Yvonne Ridley
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
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- August 4, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Pointless presidents, corrupt kings and playboy princes
When Americans tell me that they are envious of Britain because of our Royal Family, I can sort of understand what they mean, especially when I look across the Atlantic and see who they have for a president. The man who snatched Jerusalem from the Palestinians and also gave...
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- August 1, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
British complicity in Israeli war crimes is being highlighted by pro-Palestine activism
A direct action group in support of Palestine burst onto the scene in London this week by storming an Israeli arms company in the heart of the English capital to highlight Britain’s complicity in war crimes against the Palestinians. Four members of Palestine Action took part in the audacious...
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- July 28, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
A tale of two cities twinned by treachery
This is a tale of two cities twinned by treachery. Syria’s Jabal Al-Zawiya might be 1,800 miles away from Sirte in Libya, but their fates are very much intertwined as military forces threaten to put the regional powers of Turkey and Russia on a collision course. In Sirte, trenches are...
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- July 22, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Step into Palestinian shoes by watching this film and help Make Apartheid History
The Palestinian people have drawn support from many legendary figures over the years. The universally admired Afro-American civil rights activist, writer and poet Maya Angelou was one of them. She stood in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle when she honoured the late Rachel Corrie, another heroic woman who put...
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- July 13, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Hagia Sophia: Religious and political leaders are missing their own chances to right historical wrongs
Apparently Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, is “very distressed” by the decision to revert the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia into a mosque; it has been a museum since 1934. He made his views known in the latest edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Quite why he...
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- July 1, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Palestinians must not rely on back-stabbing Britain
Vocal human rights activist Malcolm X once said: “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress” and I was reminded of his comment when I heard that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today begged Israel not to push ahead with plans...
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- June 25, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Labour leader's knee jerk reaction to knee-on-the-neck tweet is spineless
Britain’s Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer sacked his shadow education secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, today after she tweeted praise for an interview in which the actor Maxine Peake described the US police tactic of kneeling on a suspect’s neck as being a method taught by the Israeli secret service....
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- June 23, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
British aid worker kidnapped in Syria
A British aid worker has been kidnapped in Syria by members of a Sunni Islamist militant group in rebel-held Idlib, it emerged on Monday night. Tauqir Sharif, 31, from Walthamstow in East London lives and works in the north-west Syrian city, which has a large number of other British...
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- June 8, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
The Black Lives Matter movement can help to deliver justice for Palestinians and others
I have deliberately avoided watching the video of the murder of George Floyd simply because I’ve seen so many similar images before on the streets of Palestine under Israel’s brutal military occupation. The similarities do not end with such brutality. It has often been said that if Palestinians were...
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- May 27, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
The Scottish politician who blames the Palestinians for the Nakba must be held to account
Long before Sir Winston Churchill said that history is written by the victors there were variations on the theme; the winners of any conflict get to write the definitive version of what happened. Those on the losing side are more often than not silenced simply because the winners have...
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- May 26, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Elections, a new leadership and BDS are pivotal for Palestine
Ever since President Donald Trump blundered blindly into the Middle East with his woefully inexperienced team of advisors, US foreign policy has swung wildly out of control. Predictably, it has destroyed the already fragile two-state solution as defined by the Oslo Accords. It’s no use pretending that such a solution...
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- May 25, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Kidnapping family members is Bin Salman's tactic to intimidate Saudi dissidents
Details are emerging about the kidnapping of two young people within Saudi Arabia which appears to be the latest desperate move by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to exert pressure on one of the Kingdom’s highest profile dissidents. Dr Saad Al-Jabri, once the gatekeeper of Saudi intelligence and security,...
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- May 11, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Football must not provide cover for human rights abuses and war crimes
Sportswashing and the billions of dollars it involves might mean very little to most Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as they go about their daily struggle to exist. It is, though, a term which is being used increasingly to describe the means by which brutal...
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- April 28, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Greater Israel is the objective as Netanyahu plans to wipe Palestine off the map
When it comes to Palestinians and peace in the Middle East, world leaders and Western journalists have taken their eye off the ball due to the coronavirus pandemic. The increasingly bizarre views of US President Donald Trump and his disastrous handling of Covid-19 have gripped everyone’s attention. As has happened...
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- April 23, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Assad is in the dock as his henchmen go on trial for torture
Syrians Anwar Raslan and Eyad Al-Gharib are not very nice men, apparently, and we are about to find out, in horrifying detail, exactly why. Every torturer who has ever carried out his nauseating job on behalf of tyrannical regimes around the world should be focusing on the historic trial...
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- April 21, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Israel ignores the Biblical command to ‘love thy neighbour’ at its peril
The mantra “we are all in this together” has been said numerous times every day recently by politicians of various stripes around the world as the Covid-19 pandemic rips through our communities. And it does feel as though we are all under attack, regardless of our status and position...
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- April 14, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
We must never forget Israel’s massacre in Jenin
Lockdowns come in many shapes and sizes, and the one that millions of us around the world are enduring today is in place for our own protection from the coronavirus Covid-19. However, there are other forms of isolation which are also imposed upon communities by force, and which serve...
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- March 31, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
This pandemic is yet another deadly challenge for the people of occupied Palestine
If ever a nation was prepared for the onslaught of the Covid19 virus and all the disruption and fear that comes with it, some might think that the Palestinians would be in pole position. After all, they have endured lockdowns, segregation, isolation, food shortages and being banned from living...
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- March 6, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum must never feel that he is above the law
Some people think that they can get away with shocking crimes in full view of a watching world because they have money, power or influence, or in the case of those behind the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, all three. Might over right is seen far too often,...
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- March 3, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Scottish football should blow the final whistle on Israeli teams
Since the start of the 21st century, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 540 Palestinian athletes and other sportsmen and women. Many more have been wounded and crippled. The details are provided in a hard-hitting film due to be released later this month urging the expulsion of Israel...
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- February 29, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
The US makes peace in the war it forced on the Taliban
The leaders of one of the most demonised and misunderstood groups in the world sat down in Qatar today and signed an accord which will see US and NATO troops withdraw after 18 years of war in Afghanistan. I am, of course, talking about the Taliban, which was dragged...
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- February 27, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
As China bows to global solidarity over coronavirus, it’s time for action on the Uyghur genocide
The spread of the coronavirus — Covid-19 — has now reached epidemic proportions, with cases in dozens of countries around the world, and growing alarm at the epicentre in China where drastic quarantine and containment measures are in place. The epidemic has thrown the international spotlight on China, and the...
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- February 23, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
NATO and the UN must decide if they are standing by, or simply bystanders
Tensions have risen rapidly in north-west Syria following the killing of yet another Turkish soldier by Russian-backed regime forces. The Turkish death toll is now heading towards 20 as both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin find themselves backed into a corner that neither wanted...
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- February 21, 2020 Yvonne Ridley
Leading British Zionist warns Jews that they have ‘second class’ citizenship
British-born Jews are being told that they are “second class” citizens in an extraordinary letter written by a critic of the government decision to revoke citizenship from a number of Muslims now living in Syria, Iraq and other war zones. Jewish historian and academic Professor Geoffrey Alderman says that...