Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jamal Kanj
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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...
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The birth of the European refugee crisis
Many years ago I read Men in the Sun, a novel by late Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. He, along with his young niece Lamis, were blown up by Israel in 1972. In the book, Kanafani told the tale of three desperate Palestinian refugees from Lebanon who hid in an empty...
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A day of reckoning, 39 years later...
If you are like me, I am sure you are tired of reading about the results of the last Israeli election. Or on Benjamin Netanyahu’s Hebrew pledge running up to the election and his flip-flopped English version after winning the election. I want instead to highlight the native Palestinian Israeli...
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Dilly-dallying must stop...
On January first, it will be 50 years since the start of the modern Palestinian revolution; and on the 15th it will be 10 years since Mahmoud Abbas was first, and last, elected as the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Two years after becoming a non-member UN state, the...
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Ethnic cleansing manifesto...
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and head of Yisrael Beitenu party published on November 28 a new manifesto outlining the party’s outlook for Israel. The updated platform entitled “Swimming Against the Stream” posted on Lieberman’s Facebook page demanded Israeli Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians “… to forfeit their Israeli...
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Negotiations to end all peace...
Following the historical recognition by the Swedish government, British legislators voted overwhelmingly on a non-binding resolution urging their government to recognise the state of Palestine. Ireland’s Seanad and Spain’s parliament passed similar motions on October 22 and November 18 respectively. Sweden, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, has positioned itself...
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Israeli Incremental genocide...
It goes without saying that Gaza has taught the Israeli military a new lesson: the days of swift Israeli wars are over. While mostly one-sided, Israel has never before fought a war that lasted 50 days. The Palestinians (besieged by brothers and foes) were of no military match to...
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An Islamic aberration
Animals: was my instinctual response to photos of Syrian soldiers being executed by members of the so-called Islamic State (IS). The same gut feelings two days earlier to the news of the killing of American journalist James Foley in cold blood. My heart goes to Shirley Sotloff, the mother of...
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Zionist lying unchecked
Scene one: Disappearance of three illegal Jewish settlers in Hebron. Israel closes the West Bank, demolishes homes of supposed kidnappers, nonstop air raids on Gaza, kills two dozen Palestinians and imprisons more than 600 mostly newly released prisoners. Scene two: The kidnapped 15-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Abu Khudiar. Israel takes very...
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The king of deception
Outgoing Israeli president Shimon Peres talked in a recent interview about a peace agreement he reached with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 2011. According to Peres, the Israeli prime minister rejected the draft understanding telling him “to wait a few days Tony Blair could get a better offer.” The President...
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Intimidation of John Kerry
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon articulated publicly what Israeli leaders say privately: Give us your tax money, weapons and your veto power but “leave us alone.” He called the US peace efforts “not worth the paper it is printed on,” and accusing US Secretary of State John Kerry of being...
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Maintaining Israel's demographic majority, but at what cost?
In America, the Jewish community’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) promotes racial integration, equality and multiculturalism within American society. The ADL and other Jewish organisations work closely at local levels with school administrators across the US to educate young children about the virtues of tolerance and multiculturalism. As a promoter of...
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Nuclear irony is lost on the West
It is ironic that Western nations seeking to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions are the same countries which sold nuclear technology to Tehran in the first place. Iran has worked with the US and Western nations since the 1950s to develop its nuclear energy capabilities. In 1975, German conglomerates Kraftwerk Union...
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The real story of the Six-Day War
Last Tuesday was the 45th anniversary of the outbreak of a war between Egypt and Israel that reshaped the Middle East. At 7.30am, on 5 June, 1967, 200 Israeli fighter jets took off in a massive surprise attack, neutralising Egypt’s air force on the ground before troops advanced to...
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Syria on verge of civil war
What started as an extension of the Arab Spring is pushing Syria to the verge of civil war. Bashar Al-Assad must stop deluding himself by blaming the frustration of the Syrian people on a foreign conspiracy. Indulging in such self-denial is what could eventually justify outside intervention. In addition, the...
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US veto for sale
Pre-empting Mitt Romney’s campaign visit to Israel, President Barack Obama last Friday signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Co-operation Act of 2012. The bill was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and co-sponsored by Israeli firsters Barbara Boxer and Howard Berman, of the US Senate and House...
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By way of deception
WESTERN and Israeli media are full of purported leaks giving details of the joint efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak to enlist reluctant military chiefs to their plan to attack Iran. All this is hogwash. Israel has no intention to move against...
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21st century robotic wars
On the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a new “sanitised” kind of war is reshaping the future of America’s military industrial complex. The use of unmanned drones – robotic war – is carried out through a string of military sites stretching from the Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada...