving at the Ein Al-Assad airbase for an unannounced visit on 26 December. Not a single Iraqi official was there to welcome him. Instead, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi angrily snubbed him, refusing to travel...
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There is no Arab Spring in Algeria; or is there?
What transpired in Algeria over the last three weeks can hardly be seen as another episode of the peoples’ awakening that swept through North Africa in 2011 as part of what has been dubbed the “Arab Spring”. Then, regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were deposed. The crisis in...
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Now controlling two-thirds of Libya can Haftar take Tripoli?
Between January and February this year Libyan Armed Forces (LNA) led by Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar have captured almost the entire southern region, known as Fezzan, including all its oil fields and major population centres. Surprisingly, the advancing forces were welcomed by cheerful locals in almost every little village...
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The Arab Maghreb Union that never was
February 17 this year marks 30 years since the Arab Maghreb Union, better known by its French acronym UMA, was founded as an economic and political union bringing together the five North African countries. The agreement establishing the UMA was singed in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh on 17 February...
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Why are Libyans not celebrating the anniversary of the revolution?
Libya’s revolution started on 17 February 2011 in the eastern city of Benghazi and went on to end the rule of the late Muammar Gaddafi. On this, the eighth anniversary of the revolution, many Libyans are mourning that day, rather than celebrating. To understand why, I asked my thousands of...
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An Arab perspective on Iran’s Islamic Revolution at 40
What started as series of public demonstrations and strikes across Iran nearly two years earlier peaked on 11 February, 1979, with the Islamic Revolution of Iran ending decades of oppressive monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Islamic Republic of Iran was born, shaking the region and humiliating the...
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How one Libyan man is helping illegal migrants
For the last eight years, my home town of Bani Walid, 180 kilometres southwest of Tripoli, has become one of the favourite route for people traffickers and illegal migrants heading north towards the Mediterranean coast on their dangerous trip to Europe by sea. The route extends from the southern...
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UN envoy to Libya is taking credit for Libya’s hard earned successes
In his last report to the UN Security Council, the United Nations’ special envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, sounded both optimistic and pessimistic. He tried to paint a realistic picture of the situation in the conflict ridden oil rich country but not without a dose of exaggeration and misleading...
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Does Libya have its own Al-Sisi in the making?
The town of Harawah lies around 80 kilometres east of Sirte and nearly 550 kilometres east of Tripoli. I drove there earlier this month to see the most westerly territory in Libya controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by former General, now Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. No one...
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Libya’s constitutional battle
On 16 December, just a few days after Libya’s long-awaited referendum law was passed by the Houses of Representatives, it faced its first legal hurdle. Veteran lawyer and member of the country’s constitutional assembly Daw Al-Mansouri told MEMO at his Tripoli office that he has filed a lawsuit before...
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Why is Daesh’s threat in Libya is not taken seriously?
Between May and December last year Daesh attacked three sensitive government sites in the Libyan capital Tripoli causing deaths, injuries and extensive damages. All three sites symbolise state sovereignty and government control. On 2 May last year, Daesh destroyed much of the county’s High Election Commission in Gout Shaal, west...
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Operation Moses: How Israel smuggled thousands of Ethiopian Jews out of Sudan
On 5 January it will be 33 years since the end of Operation Moses, the secret operation to smuggle thousands of Ethiopian Jews, known as Falashas, out of Sudan via Brussels and on to Israel using the now defunct Belgian Trans European Airways (TEA). The actual number of Jews...
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What stopped Chad’s Idriss Déby from visiting Israel before now?
If you did not know much about Chad, a country in the middle of Africa, it most likely it caught your eye on 26 November when its President, Idriss Déby, landed in Israel for an unannounced visit to the Zionist state. The visit was shrouded in secrecy until Déby’s...
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Tunisia eight years after Bouazizi’s self-immolation
December 17 marks the eighth anniversary of what is called the “Arab Spring”, which started in Tunisia before spreading to the rest of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It was on that day in 2010 that Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after a simple quarrel...
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A homage to Libya’s legendary artist
A couple of years before the first Palestinian Intifada against the brutal Israeli occupation in 1987, Naji Al-Ali, a famous Palestinian cartoonist, produced one of his finest cartoons motivating Palestinian children to resist occupation by drawing. Accompanying the cartoon were couple of verses encouraging kids to reject occupation by...
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Did Libya gain anything from the Palermo conference?
The Palermo conference on Libya went ahead as scheduled — 12/13 November — with all of the local protagonists present, along with many regional and international players. Italy finally had its show, just like the French did in Paris in May, and everybody is happy; or are they? A...
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Could Libya ever unite its army?
Between September 2017 and last month, Egypt hosted seven rounds of talks aimed at unifying the military establishment in neighbouring Libya. Participants were representatives of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, from eastern Libya, and their counterparts from the Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli. The talks ended without any...
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Four decades on, is Sadat viewed as a traitor or a hero?
On 19 November, it will be 41 years to the day that the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat embarked on his stunning and controversial visit to Israel. His trip had a major impact on the political and military situation in the Arab-Israeli conflict and, indeed, the entire Middle East. When...
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What can we expect from Italy’s conference on Libya?
Next week, Italy is hosting an international conference on Libya in Palermo, Sicily. Italy has every reason to be concerned about what is happening in Libya, given that the Libyan capital, Tripoli, is only five hundred kilometres south of Sicily and little over one hour flying time from Rome....
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After six decades of independence Algeria is desperate for change
When France first occupied Algeria, an Arab, Muslim country on the Mediterranean coast in North Africa, in 1830 it did so with the firm belief that Algeria is an integral part of the French state. The first thing France did was to bring in thousands of European settlers including...
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How the world was misled into the Libyan war
Seven years have passed since the United Nations authorised military intervention in Libya under the pretext of “humanitarian intervention” and a “responsibility to protect”. At the time it was claimed that Libya’s civilians needed protection against the brutality of President Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, amidst an uprising against the government. Eight...
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Britain should re-interpret the Balfour Declaration
The UN General Assembly voted on Tuesday by an overwhelming majority to grant the State of Palestine enhanced rights and privileges, allowing it to take over the chair of the Group of 77+China. This important diplomatic victory for Palestinians comes at a time when the majority of UN members...
