Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mohammad Makram Balawi
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Who enjoys freedom of worship in Israel?
Images of at least one Israeli drone dropping tear gas on Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan marked a new phase in the occupation’s aggression against Palestinian land and people. After about a century of experience of dealing with Zionist infiltrators and occupiers, Palestinians have...
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Are Russia-Israel relations facing a temporary challenge or definite deterioration?
Israel sees an existential threat in everything, because it is a state like no other; it cannot close its eyes at night and sleep soundly when the rest of the world is stormy. It was created after decades of a game between superpowers, and it maintains this balancing act...
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Palestine, the tragedy of endless procrastination
The Americans and Europeans are not serious in addressing Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinians, an expert on international law told me yesterday, adding that they are selectively in their use of international organisations including the International Criminal Court (ICC) to punish their enemies, as we have seen in...
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A voice from Gaza
Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to have the Ramadan break-fast iftar meal with a university professor from Gaza. He was my neighbour’s old university classmate and was transiting through Istanbul on his way from Makkah. The guest had his young son with him, who kept silent and smiled...
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Israel's phobia about Ramadan
For Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan is associated with peace, serenity, tranquillity, happiness, family and charity. In many Muslim countries, public authorities and private sector employers reduce working hours to allow their employees to worship and pray in a more relaxed atmosphere. Friends, neighbours and relatives often organise...
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Ukraine provides an opportunity for peace in Europe and beyond
According to Reuters, France summoned the Russian ambassador last week over a cartoon on Twitter that “mocked Europe”. The cartoon which angered the French government depicted Europe as a body on a table with characters representing the US and EU jabbing needles into it. It was the French, remember,...
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The new Palestinian year: A mixture of myths and hope
For many Palestinians, 2022 is a very special year as it marks the beginning of the “downfall” of the Israeli occupation. This belief is widely spread by some Muslim religious scholars, Palestinian and non-Palestinian, especially the well-known Sheikh Bassaam Jarrār. Jarrār delivers his speeches at a local mosque in...
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Iran and Saudi Arabia: Rapprochement under American eyes
Since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats captive, the US strategy towards Iran has been aggressive. The US led the whole world to isolate Iran, turning it into a pariah state even among its neighbours and fellow Muslim countries. The US...
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A Turkish Policy Shift towards the Taliban?
Although many leaders of the ruling Turkish party (AKP) are never tired of reiterating that their party is not an Islamic party but a conservative one, many out of their good will or otherwise, tend to brand it as such which, frequently, makes their policies seem ambiguous or contradictory....
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There are parallels between the occupations of Afghanistan and Palestine
The Palestinian public observed keenly the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. For most Palestinians, it represented a window of hope and a major morale boost; if the greatest world power could be defeated then surely the Israeli occupation could be defeated as well. Yet, there was a stark contrast between the...
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Time to end Israel’s impunity
The Israeli plan to annex what’s left of Palestine leads us to a simple conclusion: It is time for freedom-loving people of the world to take concerted action to oppose the Trump-Netanyahu Peace Plan. This misnamed peace plan has a single benefit – it has laid bare Israel’s intent...
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Why Hamas wants Palestinian elections to be held
In September last year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared at the UN that he is calling for an election to be held in Palestine. The aim is to elect 132 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council which was, according to many experts, dissolved unconstitutionally by Abbas on 22 December...
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Buying time for Israel
As was widely expected, US President Donald Trump’s plan to resolve the Middle East conflict — the so-called “Deal of the Century” — is officially dead. According to Jason Greenblatt, one of the masterminds behind the deal, the long-awaited American plan will not be presented in the near future....
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Waking up under foreign occupation is a loss beyond description
A friend of mine has a very peculiar gift: he can relate any incident in his life, be it his marriage, his children’s birthdays, his graduation date, the time he lost his job; he can even remember many painful incidents in Palestinian history. For example, he will tell you...
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Yair Netanyahu: the perfect scion of the State of Israel
What were the management at the Church of His Presence in Alabama thinking when they gave Yair Netanyahu a platform to speak earlier this month? Did they see him as a descendant of the Old Testament prophets come from the Holy Land to guide them? If they had troubled...
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Israel’s inherent sense of racial superiority will backfire one day
Hamas did a rare thing this week; it issued a press release contradicting one of its top officials, Fathi Hammad, who called for the killing of Jews everywhere in the world. Hammad had to backtrack on his comments and issue a press release of his own in which he...
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Institutionalised racism is the price paid by Israel’s third class citizens
Palestinians these days are fond of circulating on social media a scene from an old Israeli comedy which shows a group of Hamas fighters who could sneak through a tunnel into enemy territory and kidnap an Israeli officer in order to exchange him for Palestinian prisoners. Although things go...
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Kushner’s failure and Netanyahu’s end: Redefining the Middle East
It was a revealing and quite intersecting interview that Jared Kushner had with Jonathan Swan on Axios on HBO aired a week ago. Sawn asked Kushner a few direct questions on his mission as advisor on the Middle East peace negotiations. When Swan asked him if he understands why Palestinians...
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Far from solving the Palestine-Israel conflict, the US ‘deal’ will take it to an unimagined level
One thing caught my attention during the latest Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, which left dozens of Palestinians dead. It was a video message, in Arabic, by Israeli parliamentarian Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet. Dichter spent a life time torturing Palestinian...
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Turkey’s dissident alliance against US oil sanctions
Turkish media reported recently on the visit to India by Ibrahim Kalin, the special adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The visit came in the middle of an election campaign that the ruling party in India is not certain to win. It is clear that the reason for the...
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Netanyahu: Leading global right-wing politics
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro caused a big uproar in Israel after he addressed a group of evangelical pastors in Rio de Janeiro, saying that he believes the crimes of the Holocaust can be forgiven but not forgotten. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Centre criticised him, and Israeli President Reuven...
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Has Netanyahu killed AIPAC as an effective lobbying tool?
In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes a vain emperor hires two tailors who claim to make the most beautiful clothes and convince him that they are using a fine fabric invisible to anyone who is either unfit for his position or “hopelessly stupid”. The emperor...
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Israel between immunity and fragility
Just few days separated the American official recognition of the Israeli authority over the Syrian Golan Heights and the rocket that destroyed a house in Tel Aviv. In the first incident, Israel visualised itself as the undisputed king of the region supported by the divine-like US power, that could...
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Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets
On 4 March, the newly formed Israeli Blue and White party’s leaders, Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon, declared that Israel will not pull out from the occupied Golan Heights. Gantz, the party head, said they would increase settlements and double the population. Their reason; they...
