All Stories Archive

The security service in Gaza has been restored and is now ready for a development phase. This was the message given by Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip, at a ceremony honouring Police College graduates on 7 March. The government's intention is to...

Gordon Brown's proposals to change the law in Britain to make it harder for private citizens to apply for arrest warrants against suspected war criminals has been condemned by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). If the British Prime Minister's changes are pushed through, local magistrates will lose the power...

By Abd al-Rahim Rihan At a recent conference for Arab archaeologists, held at the Smart Village in Egypt, Dr Faraj Allah Yusuf shocked the audience when he announced that the Al-Aqsa Institute has obtained maps and documents giving details of the Zionist plot to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque. As well...

By Asa'ad Telhami Israel is continuing with its diplomatic efforts to remove the Goldstone Report from the agenda of the UN General Assembly. The report gives details of the suspected war crimes committed during the Israeli invasion of Gaza just over a year ago. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor...

The Israeli occupation forces have been accused by a Palestinian Researcher of carrying out "thousands of experiments on Palestinian prisoners every year" which have lead to an increase in the number diagnosed with cancer. The specialist in Palestinian prisoners' affairs, Abdul Naser Ferwana, himself a former prisoner of the...

By Zuhair Andrew A survey conducted by the Israeli Knesset channel shows that 75 percent of Israeli Jews are in favour of deporting Israeli-Arab citizens to a future Palestinian state as part of any deal between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Almost seven hundred people representing a...

Another Turkish relief organization has opened a centre in Gaza as part of the effort to relieve the suffering of the poor and needy in the besieged territory. Palestinians in Gaza have had an almost total blockade placed on them for almost four years. The Helping Hand Foundation has...

The Israeli parliament (the Knesset) has passed a law to restore to its original owners confiscated land which is not being used for the purpose for which it was seized in the first place. However, the new law has been drafted in such a way that makes it impossible...

In an attempt to justify her country's determination to tighten international sanctions against Iran, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has constructed a scenario wild enough to make reasonable people question her grasp of reality. A nuclear Iran, she claims, would launch a nuclear arms race in the Middle...

By Mohammed Watad The drive to empty the state of Israel of its non-Jewish population began in the run-up to the declaration of independence in May 1948. The Palestinians call that "the Nakba", the Catastrophe, and with good cause. Since 1948, the Israelis have demolished almost 22,000 homes belonging...

Dr. Ahmed Bahr, the Palestinian Legislative Council's Deputy Chairman has stressed that the criminal occupation which contributed to the flooding of the Mughraqa area will not go unnoticed adding that the disaster will be documented as a war crime to be presented to the war crimes tribunals. On Monday...

The Qatari writer and academic, Dr. Muhammad Al-Masfar, has expressed his hope that Arab and international efforts which seek to heal the rift in Hamas' relations with the international community, specifically with the European Union and the U.S administration, arrive at a practical process for achieving a complete end...

How do we stop the creeping growth of Israeli settlements? How do we put the freeze on settlements in their various manifestations at the top of the agenda for the struggle of the Palestinian people? How do we resist external pressures for a 'resumption of peace talks' without a...

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad this week met with Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), ex-Senator George Mitchell. On the table for discussion were Syrian-US bilateral relations and the current state of the peace process in the region. An official Syrian media source said that...

By Abdel Bari Atwan The British government is currently working on the introduction of new legislation that will take away from the British judiciary system its power to issue arrest warrants against foreign politicians and senior military officers accused of committing war crimes, if they happen to visit Britain....

By Abdel Bari AtwanThe Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, continues to take an honourable and dignified stance against Israeli arrogance, and exposes the continuing war crimes against the Gaza Strip. Two days ago during a reception in Ankara for his Lebanese counterpart, Saad Al-Hariri, he launched a fierce...

The steel wall that the Egyptian government is building along its border with the Gaza Strip will cut off the last remaining link between what is left of historic Palestine and Egypt. Although Israel has announced that it is going to build a security fence along parts of its...

Looking back at the year since Israel's assault on Gaza it is clear that despite everything, and against all the odds, the resistance of the Palestinians can be viewed as a victory against the Zionists' aggression. In fact, Israel's inability to smash Hamas militarily was most certainly a loss...

Have you noticed how Washington has quietly stopped trying to "freeze settlement activities" – a Palestinian precondition for the resumption of peace negotiations – after the Obama administration found out the hard way that it has limited influence over Netanyahu's right-wing government in Israel? Of course, that doesn't mean...

By Dr Hamdi Hassan Decisions coming out of the Egyptian Government over the past week or so have illustrated perfectly the lack of rationality and consistency therein. Egypt's national sovereignty matters when it is used to justify the building of a steel wall on the border with Gaza, but...

By Sadiq Al-Mahdi The Jewish issue is a European product, anti-Semitism is a European phenomenon and Zionism is a European Jewish reaction against the persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. The promise of a Hebrew homeland in Palestine is the outcome of European conflicts and...

Comment by Fahmi Huwaidi 14/12/2009 The news hit me like a sledgehammer. I still do not want to believe that Egypt has decided to build an underground wall of steel along its border with the Gaza Strip, cutting off the tunnels described by a British journalist recently as a...

Our brothers in Egypt have the right to dig trenches as they want, build walls as they like, and stick in the ground, to whatever depth they want, reinforced steel beams. All these actions and those like them apparently fall into the category of "national sovereignty" and we must...

Wadi' Awawdah: Nazareth. The Former PA minister of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) affairs and current PLO/Fatah representative on Al-Quds Hatim Abdul-Qadir has stated that the PA 'is not a god and when it fails to achieve its targets, it turns into a burden', explaining that the moment of truth has come...

By Ilyas KhuriIt seems today as if there is no solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The so-called peace process has been in a state of clinical death since the outbreak of the Palestinians' second – Al-Aqsa – Intifada (uprising) in 2000. All the hopes placed in the US administration...

When Washington pronounced that "making progress in the peace process and the establishment of two states for two the peoples" is a paramount American interest, most of Europe and the world echoed the words, as if the world does not realize its own interests until the US national interests...

There is a prevailing feeling that the Palestinian cause is going through a period of tremendous confusion and loss of direction. The desperate internal division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; between the Ramallah Authority and the Gaza Authority, has for too long been tearing Palestinian coherence...

What is going on in the White House? By Bilal Alhassan A year ago US President Barack Obama outlined a clear and straightforward policy through which he wanted to improve relations between the US and the Islamic world which, as he himself stated, no longer poses a threat that ought...

We assume that the Obama administration is committed to the peace process and the "two states for two peoples" solution. We have no doubt on this proposition, particularly when it comes to the president's personal intention, a Nobel Prize winner, a man who made "peace" and the "two-state solution"...

Abdus-Sattar QasimProfessor of Political studies, Al Najah National University,Some people will hate reading this article, either because it will expose them and their agents, or because it will shake their deeply held convictions and push them to question their ability to arrive at solutions to political phenomena. Following the...

Nawaf al-Zrou22/7/2009 There is obvious and substantial evidence that Israel has recently launched successive, deliberate and systematic campaigns against Palestine, Palestinians and the Palestine Question in its entirety in an effort to realize what they view as the yet unaccomplished aspects of the Zionist project; absolute Judaisation. With respect...

The recent hijacking of the Russian ship in the Baltic Sea heading for Algeria caused a great media stir. No sooner had the media furore subsided a blackout of information of on the subject was imposed. There has since been no public report by the concerned parties of exactly...

August's bloody clashes between the security forces of the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip and the group that identify themselves as Jund Ansar Allah constitutes a remarkable development in the Palestinian national arena. The importance of this tragic incident has absolutely no relation whatsoever with the politicized and...

Whenever a Turkish official makes a diplomatic gesture in the Arab-Islamic region, the media goes on analyzing it and starts speculating about the expected Turkish role in the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian cause. Hence, so many people start writing analyses about the existing and anticipated...

Since his election to the US presidency, Barak Obama has raised a number of questions about his political agenda in general and in particular, his policies with regard to the Palestinian Cause. It has indeed become clear that he has put what he calls the Palestinian- Israeli Conflict at...

Fatah: from an era of trenches to an era of hotelsHebron's citizens: Dayton lays the foundation for a Palestinian civil war Residents of the city of Hebron have been stricken by the murder of Nurse Haytham Amrou at the hands of Mahmud Abbas' militiamen. They have found it particularly...

Contrary to assertions by some human rights organizations that the Hamas government would not cooperate with the Goldstone report, a senior official in the government gave a press conference confirming commitment to full cooperation. The following is a translation of his statement. Taher Al-Nono, a spokesman for the Palestinian...

FAILING to agree on ways to reduce the deficit, the US president was forced earlier this month to enact the Budget Control Act (BCA) into law. The debt ceiling compromise was originally agreed to between Congress and the president in summer 2011. Known as sequestration, it forces across the...

It is expected widely that the current outbreak of popular unrest and protests across the occupied West Bank will become a third intifada, with a new shape and activities. Will this happen or are there too many obstacles in the way? There are clear signs that preparations are underway...

I was looking at my Twitter news feed on Saturday night, March 9th, and found that a group concerned with Egyptian affairs re-tweeted a post by an Egyptian journalist with a national approach. Regardless of what this means today, this journalist is publically opposed to President Mohammad Morsi. The...

The recent gunfire aimed at members of a border demarcation team on the Iraq-Kuwait border has shed light on the tense relations between the neighbouring countries, despite the fact that it has been 2 decades since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It also reveals the challenges standing in the...

After a month and a half of anxiety, the expected has happened; Netanyahu's third government was formed with a fairly predictable coalition which excludes the religious parties Shas and Yahadut Hatorah. Within Netanyahu's own party, Likud, there is anger at the mistakes he has made. He has lost the...

It has become a tradition amongst American presidents to begin their period of office by visiting Israel, especially over the past three decades during which time the Israel Lobby has clearly taken control of American politics. Democratic or Republican, it would be exceptional to see any American president ever...

Estimates of the number of fighters in the Islamist Al-Nusra Front are numerous and no one can be sure of the correct figure. Perhaps ten to twenty thousand fighters are spread across battalions and brigades in the rural areas of Aleppo and Idlib. They arrived recently from eastern parts...

President Barack Obama's visit to the Middle East has coincided with the 10th anniversary of the killing of American peace activist Rachel Corrie. She was murdered by an American-made and financed Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003. It is unlikely the President or any in his entourage will remember...

The past week has seen a lot of media speculation about seven Palestinians who were taken into custody as they tried to enter Egypt and their subsequent release. Was their treatment merely coincidental or the last shout of a phase of Egyptian history that the nation rejected and revolted...

Benjamin Netanyahu's third government (and Israel's thirty third) does not offer Palestinians anything new: it will be more of the same; the expansion of illegal settlements, aggression and the confiscation of lands, rights and sanctities. For the first time, illegal Jewish settlers themselves sit in the government and Knesset...

Obama's speech at the Jerusalem Convention Centre was the culmination of an attempt to further humiliate Palestinians. The affirmation of US support to Israel was imparted in selective rhetoric focusing on the necessity of Jews to struggle for the right to a national homeland. Israel is portrayed as an...

Never in my life have I seen a president that fawns over the Israelis, begs for their approval, sings their praises and lauds their achievements and history like the American President, Barack Obama. Obama set a historic record in his country by becoming the first elected non-white president. However,...

All of the major pro-Israel Lobbyists, including Barack Obama just a few days ago, have used the word "delegitimisation" to condemn critics of the State of Israel and its policies. Earlier this month, the British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband affirmed his status as a Zionist in a speech...