Middle East Monitor
clear
Free Subscription
Middle East Monitor

Creating new perspectives since 2009

 

Yvonne Ridley

yvonneridley

British journalist and author Yvonne Ridley provides political analysis on affairs related to the Middle East, Asia and the Global War on Terror. Her work has appeared in numerous publications around the world from East to West from titles as diverse as The Washington Post to the Tehran Times and the Tripoli Post earning recognition and awards in the USA and UK. Ten years working for major titles on Fleet Street she expanded her brief into the electronic and broadcast media producing a number of documentary films on Palestinian and other international issues from Guantanamo to Libya and the Arab Spring.

 

Items by Yvonne Ridley

  • Revisionist Gove airbrushes Israel’s apartheid crimes

    Nelson Mandela is probably the world’s best known resistance fighter. The late South African president knew the value of the global boycott movement which helped in his people’s struggle to dismantle the country’s brutal and racist apartheid regime. His legacy is so powerful today that few world leaders heap...

  • Palestinian Christians are not alone in their suffering this Easter

    Millions of Christians around the world have come together to celebrate the religious festival of Easter. As a former Christian myself, I remember it very well as being a period of quiet reflection combined with family celebrations. Sadly, Easter 2016 will probably be remembered for the bloody attack of...

  • Don't allow the far-right to hijack the Paris terror trial

    It would be fair to say that there was a collective sigh of relief across Europe when terror suspect Salah Abdeslam was shot and arrested in a police raid in the Molenbeek area of Brussels on Friday after a four-month international search. The end of Europe’s biggest manhunt came...

  • The tragedy of Ahmed and Palestine's feral children

    Ahmed is an angry young man; a very angry young man. Unlike most 12 year-olds who are on the cusp of their teens with wild ambitions and high aspirations, he abandoned such grand expectations a long time ago. Life has dealt him a series of cruel blows leaving him...

  • Are we on the verge of a Palestinian exodus to Europe?

    A Palestinian exodus from the Middle East to Europe is being predicted as tensions between refugees in Lebanon reach breaking point. Nearly two million Syrians have fled their war torn country for neighbouring Lebanon with many moving in to the already overcrowded UN camps built for Palestinian refugees. The...

  • France puts a spoke in Israel’s wheel

    The world is growing weary of Israel’s ongoing settlement activity which continues unabated. It is a bitter irony that while the settler-colonial construction in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem is illegal and unnecessary, thousands of Palestinian families in the war-torn Gaza Strip are still living under canvas almost...

  • With democracy a distant memory, Western support for Sisi is backing for a loser

    Five years ago next month ordinary Egyptians looked on in amazement as British Prime Minister David Cameron swept through Tahrir Square with a huge security detail in tow to congratulate the people on their revolution. Just 10 days earlier they had overthrown one-time friend of the West — and...

  • Déjà vu in Fallujah’s ‘Frankenstein’ maternity wards

    Once famous for its heroic resistance to the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, Fallujah is now better known primarily as the epicentre of children born with horrendous deformities. The defects are blamed on the liberal use of depleted uranium (DU), white phosphorous and other deadly munitions by the US...

  • Downing Street dumbs down as flimsy Muslim Brotherhood report is published

    Was it a bizarre tribute to the dictators in the Middle East who appear to be able to influence decision-making at the heart of the British Government or was it just a desperate measure of throwing out some Whitehall rubbish in the hope that no one would notice on...

  • War-mongering politicians are running out of ammunition and time

    It is incredible that an internationally-renowned movement like Stop the War, which brings together the broadest coalition of peace activists drawn from all sections of multi-cultural Britain, is now coming under fire from a gaggle of disgruntled career politicians. The latter seem to have forgotten that at the height...

  • The brutal reality of being a Palestinian

    Signing a petition demanding justice for the Palestinian people as a 13-year-old schoolgirl marked the start of what has become my lifetime commitment to their cause. From reading about the atrocities of Sabra and Shatila through to witnessing the aftermath of the Jenin Massacre and climbing on board a...

  • Will Nicola Sturgeon silence windbag Trump?

    Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been asked to use her influence to ban US presidential hopeful Donald Trump from visiting Scotland. While other US candidates seeking nomination in the Republican and Democrat parties have been left reeling and helpless by the outpourings of racism, bigotry and xenophobia unleashed...

  • Are Zionists at the heart of the Tory bullying scandal?

    A political scandal which has rocked the British government, forcing the resignation of a Conservative minister, also reveals the powerful influence of pro-Israel Zionists at play. Grant Shapps has already quit his post of international development minister after damning evidence emerged of bullying following the death of a young...

  • The meddling West offers the Arab world no solution

    The Arab world is in chaos, so much so that artificial borders drawn carefully by Western imperialists a hundred years ago have today become meaningless. Colonial powers like Britain and France are now beginning to taste the unwelcome fruits of those ruler-straight lines mapped out in the dying days...

  • Is Palestine the answer?

    In the aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities, the then US President George W Bush convinced his fellow Americans that revenge was the only way to respond, and so he unleashed his never-ending War on Terror. No one stopped to ask why the attacks in New York and Washington took...

  • Criminalising medics who help Palestinians

    Helping Palestinians in Gaza is not officially a crime; not yet, anyway, but the reaction of the British government and pro-Israel lobby towards those who use their medical skills to try and save Palestinian lives is disturbing. Earlier this week the government refused to give visas to a group...

  • To France’s motto of “liberty, equality, fraternity” must now be added “hypocrisy”

    You could not make this up; the country that prides itself as a world leader in free speech has now basically banned one of the most powerful boycott movements launched by ordinary citizens. The cries of “liberty, equality, fraternity” are now beginning to ring hollow in France where the...

  • Blair has been exposed, but who will bring him down?

    Thanks to an old memo, the world now knows that Tony Blair was preparing to go to war in Iraq a year before the actual invasion and long before any dodgy dossiers were spawned by his Downing Street propagandists. The emergence of the 2002 document penned by the then...

  • Netanyahu should know better than to minimise Hitler’s role in the Holocaust

    In today’s incendiary social and political climate, where so-called hate preachers are arrested and speakers who incite hatred are roundly condemned, there would be universal outrage if anyone addressed a public meeting and declared, “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews…” Cries of “anti-Semitism” and “Holocaust denier” would ring...

  • Shaker Aamer: The Guantanamo detainee who knows too much

    There was great excitement among journalists gathered inside the British parliament a few days ago as the new opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn prepared to face Prime Minister David Cameron in their first official exchange across the floor of the House of Commons. It turned out to be an unremarkable...

  • Trust and transparency are vital in a democracy

    Although British Prime Minister David Cameron insists that he will not publish the legal advice that gave him the go ahead to end the lives of two British citizens fighting in Syria, if ever there was a time for transparency it is now. The British public is already frustrated...

  • Israel launches a culture war

    While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to scupper the historic nuclear deal with Iran, his Culture and Sports Minister, Miri Regev, has opened up a second front by targeting a state-run European opera company. The Tel Aviv minister has become embroiled in a culture war to try...

  • Clinton emails reveal power of civil society direct action

    It is always difficult to judge the impact of direct action by civil society, but a series of emails from Hillary Clinton when she was US Secretary of State reveal just how effective such resistance can be. Without realising that it was taking on the Goliath of the American...

  • Historic agreement for Tehran prompts hysterical reaction in Tel Aviv

    It was 12 years in the making and frankly many of us never believed it would happen, but just a few hours ago Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal which is worth a global Mexican Wave. The historic deal will mean an end to the...