Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Iqbal Jassat
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Will Egypt's coup leader escape scrutiny in South Africa?
Has South Africa overlooked Egypt’s problematic participation at the forthcoming BRICS summit? Dignifying its military leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi with the expected red-carpet treatment will in effect be an endorsement of regime change via military coup, which is how Cairo’s despot overthrew the democratically elected Morsi government to gain power. This month marks...
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The Nakba’s 75th anniversary challenges the world to defeat settler-colonialism in Palestine
As most of the world recoils in horror at the latest demonstration of Israeli brutality and cold-blooded killings of Palestinians, many people are asking when these Zionist-led pogroms will end. It’s not before time. The Palestinians have for decades now faced Zionist savagery by Israeli thugs who masquerade as...
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Netanyahu’s claim of Jewish exclusivity in Palestine must be challenged
The defiant declaration by Benjamin Netanyahu that he is going to press ahead and complete Israel’s colonial project in Palestine must be challenged by the world. Regardless of international law and conventions, his government is going to continue to defy them. Knowing full well that Israel has America’s backing,...
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Biden’s capitulation to Bin Salman is a disaster for Palestine
Saudi Arabia’s monarchy under the leadership of unelected Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has always been suspected of maintaining close ties with the colonial state that occupies Palestine. Despite attempts to conceal this in the past, Saudi subterfuge hasn’t been very successful, perhaps by choice. The latest revelation reported...
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Holy Land Foundation 5’ are victims of the US’ unjust persecution of Palestinians
The US’ destructive wars on Muslim countries launched in the wake of 9/11 under the misplaced rubric known notoriously as the “War on Terror” spawned senseless deaths and bloodshed on an unprecedented scale. The George W. Bush administration, heavily infested with neoconservatives and Likudniks, contemptuously ignored and wilfully disregarded...
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Shireen Abu Akleh personified truth to power
Since the shattering news broke of the brutal killing of one of Palestine’s most iconic journalists, an unmistakable sense of anger began to surface across newsrooms in the Arab world and in many different parts of the world, including South Africa. Shireen Abu Akleh had been on assignment covering...
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Justice requires the prosecution of South Africans serving in the Israeli Army
With the global spotlight on Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine and dramatic pictures of civilians fleeing in droves to neighbouring countries, many across the world will be wondering how this tragedy will end, if at all. Palestinians who have been on the receiving end of a similar drama for...
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Where is South Africa heading in its response to Israel’s brutal military occupation?
How much longer is the South African government going to ignore violations of the Foreign Military Assistance Act by local citizens serving in Israel’s Apartheid army? This is a serious question. Seven years ago a high profile group of South Africans reached some damning conclusions about Israel following their...
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Normalisation and the betrayal of Palestine by Arab despots
Pinning Palestinians down while applying harsh measures of violent repression accompanied by a fanatical settler movement of arch-racists given free rein to attack and plunder, is a notorious game Israel has made a daily ritual. In fact the routine of inflicting war crimes has all the hallmarks of a...
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Israel's observer status at the African Union is a major blunder
The mere thought of having a colonial enterprise enjoying red carpet treatment within an anticolonial setting beggars belief. Even more so when that setting is the African Union, because the continent has suffered under colonialism, slavery, the exploitation of its natural and human resources and a multitude of other...
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Has the AU declared war on member states with Israel’s ‘observer status’?
In the midst of a full-blown controversy sparked by a decision to allow Israel “observer status” at the African Union, it is crucial to note that the Zionist colonial settler regime hasn’t halted its violent plunder of Palestinian rights while relentlessly pushing ahead with illegal settlements in the Occupied...
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HRW’s Israel apartheid finding brings justice for the Palestinians one step closer
In a dramatic escalation representative of global outrage against Israel’s tsunami of crimes against the people of occupied Palestine, New York-based Human Rights Watch has released a detailed legal report declaring that the Israeli government is committing crimes of apartheid. The serious charge of apartheid is groundbreaking, because it...
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The UAE's notorious limits on free speech have serious implications for expats
Expatriate workers in the UAE be warned: overzealous securocrats in the Gulf oligarchies are watching you and all other foreigners, ready to pounce if you dare to criticise any of its allies. Fear has gripped foreign workers across various sectors from banking to teaching, following the imprisonment of a...
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Will South Africa unravel the mystery of the Palestine-Israel #VisaScandal?
The petition for South Africa’s ANC-led government to lift punitive visa restrictions on Palestinians wanting to travel to the country is an embarrassing but necessary exercise. Many people, including veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle familiar with Palestine’s freedom struggle, and aware of deep historic ties between the two liberation...
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Israelis don’t need visas for South Africa, but Palestinians do; why the double standards?
When I applauded Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for his firm stance against “normalisation” with Israel earlier this month, a friend posed an interesting query. Is it true, he asked, that Israelis don’t need visas for travel to South Africa? This was an important and timely question, because this...
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These aren’t ‘peace deals’, they’re military pacts signed with malicious intent
As Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu stepped up to the podium flanked by the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the UAE to sign what has been hailed as a “historic peace agreement” between Israel and the two Gulf states, many wondered where the Palestinians were. Indeed, the absence of...
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Beinart cracks Zionism's apartheid foundation
Is it a case of much ado about nothing or does it pose a significant challenge to undermine key components of Israel’s multi-layered myths? From the heated backlash unleashed following an essay authored by Peter Beinart, it is clear that defenders of Zionism’s settler-colonial project view him as a...
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South Africa’s Chief Justice should retract his pro-Israel comments or resign
South Africa’s Chief Justice has come under intense fire for publically expressing his love for Israel. Mogeong Mogeong made his pro-Israel comments on an online platform hosted by the Jerusalem Post, and has come under heavy attack from numerous human rights organisations, legal officials and the governing African National...
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Israel is on edge as the George Floyd murder sparks global demands for justice
Does the current wave of protests across America sparked by the brutal murder of George Floyd by a white police officer present an existential threat to Israel? I hope so. Astonishing as it may sound, though, Israel’s propagandists and defenders have been shocked to “discover” suddenly that the parallels...
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Saudi Arabia’s persecution of Palestinians in the Kingdom is treacherous
A brutal legacy of Apartheid South Africa’s notorious assault on human rights was the violent enforcement of detention without trial. Scores of people targeted as opponents of white minority rule and classified as “terrorists” were held incommunicado arbitrarily; most were subjected to brutal torture and many were killed. With...
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Turkey seems torn between appeasing Israel and helping Palestine during this pandemic
As the coronavirus pandemic overwhelms the world, bringing to a halt almost all social, cultural and economic activities, Turkey is in the firing line. Bizarrely, it is facing the wrath of Israel for allegedly holding up hundreds of crates of medical equipment destined for the settler-colonial state. According to...
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Merkel's defence of Israel's war crimes undermines the ICC and the rule of law
Shortly after her visit to South Africa earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government made a shocking announcement in defence of Israel’s horrendous record of serious human rights violations. Germany took the shameful step of undermining international law by contesting The Hague’s jurisdiction, claiming that the International Criminal...
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Trump's ‘peace plan’ is simply another round of crumbs being thrown from the Apartheid table
There is no doubt that Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and millions of their compatriots living in squalid refugee camps in neighbouring countries will be appalled that the Trump administration has announced a process to extinguish their legitimate rights by gifting the occupying colonial regime with its “deal of...
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America's abandonment of Palestine is a challenge to South Africa
Is South Africa among those countries which are standing aside as the world is confronted with illegal moves by the Trump administration to facilitate Israel’s complete annihilation of Palestine? Notwithstanding the fact that the ANC-led government of President Cyril Ramaphosa has stuck by its decision to downgrade the South...