Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jamal Kanj
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Biden's bias toward Israel transcends his humanity
What did the White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby say after the 1 April Israeli murder of seven aid workers in Gaza, six of them foreigners? “We were outraged to learn of an IDF strike that killed a number of civilian humanitarian workers yesterday from the World...
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Rafah is Netanyahu’s last fig leaf
Rafah is not a military base, nor does it have any geopolitical significance. It is, however, Netanyahu’s last chance for political survival and exoneration from criminal charges. Rafah’s only symbolic importance is being a potential gateway to forcibly exile Palestinians from Gaza. Thus, Netanyahu’s vision of “total victory” entails...
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Gaza’s floating pier and Biden’s fake empathy are cynical PR exercises
The Gaza Strip is teetering on the brink of famine. At least twenty-seven children, including new-born babies, have perished due to the severe shortage of essential nourishment, particularly baby milk. Additionally, hundreds of adults and elderly individuals have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks while waiting for...
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Gaza faces genocide by starvation
Imagine for a moment that you are at home, with your wife and children. It’s dinner time before you put your three children to sleep. The room is cold, the gas cylinder is empty, there’s no food, no electricity and no drinking water. There is no dinner at this...
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Rafah between Netanyahu’s metaphysical power and the West’s disconnect with reality
Allow me to begin this piece by sharing the story of a child from Gaza. Unlike your child, sister, or niece, Hind Rajab didn’t live to see her sixth birthday. Children her age typically have grand plans, eagerly anticipating starting school and perhaps grappling with the challenge of completing...
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Defunding is the final phase of the Israeli genocide
International leaders who lined up to pledge their support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the largest open-air prison break on 7 October paved the way for Israel’s ensuing genocide against the Palestinians. Now, the suspension of funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian...
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The ICJ and the dichotomy between the genocide victims and the perpetrators
The interim findings of the International Court of Justice agrees with South Africa while rejecting the Israeli motion, on the World Court’s jurisdiction to investigate charges against Israeli actions that fall “within the provisions of the Convention.” The significance of the provisional Court’s ruling is putting on notice...
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Tales of hypocrisy: Israeli genocide and the International Criminal Court
The weekend before Christmas, Israel announced the loss of 17 of its army soldiers during a 24-hour period. Avenging its loss on the battlefield, Israeli jets levelled residential neighbourhoods in three refugee camps (Maghaze, Bureij and Nuseirat), killing 250 civilians and injuring dozens more. In the last 90 days, the...
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Gaza: What did Zionists learn from Jewish persecution?
Last week we witnessed what the Bible calls “you reap what you sow” when the Israeli army killed three fleeing Israeli prisoners. Israel sowed a culture of hate where the life of Palestinians, or non-Jews, was expendable. The Israeli soldiers in the neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya, Gaza, followed standard army...
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From Chongqing to Gaza’s mass assassination factory
Israel resumed its genocidal war on Gaza following the brief pause last week, which was insufficient to address the plight of the thousands of missing Palestinians, most of them women and children, trapped beneath the rubble. Personally, I’ve been trying since 27 October to reach a former colleague in...
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Mr President, you lie, and Palestinian children die
President Biden, you lied when you said that you “saw” images of decapitated Israeli children. You lied when you absolved Israel prematurely of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital massacre and then enabled Israel to target more hospitals and ambulances. As of 5 November, Israel has attacked other healthcare centres, including...
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Gaza Hospital massacre and the marketing of Israeli lies
A blast killed more than 500 civilians in the “safe” yard of Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. Within a few hours, the Israeli army concluded it was a misfired Palestinian rocket. US President, Joe Biden, soon after his arrival in Tel Aviv, adopted the Israeli story blaming “the other side”...
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Western media: an accessory in Israeli war crimes
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This quote was attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi chief propagandist. Today, Goebbels would envy the Israeli disinformation prowess employing Western media to willingly market the Israeli Big Lies. Claims of “decapitated...
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Cultural heist: Biblical currency and Zion-washing of Palestinian national dress
Culture encompasses a dynamic and multifaceted array of unspoken social norms handed down from one generation to the next. It shapes individuals’ mindsets and finds expression in various aspects, such as national costume, traditions, language, arts, cuisine, music and distinct behavioural patterns unique to specific regions or nations. Among the...
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New Israeli government: Far-right or Racist?
Hanukkah 2022 will be remembered as the holiday when Israeli voters snuffed the Menorah candles and welcomed darkness by electing a refurbished Jewish version of the Taliban government. Tel Aviv Mayor, Ron Huldai, characterised it as being a shift “from a democracy to a theocracy.” Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted on...
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Sheikh Jarrah is a microcosm of the Palestine question
Palestinian diaspora narratives are broad. Sheikh Jarrah is the story of Palestinian families, in one East Jerusalem neighbourhood, under the Israeli occupation. In contrast, my diaspora journey traces a family of sheep herders and farmers in the Galilee pushed to a Northern Lebanese refugee camp in 1948 and denied...
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Faux peace between Israel and the Arab Gulf royals is a Trump stunt to win votes
Ascribing the euphemism of peace to the formal normalisation of the relationship between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, and then the small island Kingdom of Bahrain with the occupation state, is an abysmal attempt to repackage Jared Kushner’s string of failures and Donald Trump’s obsession for a...
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What cost, Israel...
Much had been argued about the creation of Israel and the ensuing 1948 ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Palestinians. Sadly however, most had become a desensitised academic debate. A lifeless abstract portrayal failing to depict what it really meant for one to be a refugee without a country. On this 68th...
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Israel's apartheid character...
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom created a maelstrom in Israel by merely demanding a “credible investigation into deaths of Palestinians in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability.” Israel declared the Swedish official persona non grata for daring to demand (which no Arab official has done until now) investigations...
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The most dangerous Palestinian...
In the last week’s column, I wrote on the banned love story from the Israeli high school reading list. The Israeli education ministry claimed that young Jewish students might not comprehend “the significance of miscegenation” for “maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people.” Oddly enough, the Israeli argument to...
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Forbidden love tales in Israel...
How can a two-year-old novel become a best seller? Censorship is the short answer. The most important question is, however, why would the “Jewish democracy” censor a love fiction between a Jew and non-Jew? The banned book Borderlife was based on a love story between an Israeli woman and a...
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Rights of Palestinian Israeli citizens...
Palestinian civic organisations inside Israel have declared January 30 the Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Israeli citizens. Israel was established in 1948 on the ruins of more than 500 native towns and villages and the forceful displacement of approximately 780,000 Palestinians. Only 153,000 Palestinians remained under what became Israel. Of...
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Israeli self-inflicted hate...
Haftom Zarhum, a 29-year-old Eritrean, was lynched by Jewish Israelis simply because he looked different. After being shot in the legs, a mob circled him like hyenas over a bleeding prey throwing a bench over his head and chanting the unofficial Zionist’s anthem of hate: “Death to Arabs, Arabs...
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Israel’s haunted temple...
Tension in Jerusalem has escalated to dangerous levels in response to deliberate Israeli provocation at Haram Al Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary. This fragile situation was further worsened by new Israeli government decrees to blow up Palestinian homes and grant its army a free rein to deal with protesters. Since...
