Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mohammad Makram Balawi
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The Israeli Myth of the Uncivilised Palestinian
Recently, in another shocking incident, Israel’s Culture Minister Miri Regev was outraged by a Palestinian children’s novel written by Walid Dagga, a Palestinian prisoner who spent more than thirty years in jail for resisting the occupation. In her opinion, he is in jail not to write novels but to...
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Netanyahu, the armed prophet of the clash of civilisations
If US President Donald Trump can be visualised as King Cyrus, then Benjamin Netanyahu is the prophet out to save the modern Israelites in a hostile environment. His message is to cast the clash of civilisations theories of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington into a religious mould. The battle...
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Netanyahu’s adventures in the AIPAC wonderland
Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the 2018 conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are key to an understanding of how Israel is run. The Israeli leader is not only his country’s longest-serving Prime Minister, but is also different from his predecessors in many ways. One difference has...
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America wants to annul the legitimate Palestinian right to return
There are many in the Arab world who fell about laughing when the US ambassador to the UN started to lecture them about how rich Arab countries did not do enough to help their Palestinian brothers. “The US provided $364 million to UNRWA and another $300 million in bilateral...
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Imran Khan’s mission to balance relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran
The visit of Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan to Saudi Arabia last week raised many questions related to his country’s foreign policy and the changes that could be made during his tenure, especially with regard to its major partners in the region, such as the Kingdom. Pakistan is...
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It’s clear the US and Israel favoured Abbas. It’s also clear he failed.
A few years after Arafat assumed the leadership of the Palestinian national movement he tried to tempt the West to offer him something in return for what he called peace. Many people still remember him with his white sweater, in the United Nations General Assembly in 1974, saying: “I...
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Israel’s failed quest for security
“The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.” Strong words, but not, as you might think, from...
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On both anti-Semitism and peace, Israel speaks with a forked tongue
The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is on a four-day visit to Israel, the first such trip by any Filipino leader. Even though he declared during the 2016 election that he would be “happy to slaughter drug addicts on the scale of the Nazi leader’s Jewish genocide,” that...
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One land, two laws: Welcome to the ‘Jewish state’ of Israel
Few people in the Arab World and Palestine had heard of Darin Al-Tatur before last Tuesday. This Palestinian poet has rarely caught the attention of critics, or literary magazines, till an Israeli court in Nazareth decided to sentence her to five months in prison. Her house in the Upper...
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Israel kills witnesses to its crimes, and doesn’t want us to know
Does one crime justify another? Israeli officials seem to think so. Whenever they are criticised for committing crimes against humanity by wiping Palestinian neighbourhoods off the map; bombing hospitals, schools and places of worship; and targeting ambulances, TV stations, power and water plants, roads and bridges, Israelis simply say,...
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‘Deal of the century’ or flop of the century? Trump’s Middle East policy
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland — the Nakba — by the Zionist Movement, which established the state of Israel on the land of our forefathers. Since then, Palestinians have not only suffered displacement but also continuous aggression and oppression...
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Malaysia’s unwavering support for Palestine
Two incidents represent turning points in Malaysian support for Palestine: the Mavi Marmara “Freedom Flotilla” incident, and the visit of Prime Minister Najib Razak to the Gaza Strip. The first took place in 2010 and boosted public support in Malaysia in an unprecedented way. Malaysian activists were on board...
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Palestine and Islamic influence on resistance: a response to Mehdi Hasan
Suspense created by the uncovering of hidden secrets attracts people, especially when it comes to established facts. Hence, Mehdi Hasan is keen on showing his audience the hidden side of the picture, or confirming that it doesn’t exist if that is the case. In his Intercept programme, “Blowback”, Hasan...