Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Omar Ahmed
-
Israel goes through governments like Manchester United goes through managers; both are in decline
Israel may not immediately spring to mind when thinking about England’s Manchester United Football Club, yet in terms of inconsistent leadership the self-declared Jewish state appears to be following a path that has epitomised the Red Devils ever since legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. The club...
-
Why are states we don’t like ‘regimes’ while friendly ones have ‘governments’?
We are so used to hearing the R-word being used to describe adversarial or hostile states to the US and collective West...
-
Demolishing Muslim protestors’ homes: India is taking a leaf out of Israel’s book
Over the weekend Indian authorities bulldozed several homes belonging to Muslims in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). The homeowners were alleged to have taken part in organised protests on Friday in response to inflammatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) made by the now...
-
After Iraq, who will be next to criminalise ties with Israel: Algeria or Yemen’s Houthi government?
Last week, Iraq’s Parliament passed a new law criminalising normalisation with Israel, becoming the first Arab country to formally ban normalisation with Israel. The motion was described in a statement as “a true reflection of the people”. The move has seen mixed reactions, with Iran praising the decision and...
-
It’s worth remembering that it was Hezbollah that liberated South Lebanon from Israel’s occupation, through armed struggle
As the sole Lebanese armed faction from the country’s civil war implicitly allowed to retain its arsenal in accordance with the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the conflict, the Hezbollah movement has faced incessant calls to disarm by political and sectarian rivals alike, both domestic and foreign. These stem largely...
-
Iraq banning ties with Israel, demonstrates only Iran-aligned Arab states oppose Zionism
On Wednesday the Iraqi Council of Representatives approved, in the first reading, a draft bill banning normalisation of ties with Israel. If passed, it will make Iraq the first Arab state to formally criminalise normalisation with the occupation state. The legislation, which will also apply to the autonomous Kurdistan Region...
-
Killing resistance leaders won’t kill the will or right to resist Israel’s occupation
Following Thursday’s axe and knife attack in the illegal Israeli settlement of Elad which killed three settlers, there have been calls from Israel’s security establishment and media for a return to the targeted killing of Palestinian resistance leaders. It is reported that warnings to this effect have been conveyed...
-
Remembering the 1994 Yemeni Civil War
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI Yemen was divided with the north and south forming separate countries ...
-
Yemen’s President Hadi has effectively been sacked by Saudi Arabia
Yemen’s newly-formed Presidential Leadership Council was sworn in on Tuesday before parliament in Aden. The southern port city has served as the internationally-recognised government’s interim capital since March 2015, days before the ongoing Saudi-led coalition’s military intervention was launched. Purportedly at the request of the exiled government, this intervention...
-
Will Khan’s ousting be Pakistan’s Mosaddegh moment?
The US and British governments denied their roles in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, for decades. Although western complicity in the toppling of Iran’s government was common knowledge, it was only in 2013 that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) finally admitted its involvement...
-
Pakistan’s Imran Khan should have learnt from Erdogan’s dealing with the army
Pakistan is going through a constitutional crisis after Prime Minister Imran Khan avoided a no-confidence vote on Sunday which was initiated by opposition legislators late last month in an attempt to oust him amid accusations of economic mismanagement and spiralling inflation. In response, Khan claimed that a “foreign conspiracy”...
-
Algeria should welcome and be wary of the attention it’s receiving for its gas
The conflict in the Ukraine has become the latest crisis that has exposed Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, which accounts for some 40 per cent of the EU’s natural gas imports. These concerns have only been heightened following Moscow’s demand that “unfriendly” countries must pay in rubles, in response...
-
While the West is preoccupied with pronouns and ‘cancelling’, actual power is shifting eastwards
As the first conflict to take place in the era of popular cancel culture, the widespread social media backlash against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month and ongoing military operations was expected. This was accompanied, not only by Western sanctions against Moscow, but a plethora of major Western brands...
-
Ukraine reminds us not to trust the West or give up nuclear development
The announcement this week of the constitutional amendment enabling Belarus to host Russian nuclear weapons following a disputed referendum, could see the country having weapons of mass destruction on its territory for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. This follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order...
-
Accused of ‘sports-washing’, are the Saudis now ‘games-washing’?
Having spent at least $1.5 billion on major international sporting events in order to bolster its reputation, Saudi Arabia has been accused by human rights groups of “sportswashing” which can be described as the investing or hosting of such events, in an effort to obscure poor human rights track...
-
Israel PM’s Bahrain visit was an affront to the memory of the uprising
Yesterday’s historic first visit by an Israeli Prime Minister to Bahrain was the highest-profile visit yet since the normalisation of relations between the countries in the US-sponsored agreement, which also included the UAE. Naftali Bennett’s 24-hour trip to Manama saw him being greeted by Foreign Minister, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani,...
-
Pragmatic Ibadi Islam at heart of Oman’s neutrality between Axis of Resistance and Normalisation
The Sultanate of Oman is a rather unique country in the Arab world. Not only is it is the oldest independent state having been ruled by the Busaid dynasty since 1749, the country mostly adheres to a sect of Islam that is neither Sunni nor Shia, but Ibadi, making...
-
Reuters has finally dropped the misleading ‘Houthi rebels’ narrative
After several years in being at the forefront of Western mainstream media’s coverage of the war on Yemen, describing it as being between the Saudi-led coalition and the “Iranian-backed Houthi rebels”, the news agency Reuters appears to have stopped using this phrase, and even ceased referring to the Houthis...
-
Are the UAE’s chickens coming home to roost in its ongoing war against Yemen?
World leaders and diplomats were quick to condemn the missile and drone attack carried out by the Houthi-allied Yemeni armed forces (“the Houthis”) in Abu Dhabi earlier this week which killed three expatriate workers and wounded six others, causing oil prices to rise to their highest level in seven...
-
Remembering the Algiers Accords
On this day in 1981 agreements were signed between the United States and the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran in order to bring an end to the embassy hostage crisis in Tehran and the release of Iranian assets which had been seized by Washington. While the accords did lead...
-
Lebanon is ‘held hostage by Iran’, yet coercion from the Gulf suggests otherwise
A common trope over the past decade has been the notion that Lebanon has been “held hostage” by the Hezbollah movement and its chief backer, Iran. This is based on concerns of the growing political and military power of Hezbollah, which along with the Amal Movement has been part...
-
Yemen unites in celebration after U15 football team beats Saudi to win West Asian championship
Yemen’s under-15 football team won the West Asian Junior Championship on Monday by beating hosts Saudi Arabia 4-3 on penalties. Back home in the war-torn country, thousands poured onto the streets across various cities in celebration, in a rare display of national unity. Warm congratulations #Yemen's juniors football ⚽️ team...
-
Whoever lifts the Arab Cup, the true winner is the Syrian Arab Republic
There are just four remaining countries in this year’s FIFA Arab Cup held in Qatar ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final fixtures (15 December, 2021): Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and the host nation. They followed exciting quarter-final games which saw Qatar thrash UAE 5-0 and Algeria’s dramatic victory over rivals, Morocco, on...
-
The last time Iraq was free of foreign interference was during the Abbasids—even then it was short lived
It is perfectly reasonable for Iraqi nationalists and patriots to demand that their country be free of foreign interference and patronage. This has been most vocalised in relation to corrupt governance amid increased political influence from neighbouring Iran but also perceptions of Iraq as a client state of the...
