Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Yvonne Ridley
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Trump's theatrics are bad news for Palestine
Whenever I have visited Palestine and speak to Palestinians I am always asked, “Why doesn’t the West care about our suffering?” It’s a question that I try to avoid answering, but the brutal truth is that many Westerners, their governments and media simply don’t care. The fact that a...
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Bolton and Pompeo are America's disastrous duo
It never ceases to amaze me how some of the most mediocre and uninspiring people somehow manage to reach the top of their profession. Among the most asinine, in my opinion, are the lacklustre US National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, men who are...
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US ‘Peace to Prosperity’ conference actually offers Palestine little hope
The Trump administration’s vision for a futuristic-looking Gaza Strip is like something dreamed up by a Hollywood theme park, with pristine beaches reaching out into the calm, blue waters of the Mediterranean. It ignores the fact that these are the same beaches where children playing football in the sand...
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Morsi’s death was a political assassination by a vindictive regime
Mohamed Morsi will forever be remembered as Egypt’s first democratically-elected President, something that his enemies can never take away from him. Yesterday, he collapsed and died in a Cairo courtroom just moments after he had addressed the hearing from a cage; he was facing ludicrous charges of espionage linked...
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Trump's ‘deal of the century’ is fraudulent
Donald Trump and his gullible team of foreign policy advisers have kept the rest of the world mildly entertained since the former reality TV host became the US President. The theatrics of Trump’s White House are indeed amusing as long as you are a casual observer with no direct...
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3 million Syrians await an unknown fate in Idlib as Assad and his allies continue to bomb them
New evidence reveals that Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal regime is committing war crimes by deliberately targeting schools and hospitals in the last Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib. More than 20 have been bombed, shelled and destroyed this month alone by Assad and his allies Iran and Russia. Despite previous promises and...
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Why are we seeing such international apathy towards the Palestinians?
It is always refreshing to see the international community come together in emergencies when individual countries are blighted by man-made and natural disasters. Many European countries, for example, including Italy, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus, as well as Russia and Egypt, have responded with great urgency by sending firefighting aircraft...
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T spells trouble as Zionists claim Palestine alphabet book is ‘anti-Semitic’
A public reading of the first-ever alphabet story book in the English language about Palestine has caused outrage among some American library patrons who claim that its contents are anti-Semitic. Now a literary event featuring the children’s book P is for Palestine and its author has been shelved until...
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Eurovision turns out to be a big hit for Palestine
It was the result that nobody predicted: the winner of Eurovision 2019 is… Palestine! Despite the organisers describing the Eurovision Song Contest as a non-political event, the issue of Palestine took back, front and centre stage in Tel Aviv over the weekend, which may make Israel come to regret its...
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Interpal is David to Israel’s Goliath in the struggle to help Palestinians in need
One of the most inspiring Biblical stories is the legendary battle between David and Goliath and it is often referenced as a moral lesson of how underdogs can triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. I was reminded of it the other day while attending a lunch to celebrate...
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Justice for the Mavi Marmara victims is the last chance for the ICC to prove its worth
Unless international law is to become meaningless, the time has come for political leaders around the world to step up and defend with some vigour and sincerity the principles that were laid down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946. Such principles did, after all, deliver justice for millions of...
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How can Israelis celebrate Passover while denying Palestinian Christians the right to travel?
One of the greatest religious stories shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims is the Exodus of Moses and the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. This weekend the story will be recounted and reflected upon in Jewish households around the world as families...
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Weasel words and chutzpah can’t sustain the myth of democratic Israel, but nobody cares
The word “chutzpah” has its roots in the old Hebrew “ḥutspâ” and, as adopted by Yiddish, basically means “audacity bordering on downright cheek”. We’ve seen and heard plenty of that in Israel this week as triumphant right-wing blocs head to the Knesset after Tuesday’s General Election. Predictably, Benjamin Netanyahu has...
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Friends of Israel smears of brave Gaza paramedic Razan Al-Najjar and Christchurch Muslims are vile
Four more Palestinians, three of them teenagers, have sacrificed their lives and been killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. They have been added to the 190 others who have paid the ultimate price for freedom over the past 12 months while taking part in the powerful peace...
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Israel’s US Lobby rocked by hate-filled tweets
One of the most influential donors to the powerful AIPAC pro-Israel lobby group will not be speaking at its annual conference this weekend after being taken to task for sending out a string of hate-filled tweets aimed at two of America’s rising Muslim politicians, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. This...
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A British Palestinian MP seeks recognition for Palestine in the home of the Balfour Declaration
Britain’s first Member of Parliament of Palestinian descent is preparing for a historic debate on Friday to have the government give official recognition to the state of Palestine in what she says is probably the “most personal and poignant” piece of legislation she has submitted since arriving in Westminster. Rising...
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Wake up Westminster: Netanyahu is loud and proud about Israel the apartheid state
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have driven a coach and horses through the implied claim of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism by announcing that the Zionist State belongs to the Jewish people alone. In other words, the 1.5 million Palestinian Israelis are not equal...
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Israeli bombs and rhetoric are dropped on both Palestine and Kashmir
While Israel is still dodging questions about why it has been secretly arming the genocidal Myanmar military regime during its ethnic cleansing operations against Rohingya Muslims, it has emerged that the Zionist war machine is also at the heart of the rising tensions between India and Pakistan. Earlier this week,...
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Britons who fight for Israel must also be held to account when they return to the UK
The thorny issue of foreign soldiers serving in the Israeli military is back in the headlines, triggered by the debate over the future of Shamima Begum, the British schoolgirl who ran away from home to join terror group Daesh in Syria. Thousands of young men and women from around...
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The treatment of Shamima Begum and Asma Al-Assad reveals Britain’s double standards
'It seems that in Britain the law still operates in favour of the privileged elite, like Asma Al-Assad'...
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Change is possible in Syria despite Arab leaders normalising Assad's genocide
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad must be buoyed by the support that he has these days across the Arab world. Such support includes the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), the Palestinian Authority’s official news channel, opening a new bureau in Damascus. The campaign to rehabilitate Assad’s brutal regime continues more or...
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Zionism, its links with the far right and increasing anti-Semitism
I was privileged to be invited to speak at a Holocaust Memorial Day event last week. Taking my duties as a speaker seriously, I researched the subject and decided to base my talk to young healthcare students on the late Sir Nicholas Winton. I chose Sir Nicholas because he was...
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Is Assad trying to silence Syrian dissidents based overseas?
There are fears that anti-Assad activists around the world are being targeted for assassination by the Syrian regime following the brutal murder of a prominent businessman now living in Germany. Mohamed Joune, 48, collapsed on a street in Hamburg on Tuesday night after stumbling out of a nearby building....
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Medieval hostage-taking and prisoner swaps are back in vogue
Do its member states take the UN Charter seriously any more? The United Nations was originally set up “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”. However, since those heady days when international law...