Middle East Near You

“It is particularly in Darwish’s poetical progression that Palestine endured and became metaphor.” This observation in the introduction to Palestine as Metaphor (Olive Branch Press, 2019) resonates throughout the...

Ever since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge military offensive in 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy has been to seek the normalisation of bombing the Gaza Strip. This has involved...

The European Union’s fluctuations on Israel’s colonial settlement expansion are more prominent since the bloc’s refusal to issue a statement regarding US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the...

Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been trading the same rhetoric about not having a suitable partner for diplomatic negotiations. The senior adviser and spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil...

For all its purported peace-building efforts and support for Palestinian rights, the EU is committed to supporting Israel’s colonial-settler expansionism. Its feeble response to US President Donald Trump’s so-called...

We should forget all about Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s hyperbole regarding a full boycott of Israel and the US, including security coordination. During his address to the UN...

Further proof of the Palestinian Authority’s rejection of Palestinian land, history and memory was articulated recently by Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, who basically discounted Zionist colonisation and...

The Palestinian Authority has learned nothing from decades of futile UN Security Council Resolutions. Do the people of Palestine really need international consensus regarding the already very clear illegality...

What the news reports eliminate, Ramzy Baroud’s new book, These Chains Will be Broken: Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, 2019), pushes to the fore....

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to provide proof of his worthlessness when it comes to political decision-making. If the US “continues” with the so-called deal of the century,...

Palestinian prisoners – the bulwark of Palestinian resistance – have faced several levels of exclusion and exploitation throughout the decades. Building upon this trajectory, US President Donald Trump’s so-called...

Just a day before US President Donald Trump revealed the details of the purported “deal of the century”, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh made a last-ditch attempt...

Prince Charles’ visit to the occupied Palestinian territories has garnered media attention. Words of sympathy, far from a political message, were the subject of his speech in Bethlehem after...

As expected, the International Criminal Court has cranked its bureaucratic delays into motion over the proposed investigation into Israeli war crimes. The ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s statement was...

The EU is predicting an increase in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian dwellings and structures in the occupied West Bank, thus perpetuating the problem of displacement. Israeli Defence Minister Naftali...

Israeli media has reported that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could issue secret arrest warrants for Israeli officials involved in war crimes against the Palestinian people. According to a...

In a recent meeting with representatives from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat once again wasted an...

Israel’s main bone of contention with the International Criminal Court’s possible investigation into war crimes in occupied Palestine is about settlement expansion. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration...

The international community has still not caught up with, or refuses to acknowledge, Israel’s commitment to countering each purported victory for the Palestinians with yet more violations. These countermeasures...

European Union (EU) funding for Palestinian human rights organisations is not without its caveats. In line with its purported state-building initiatives, the EU has long imposed restrictions upon Palestinian...

A mere two days before the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced an investigation into Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people (as well as those alleged...

In comments to Al Jazeera regarding Israel’s use of torture against Palestinian detainees, Qadura Faris, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, declared: “The Israeli security wants to leave a...

The ostracisation of Palestine by the international community to facilitate its exploitation by colonial Israel is portrayed excellently in Palestine Past and Present (Nova Publishers, 2019). This collection of...

Israel has reacted in typical belligerence to the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s announcement that there are sufficient grounds to investigate war crimes committed against Palestinians in...

The latest report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is a stark reminder of how Israel’s colonisation process in Palestine has created differences that...

It was a celebration of sorts for Israel when Brazil inaugurated the opening of its trade and investment promotions office in Jerusalem. As indicated by Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son...

UN resolutions on Palestine are given more prominence than the Palestinian people themselves. What happens within the UN premises sets an agenda that is difficult to challenge, mainly because...

December 8, 1949 marked the establishment of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Despite the recent Israeli-US conspiracy to eliminate the agency, as well...

Israel marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities by donating three paediatric wheelchairs to the UN Human Rights Council. The aim, according to Israel’s Permanent Representative in Geneva,...

State violence against indigenous populations is arguably the most visible of human rights violations and, conversely, of the least concern to the international community. After the military coup in...

When, in December 2017, US President Donald Trump unilaterally recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the protests in Palestine swiftly ignited a ripple of international solidarity. Activists in many countries...

During the Berlin European Council summit in 1999, the European Union declared “its readiness to consider the recognition of a Palestinian state in due course” and conditionally dependent upon...