Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Binoy Kampmark
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Bypassing the UK parliament; the royal prerogative; and bombing Yemen
There is something distinctly revolting and authoritarian about the royal prerogative. It reeks of clandestine assumption, unwarranted self-confidence and, most of all, a blithe indifference to accountability before elected representatives. That prerogative, in other words, is the last reminder of divine right, the fiction that a ruler can have powers…
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Israel’s argument at The Hague was that it is incapable of genocide
Israel’s relationship with the United Nations, international institutions and international law has at times bristled with suspicion and blatant hostility. In a famous cabinet meeting in 1955, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously knocked back the suggestion that the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine had been instrumental in creating the…
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Futile and dangerous: Bombing Yemen in the name of shipping
What a show. As US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike targets…
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Israel’s butcher’s bill is growing as never-ending conflict beckons
The Governor of the Bank of Israel is worried. Amir Yaron is keeping an eye on the ballooning costs of his country’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu promised initially to increase the defence budget by NIS 20 billion ($5.48bn) per…
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Censoring Israeli violence: Western media outlets capitulate
The cathedral of censorship is a vast, airy one. In its embrace, texts are abridged, images removed, ideas scrubbed. Historical inconveniences are filed and rendered inaccessible. The only sermons tolerated will be those satisfying and serving the dictates of power. The power Israel disproportionately wields here, notably across a number…