All Stories Archive

A Letter to the Prime Minister, Gordon BrownDear Prime Minister, We are shocked at suggestions by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Minister Ivan Lewis and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, that Britain may consider changing its laws to avoid any future attempts to prosecute suspected war criminals, Israeli or otherwise. The UK...

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Israel on Monday for violating Lebanon's airspace and using disproportionate force against Palestinians in Gaza, the latest in a series of criticisms Ankara has directed at the Jewish state's policies in the Middle East. "It is impossible for us to remain...

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have accused the Egyptian authorities of procrastination over their application for approval to visit Gaza via the Rafah border crossing. The visit is scheduled to go ahead in five days' time and the MEPs have been waiting for a response from the Egyptians...

The Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday said it was concerned about Israel's decision to build 700 new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, adding that such a move was a clear violation of the international law. In a statement released in Ankara, the Foreign Ministry warned Israel about its decision to...

Five Turkish MPs will on Monday join an international aid convoy that has reached Egyptian port one-week later after the date that they initially hoped to reach Gaza Strip on the first anniversary of Israel's 22-day offensive. Viva Palestina Convoy is now at the Egyptian port of El-Arish with...

Yesterday a delegation of senior British parliamentarians, Muslim figures and Palestinian solidarity leaders in the UK presented a letter to the Egyptian Ambassador Hatem Seif El Nasr to London concerning the obstruction to the Viva Palestina convoy and the blockade of Gaza. The letter was handed in by Baroness...

The Rt. Hon. David Miliband MPSecretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth AffairsForeign and Commonwealth OfficeKing Charles StreetLondon SW1A 2AH 23rd December 2009 Dear Mr Miliband, I am writing to express the deep disappointment and grave concern of the Muslim Council of Britain (the MCB) at your views with...

The Director-General of the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) has said that the role of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) remains vital for the protection of Palestinian refugees. Speaking at the PRC's London conference with the theme "UNRWA and the future of Palestinian refugees", Dr. Majed Al-Zeer, also...

The Families of the Kidnapped Committee disclosed yesterday that "the torture and abuse of our sons in the West Bank prisons is much more widespread than reported by The Guardian. However, the committee stressed that what was published by the British newspaper in defence of their sons was very...

In a letter to the editor of The Times today (18 December) the UK Director of Amnesty International, Kate Allen said the newspaper's denunciation of the arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni (leading article, Dec 16) is misplaced and to argue that Ms Livni be shielded from justice because she...

The British government is said to be 'urgently' looking into its universal jurisdiction laws, following the successful issuing of a warrant by Westminster magistrates' court for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister, on Saturday 12 December. Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, came out last night stating...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Following the issue of an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, Sarah McSherry, partner at Christian Khan solicitors and executive committee member of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, speaks out about David Miliband's proposal to change the law in the UK to ensure...

Al-Jazeera London's correspondent reported today Monday December 14 that a warrant has been issued by a British judge for the arrest of former Israeli foreign minister Tsipi Livni for alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip last winter. Ms Livni was scheduled to speak in London at a...

Yesterday, 11 December 2009, the Middle East Monitor (MEMO) published an exclusive interview with a 30 year old man in the West Bank who recounted his horrific experience of being unjustly detained, brutally interrogated and abused for days by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. MEMO point out...

The Palestinian Forum in Britain condemned, on Wednesday, December 9, the Israeli authorities' decision to deny European Parliament Members access to Gaza, and considered this decision to be a response to the EU foreign ministers' recent call for Jerusalem to become the capital of both Israel and a future...

The Friends of Gaza Centre in Oxford is preparing to set up an exhibition featuring the drawings of the children of Gaza under the title "Children under Fire." The exhibition, which will start at the end of next January and last for a month, will include drawings from the...

One of the UK's most prestigious universities is set to "twin" with the Islamic University of Gaza after its student union voted in favor of the move. The London School of Economics (LSE) is set to link up with the Gaza institution after the student union passed a motion...

Israeli authorities deny Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Martin permission to visit the impoverished coastal sliver of Gaza which has long been under an Israeli siege. Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs on Friday, Martin said no substantive reason had been given for the refusal. "I just...

Nedim Aslan of Vakit newspaper interviews the Director of Middle East Monitor, Dr Daud Abdullah, to talk about the establishment of the institution, its stated purpose and its role in aiding conflict resolution in the Middle East. Dr Abdullah spoke of the widespread ignorance on the causes of the...

The EU's foreign ministers will recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state next week, according to a Tuesday report in the Israeli daily Haaretz. The newspaper said it obtained a draft document authored by Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency, implying that the EU...

Palestinian photojournalist Mahmud Ajrami has been awarded the second best photographer in the international Rory Peck competition just concluded in London. Ajrami won the award for filming the Israeli bombing of a school ran by the UNRWA in Beit Lahia, which was a refuge for Palestinian civilians who left...

Several civil society bodies have expressed interest in further probing the issues uncovered in the Dispatches programme aired last Monday 16th November on the Pro-Israel lobby in Britain. The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), for example, have asked David Cameron to address some of...

MEMO has contacted the office of William Hague who has reaffirmed his stance that Israel acted in a "disproportionate" manner in the 2006 attack on Lebanon. Mr Hague is quoted as having said, "We have always maintained our view, as expressed in July 2006, that elements of the Israeli...

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed his fear that Israel no longer appears prepared to pursue negotiations in the Middle East, adding that Paris remains fervently opposed to settlement construction in the West Bank, Israeli media reported on Tuesday. In an interview with France Inter radio, Kouchner elucidated that...

Turkey's Prime Minister Rajab Tayeb Erdogan criticised the Zionist government led by Benyamin Netanyaho saying he prefers to meet with the Sudanese president to discuss the crisis in Dar Fur rather than the head of the Israeli government to discuss the Goldstone report. Erdogan pointed out that during the...

A man humiliated The decision by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to run for re-election next year looks like the act of a man who has reached the end of his political tether. He is the principal Palestinian advocate of a negotiated two-state peace agreement with Israel. If...

Turkish police detained around 20 students on Wednesday after they pelted Israel's ambassador with eggs to protest the Jewish state's treatment of Palestinians, forcing him to cancel a university visit. The protest took place outside the university in the Black Sea port of Trabzon as ambassador Gabby Levy arrived...

A statement from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) today confirmed that Britain's foreign secretary David Miliband has been in touch with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Salam Fayad, over the deteriorating situation in Jerusalem. The statement also confirmed that Miliband expressed his grave anxiety...

Israeli political sources accused the British government of putting obstacles in the Jewish state's path to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). A vote will be held on Tel Aviv's membership of the OECD by the beginning of the next year, 2010. The Hebrew radio reported...

A conference of foreign ministers of the Mediterranean Union due to take place in Istanbul in November has been cancelled after Egypt and several other Arab countries objected to the participation of Israel's extremist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman; the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday. Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmad Abu Al-Ghaet...

A member of the Palestinian Parliament and leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, Mushir Al-Masri, regards the insistence of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to visit Gaza as a positive step. By recognising the realities on the ground without overlooking them, the French and the West are correcting...

Pro-Palestine Supporters picketed the start of a 5 day Israeli Tourism event held in Spitalfields market, East London. Despite efforts by Israeli security to get demonstrators to move, police made no efforts to move them on to the frstration of the Pro-Israel organisers. To celebrate the new low cost...

Turkey has decided to cancel air force military exercises that were scheduled for next week, Israeli media reports revealed Sunday. According to sources in the Israeli security ministry, Ankara notified Israel about its decision days before the scheduled manoeuvres were to take place, with the participation of the United...

The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) has been in touch with the British Foreign Office in an attempt to illicit a reaction about Israel's ever increasing settlement expansion programs, including the laying of the foundation stone of the biggest settlement in Jerusalem yesterday. In a telephone interview with the Middle...

The Middle East Monitor (MEMO), has contacted MP's from the three main political parties, as well as the foreign office, to get their reaction to Israel's very provocative act yesterday of laying the foundation stone of a new settlement expansion program in East Jerusalem's Jabal Mukaber neighborhood. The response from...

Jerusalem's troublesome sheikhRa'ed Salah is mobilising opposition to the undermining of the Islamic presence in the city. His actions play to a wider audience, A subtle shift in power has recently taken place on the street in Jerusalem. The confrontations during the past week between Palestinians and the Israeli...

Turkish demonstrators blockade Israeli Council in Istanbul in protest against actions in Al-Aqsa Mosque. Hundreds of Turkish youths blockaded the Israeli Consulate from midnight Sunday until the early hours of Monday morning in Istanbul in protest against Zionists attempts to assault Al-Aqsa Mosque with the help of the Occupation...

Erdogan: Turkey will work to accomplish debate of the Goldstone report in the Security Council Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that his country would work within the Security Council to accomplish a debate of the Goldstone report published last month. The report confirmed that the Israeli army...

FCO letter "upgraded" minister's status to avoid arrestA last minute letter by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to a London court purportedly upgrading Ehud Barak's visit from private to 'special' status saved the Israeli Defence Minister from certain arrest on charges of war crimes yesterday, 29th September. While...

Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon recently canceled a planned trip to Britain for fear of being arrested there. Ya'alon was invited to London to attend a fund-raising dinner for Benji's Home, a group home for soldiers with no family in Israel. The project is the initiative of the parents...

An international and impartial inquiry into Israel 's attack on a humanitarian flotilla, the opening of all crossing points to and from Gaza and an immediate end to the blockade are among Parliament's demands in a resolution passed on Thursday. MEPs also advocate reshaping the EU's Middle East policy,...

By Mehmet Nedim AslanAward-winning British film director Ken Loach has described Israel as a "racist state" in an interview with the Turkish daily Vakit newspaper. The director said the Israeli state was based on the ethnicity of those who are given automatic citizenship; this in itself is "proof of...

A British human rights lawyer Tayab Ali of Irvine Thanvi Natas solicitors has been appointed by the family of the assassinated Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh to pursue legal action in the British court. Several persons using forged British passports were involved in the killing. Al Mabhouh was murdered...

Red Cross described Israeli siege as "collective punishment" of Gaza's civilian population as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, calling on Israel to lift it. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday described Israeli siege as "collective punishment" of Gaza's civilian population as a violation of...

Eyewitness accounts of Israel's assault on the aid ship Mavi Marmara are emerging which give a very different picture to the official Israeli version of events. Survivors of the assault on the largest ship in the Freedom Flotilla have said that wounded Israeli commandos were being treated in the...

This item was sent by Ken O'Keefe from Istanbul at 10.00hrs 05.06.2010 and provides an eyewitness account of events on the Mavi Marmara when Israeli commandos stormed the vessel. By Ken O'Keefe from Istanbul I have for many years understood that we, people of conscience, are the true holders...

As the activists kidnapped by the Israeli navy in international waters begin to be repatriated, sources in Israel claim that the process was delayed because the passengers of the MV Rachel Corrie would not sign documents pledging not to sue after their release. In the meantime, Israel is continuing...

After some confusion over its whereabouts, it has been confirmed that the Irish-flagged MV Rachel Corrie is heading for Gaza. Sailing in international waters the vessel is carrying humanitarian aid and is expected to arrive in Gaza on Saturday unless it is intercepted and hijacked by the Israeli navy...

By Mehmet Nedim Aslan A journalist covering the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was shot and killed by the Israeli commandos as he photographed their crime. Cevdet Kiliclar was one of 60 journalists on board the Mavi Marmara to provide accurate accounts of the Flotilla. According to the activists on the...

The Turkish President has said that Israel will "regret the great mistake" it made by attacking the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Abdullah Gul said that the government of Israel acted against the long-term interests of the Israeli people. According to the Anatolia news agency, President Gul...