Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Philip Leech-Ngo
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Saudi Arabia’s gathering storm over its erratic crown prince
It’s hard not to be moved on a personal level by Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder. The circumstances — the fact that his fiancée was waiting outside for him, expecting him to return with the paperwork needed to start a new life while he was being murdered — are almost...
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Trump is just the latest US president to push Palestine around
US National Security Advisor John Bolton is at it again. He recently issued a blistering rebuke of the International Criminal Court (ICC): “We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.” Is this another example of...
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Is Trump getting it right on North Korea and Iran?
The 45th President of the United States isn’t known for his strategic vision in any area of governance, barring perhaps as an election campaigner. In the field of foreign affairs, it has become commonplace to criticize the Trump administration as short-sighted, hubristic and for imperilling the post-1945 rules-based international...
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From Shameless to shameful: Trump’s debacle on Jerusalem is also Obama’s failure
Donald Trump’s announcement, Wednesday, to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel represents yet another example of the current occupant of the White House’s ability to throw caution to the wind, disrupt established norms and blunder, myopically, into some of the world’s most complex issues. But while this president’s...
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Are we asking the wrong questions about Daesh?
Before he launched his apparently ineffective airstrikes against Syria’s Sharyat Airbase, US President Donald Trump had a very different view of the conflict in Syria. It was a much simpler view. Daesh represented the ultimate evil, and anyone who could help bring about the group’s demise was on the...
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Netanyahu’s clashes with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were blessings in disguise
On the face of it the Israeli prime minister should be giddy with joy. The eleventh-hour effort by the Obama administration to rescue the “two-state solution” has only given succour to the most hard-line advocates of Israeli irredentism while the incoming Trump administration promises virtually carte blanche support. But...
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The end of ‘normal’? Trumpism’s rotten roots
Recently, HBO comedian and commentator John Oliver reflected the views of many in the US and abroad, in responding to the election of Donald Trump by emphasising that this is “not normal”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agb50Fl6yc8 Yet while as I concur that the era of Trumpism represents something new and horrifying – perhaps even...
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A brief history of France and Britain’s grotesque treatment of refugees in Calais
As much as French officials would like to claim that the so-called “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais has been “cleared”, it is unlikely that this will be the last time Britain and France face the prospect of refugees gathering within their borders. Indeed, even today – days after the site...
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The West is shirking its responsibility to refugees and missing out
The recent Amnesty International reports on which countries take the most refugees is somehow both shocking yet totally predictable at the same time. What is most shocking about it is the sheer scale of the crisis and how a few of the worlds’ poorest countries are taking on the...
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Clinton’s clique
Further releases from Hillary Clinton’s emails show a potentially unsavoury connection between the former Secretary of State and some of the world’s most powerful and – often – most anti-democratic figures. In particular, there is strong circumstantial evidence that suggests that while she was in office, as Secretary of...
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Targeting Obama's use of drones
"Obama's secret drone wars have also killed schoolteachers, policemen, women and children"...
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Palestine's municipal elections will have serious ramifications
The municipal elections are due to take place on 8 October and this week saw Hamas launch its election campaign with a series of videos wherein ordinary people say 'Thank you' to the movement...
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Black Lives Matter is an opportunity for reckoning with Britain’s imperial past
Black Lives Matter (BLM) – the anti-racism campaign made famous primarily for its protests across the US – made headlines in the UK last week with demonstrations in several locations around the country. Yet while some in the media struggle to understand the rationale behind bringing these protests to...
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‘Us vs. them’ is not ‘Islam vs. the West’
So far, the summer of 2016 feels a bit like we’re all strapped into the world’s most hectic roller coaster. An unexpected referendum result here is followed by an unanticipated election triumph there. The horrific murder of an MP on one day was overshadowed by horrendous crimes against civilian...
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Obfuscating settlements: how asking loaded questions is designed to mislead
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, approved the construction of 42 new “settlement units” in Kiryat Arba, an illegal settlement located near Hebron, the biggest city in the occupied West Bank. According to media reports, this new construction was licenced by...
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It’s time for a truly anti-imperialist party on the British left
So, it’s official. On Wednesday, David Cameron will step down as prime minister of the United Kingdom and Theresa May will take charge. May, who has been home secretary for six years, will become the UK’s 76th prime minister and will oversee what will surely be turbulent times for...
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What will the next UK PM do in the Middle East?
There has already been much ink spilled over the potential impact of “Brexit” on the UK’s relationship with the Middle East (including several excellent articles published here on MEMO) even though – at present – there is apparently little clarity with which to work. However, there is at least one...
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What would Hillary’s Middle East policy look like?
Over the past week or so, I’ve learned the hard way that making political predictions is – quite frankly – a mug’s game. Given the startling result of the “Brexit” referendum, based on a campaign that seemed to be driven more by nostalgia-infused pipe-dreams, xenophobia and outright racism, who...
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Purgatory in the Holy Land
In Mehran Kamrava’s powerful new book, The Impossibility of Palestine, he presents a penetrating and pessimistic overview of the prospects for a future Palestinian state. His thesis is simple: there is no real hope for the formation of a meaningful Palestinian state – either through a one- or a...
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Working in Palestine: perpetual crisis in the Palestinian labour market
As with the latest, largely symbolic, round of “peace talks” sponsored by France, discussion about real life in Palestine is frequently overshadowed by grandstanding and political abstractions. However, while diplomatic envoys busy themselves in pursuit of meaningless ways to re-label aspects of the status quo without changing anything substantive,...
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Security as emancipation in Palestine
What does “security” mean in the context of Israel’s occupation of Palestine? According to a plethora of literature produced by Israeli and US think tanks – including recent reports by the Centre for a New American Security and a new programme by the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) – “security”...
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It is absurd that the PA arrests, beats and detains in response to social media posts
On Wednesday 11 May, while seeking to apply for a job in one of Ramallah’s many cafes, 26 year-old Kefah Quzmar was assaulted violently and arrested by members of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence, a branch of the burgeoning PA security forces. Quzmar was taken away and imprisoned for...
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Specific factors may determine the future of US-Saudi relations
The relationship between the world’s only hyper-power – the United States – and its most important energy superpower – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) – is changing. Why is this happening and what might it mean? There are a number of specific factors which might be significant drivers...
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What’s going on in America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia?
When President Barack Obama stepped off Air Force One onto the red carpet at Riyadh’s international airport recently, he was not greeted by his fellow head of state, King Salman, but by an array of much more lowly officials. Was this a deliberate snub? The king had, after all,...