Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ibrahim Hewitt
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Israel wrote the State Terrorism Handbook, and follows it to the letter
I have been re-reading Gaza in Crisis, written in 2010 by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, because what is being played out in Gaza looks and feels all too sickeningly familiar. “Inflicting pain on civilians,” wrote Pappe, “is another long-standing political doctrine of state terror, in fact its guiding...
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Turning terrorists into ‘heroes’
Celebrations took place in Israel a few years ago to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organisation which prepared the ground for the establishment of the state of Israel and the Israel Defence Forces. A headline in the Jewish Chronicle referred to...
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The OIC is wasting its time calling on the international community to curb Israeli excesses
It was both heartening and disappointing to read the latest statement from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Heartening because it focused on the “escalations of violations by Israel, the occupying power, and its attempts to prejudice Al-Aqsa’s legal and historical status”. Israeli incursions at the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa...
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Helping Palestinians in need is not ‘terrorism’; they are the victims of Israeli terrorism
I know none of the details of the arrest of Palestinian Amin Abu Rashid and his daughter Israa in Holland recently. I do know, however, that the track record of European governments in levelling allegations of “funding terrorism” against Palestinian-European organisations over the past twenty years or so has...
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Where have the defenders of Israeli democracy been hiding?
Israelis continue rallies against gov't judicial overhaul plan...
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Why are we surprised that Netanyahu courts right-wing extremists?
Why is anyone surprised that Israeli Prime Minister-in-waiting Benjamin Netanyahu has been courting right-wing extremists in his bid to cobble together a coalition government? His track record in this respect is both long and infamous. In January 1998, for example, the Guardian carried the headline, “Netanyahu meets US far...
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Forget Passover and Ramadan, Israel’s violence is all about its brutal military occupation
Much is being made of the fact that the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine coincides with both the Jewish Passover and the Muslim month of Ramadan, emphasised by the horrific images of Israeli paramilitary police firing tear gas and rubber bullets inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Palestinian worshippers trussed up...
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Being designated as ‘terrorists’ by Israel reflects the good work that NGOs do in Palestine
I am following with interest the reaction to Israel’s designation of six Palestinian human rights organisations as “terrorist” groups. The small British charity of which I was chair for almost 25 years was thus designated by Israel in 1996 and by the US administration of George W Bush in...
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‘Shared values’ allow Israel to act with impunity
European and American politicians and bureaucrats refer frequently to “shared values” when they seek to justify their support for the state of Israel. This is usually taken to mean a shared commitment to democracy and other media-friendly facades. Don’t believe them. Democratic values do not include institutionalised discrimination against...
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Normalisation with Israel means RIP international law, it’s been nice knowing you
The news that Bahrain has followed the UAE, Jordan and Egypt into Israel’s criminal embrace was no surprise; nor will it be shocking to hear that Saudi Arabia is following suit, as it almost certainly will. The raising of the Israeli flag in Riyadh will happen sooner rather than...
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Netanyahu condenses Israel’s history into one sentence
A few days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu condensed the history of the Zionist state of Israel into one sentence: “These European countries should be ashamed of themselves. Have they learned nothing from history? … They are enabling a fanatic terrorist state to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, thereby bringing...
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Big Ride for Palestine takes the message to Manchester and beyond
'Taking the message into our towns, cities and villages is something that we can do relatively easily, and lets the Palestinians know that they have not been forgotten'...
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The fifth annual Big Ride takes the Palestine issue onto the streets of London
The Big Ride for Palestine came to Britain’s capital city on Saturday to fly the flag and raise awareness across London of the Israeli occupation. Almost 150 cyclists braved a downpour to gather in North Kensington before setting off on a meandering 36-mile route which took in Cricklewood, Kilburn,...
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Britain’s ‘response to violence in Gaza’ is woefully inadequate
As I write this, at least 52 Palestinians, including children, have been shot and killed by Israeli troops today, Monday 14 May 2018; well over a thousand more have been wounded. If the evidence of the past few weeks is anything to go by, many of their wounds will...
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There is more to Trump’s Palestinian aid threat than meets the eye
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) looks to be facing the brunt of Donald Trump’s threat to cut aid to the Palestinians. The most obvious target for an aid cut if the intention is to force the Palestinian leadership back to...
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An illegitimate capital for a state without legitimacy
It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has declared that the US is recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For seasoned US-Israel watchers, it merely confirms what we have been saying for decades: Washington is no honest broker in negotiations to end the Palestine-Israel conflict. Quite...
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Gaza under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance
One of this year winner of the Palestine Book Awards, Bjorn Brenner talks about his book 'Gaza Under Hamas'...
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The Palestinian response to Israeli violence is remarkably restrained
I read something last week which looked very familiar; Myanmar state violence against the Rohingya people was said to be a “response” to an attack on police officers by a small group of “renegades”. This “response” has been completely disproportionate, involving armed security forces against unarmed men, women and...
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If Netanyahu rejects peace, what does he really want?
Despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim during that shallow press conference with Donald Trump that he wants to focus on “substance” not “labels”, we now know that he actually rejected a peace deal (and what can be more substantial than that?) put forward by ex-Secretary of State John Kerry last year....
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Post-truth and lies have always been Israel’s way, and the West plays its role
With the announcement that Donald Trump’s choice of US ambassador to Israel is a hawkish Zionist, the campaign to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is already in full swing. As is usual these days, British neocons and pro-Israel cheerleaders are jumping on the bandwagon and...
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Israel is a rogue state; here’s why
By any reasonable assessment, any state which treats international laws and conventions with contempt, flouts them with increasing regularity and maintains a brutal military occupation into the bargain has to fit into the rogue category. Israel is one such state. Even before it declared its “independence” in 1948, the...
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America and Russia could end the war in Syria tomorrow, but don’t hold your breath
While the Guardian’s Simon Jenkins decries the West’s “meddling” in Syria – and suggests that “We must step back” – his humane cri de coeur touches fleetingly on the real problem. “Reality in this part of the world,” writes Jenkins, “is that order and power seem invariably to trump...
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Britain’s exit from the EU should ring alarm bells in Palestine
The news that a majority of voters in Britain have opted to leave the European Union has produced a lot of surprise, shock and anger, and that’s just within the UK itself. The result has given a major boost to far-right extremists who see it as a mandate for...
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Partisan comments from pro-Israel MPs shouldn’t trump expert advice in aid review
Earlier this week we read about Israel being nominated to chair a UN committee which is the “primary forum for the consideration of legal questions in the General Assembly”. As my colleague Ramona Wadi pointed out, this move comes a couple of years after the world’s last colonial state...