Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Tallha Abdulrazaq
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Does Hamas now indirectly recognise Israel?
In what informed analysts have deemed as a move that was a long time coming, Hamas unveiled its new and improved charter at an event on Monday in the Qatari capital of Doha. According to Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, the group’s new charter will amend the previous document that...
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Turkey decides: Istanbul reacts to the presidential referendum
As morning broke over what many deem to be a new era in Turkey’s modern political history, everything in Istanbul seems like business as usual. The metropolis’ iconic fishermen standing atop the Galata Bridge are still hauling their catches out of the Bosphorus ready to be fried and grilled...
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Hariri: ‘Hezbollah has taken Israel’s role in Syria’
Taking time out of a political visit to Turkey during the country’s intense referendum campaign, Ahmad El Hariri, the general-secretary of the Future Movement Party of Lebanon, spoke to MEMO about the political crises facing his country, the turbulence buffeting Lebanese politics and security emanating from neighbouring war-torn Syria,...
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Referendum will either indict or vindicate Turkey’s political past
As Turkey gears up for a historic referendum on Sunday, Istanbul is teeming with banners, rallies and – most importantly in a democracy – opinions. As is the norm in any election campaign in Turkey, trucks equipped with loudspeakers run circuits around neighbourhoods and districts, blaring out their various...
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Turkey’s constitutional referendum: What you need to know
Since Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced a wide array of proposed constitutional amendments last December, the media has been awash with coverage of the upcoming referendum to decide on whether to approve or reject transforming Turkey’s democracy from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential one....
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The Fall of Baghdad began Iraq’s Stone Age
Precisely 14 years ago, the United States declared victory over the battle for the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and began a formal military occupation. Although then-President Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s central Firdos Square was toppled a few days earlier on 9 April 2003, fighting between US and Iraqi...
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Remembering the Fall of Baghdad
Find out what happened to Baghdad after the United States led an illegal international coalition to invade Iraq on 20 March 2003. ...
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Trump striking Assad was a good start, but needs to go further
Earlier this morning, US President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike launched from two US Navy warships in the eastern Mediterranean. Fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles – the same kind that regularly fell on Iraq between 1991 and 2003 – completely disabled the Syrian regime’s Shayrat airbase in Homs...
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No one cares when civilians are obliterated in Mosul
In all the tragedy of the London terrorist attack last Wednesday, you may have missed that an even bigger tragedy unfolded in Iraq where hundreds of civilians were wiped out, completely without fanfare, and with barely an utterance in the media. These hundreds of souls were lost, likely to...
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London Book Fair: Promising future for Middle East publishing
The three-day London Book Fair came to a close today, with Middle Eastern publishers and writers making a strong showing for the region, making their presence felt and scooping up awards from the event in the process. On the first day of the event, the Middle Eastern region included...
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The gassing of the Kurds at Halabja
Summary: 29 years ago today, thousands of Iraqi Kurds were killed when their village of Halabja was gassed in the closing months of the Iran-Iraq War. What: Mass killing of Kurds in chemical weapon attack When: 16 March 1988 Where: Halabja, northern Iraq What happened? When the Iran-Iraq War...
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Turkey should tell Europe where to stow its arrogance
Let us begin by first considering a hypothetical scenario. A minister from any European country – you can take your pick as to which one – turns up to Turkey during a campaigning season in his or her own country. That minister represents the ruling party and, hypothetically of...
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Wild West Mosul
As we enter the tenth day since the Iraqi military began its assault to capture the western half of Mosul, it would perhaps be useful to remind ourselves that the war against Daesh extremists is far from over. Although the noose appears to be tightening around the militant group’s...
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Kill our kids, then call us terrorists
The past week has given us yet another insight into how Western powers habitually devalue Muslim lives. Here, I am not necessarily talking about US President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration freeze, dubbed a “Muslim Ban” due to the countries it targets. What Trump is doing is a symptom of...
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Trump is a walking war crime waiting to happen
Tomorrow the world will wake up to a slightly changed, slightly more deranged world as Donald Trump officially becomes the President of the United States, dragging the rest of the planet kicking and screaming into a new epoch of post-fact political psychopathy. We all thought President George “Dubya” Bush...
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Analysis: Is Iraq’s Mosul Op progressing?
The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have now claimed to have captured eighty five per cent of the eastern half of Mosul, and have also claimed to have reached the Tigris River in some sectors (although, as yet, no footage has been released showing Iraqi forces by the river). When one...
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Hamza Yusuf is no brother to the Muslim Brotherhood
In all the anger over Sufi Sheikh Hamza Yusuf’s comments about the Black Lives Matter movement, we seem to have forgotten that he linked the Muslim Brotherhood to Daesh terrorists. A furore has surrounded Western Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf’s comments at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) convention last...
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Saddam’s execution has been eclipsed by Iraq’s de-mock-racy
The fall of Saddam Hussein and his subsequent execution was not a fresh start for Iraq, as it spawned a regional power vacuum filled by Iran that has now claimed millions of lives across Iraq and Syria. Ten years ago today, former Iraqi president and dictator Saddam Hussein was...
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Time to make Syria ungovernable for the terrorist Assad
Aleppo has fallen, and with it any notion that democracy is something worth fighting for in the Middle East...
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Iran's attempted genocide of the Sunni Arabs
The military assaults against Mosul in Iraq and Aleppo in Syria are not as disparate and separate as people imagine. Yes, the cities are located in different countries. Yes, the Iraqi Security Forces are fighting Daesh militants while what is left of the Syrian Arab Army is fighting a...
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MEMO talks to Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Numan Kurtulmus
As Turkey grapples with a number of serious domestic and international crises, much has been made about its record vis a vis its troubled relationship with the European Union, its involvement in the Syrian civil war and Western perceptions that Turkey is discriminating against its Kurdish population. But do...
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Trumping ‘change’: What Trump’s victory means for the Middle East
“Let’s go finish what we started. Let’s elect Hillary Clinton!” outgoing US President Barack Obama said a couple of days ago. Of course, he was referencing his election motto of “Change!” from eight years ago. He truly believed that the American people’s support for him in two elections meant...
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The Battle for Mosul: Concerns over the involvement of Shia militias
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the powerful Iraqi Shia militias who operate under the banner of the Hashd Al-Sha’abi known as the “Popular Mobilisation Forces” or PMF...
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Can Iran claim to protect Islam whilst Houthis strike Makkah?
One would be forgiven for not knowing that Makkah, the holiest place on Earth to Muslims, was recently attacked. Islam’s holiest city had missiles fired at it, not once, but twice last month. It has been over a week since Shia Houthis from Yemen fired what is likely to...
