Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Yvonne Ridley
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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...
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Palestinian children are being targeted by a shadowy campaign group
A shadowy campaign group with a hidden agenda appears to be exploiting Palestinian children from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. Just when we thought that elements of the pro-Israel lobby surely couldn’t sink any lower, they are now scraping the bottom of the barrel at the expense...
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On Holocaust Memorial Day, remember too that the Nakba is an indelible part of Israel’s history
There is an indelible link between the Holocaust and the current situation of the Palestinian people; to deny this simple fact exposes a deep-seated flaw in Zionist ideology. I am not trying to minimise Jewish suffering or draw parallels between the Nazi genocide of European Jews and what has...
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The never-ending cycle of death in the Arab world is down to the craving for power
There is likely to be a massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent people unless Arab rulers step up to the plate on Syria and show real leadership. I fear, however, that the plight of the men, women and children cowering under the regime’s barrel bombs and bunker busters...
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Genocide — the Sequel: now Muslims are the target
We are approaching that time of year when people of many faiths and none come together in unity to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which serves as a stark reminder of how genocidal regimes throughout history have crushed communities by “othering”, marginalising and ultimately murdering minority groups. This year not...
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Trump's reckless gamble with world peace
Iran is not given to knee-jerk reactions, but those who run the country are extremely unpredictable nonetheless. That is why it is so difficult to anticipate what will result from the assassination of the nation’s well-loved and respected Major General Qassem Soleimani. Just a few days ago, the equally unpredictable...
