Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
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The ceasefire that keeps killing children: Gaza one year on
According to the Trump administration, there is a ceasefire in Gaza, since 10th October 2025. This would suggest that no firing is going on, nobody is being killed or injured, no homes, schools or hospitals are being destroyed, and no Palestinians are being detained and taken away from Gaza. It…
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The shadow of Balfour: Confronting a century of selective memory
As the 2nd November 1917 anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration approaches, we are reminded of the fateful promise issued by the British government that would go on to define much of historical Palestine ever since. Eight years after issuing his government’s infamous pledge to establish a Jewish “national home”…
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How Gaza’s genocide is reshaping US domestic politics
To claim that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has fundamentally changed the internal politics of the United States and the wider world might be an overstatement. But what cannot be overstated is a simple fact: Israel and its policies no longer enjoy the virtually unlimited approval and support in the…
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AI isn’t a future threat—it is already erasing Gaza
Much is being said right now about the dangers posed by AI and the possibility that it could ultimately wipe out humanity. Some exp erts, such as Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s Alignment Science Lead and one of the AI industry’s leading safety researchers, have gone much further, warning publicly that there…
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The Mangoush affair, three years on: Palestine remains a red line in Libya’s foreign policy
When news broke, in 2023, that Libya’s first female foreign minister, Najla Al-Mangoush, had secretly met her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, in Rome, most Libyans were stunned. It was, as far as is publicly known, the first official meeting between the two countries and the first known high-level diplomatic contact…
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From Sabra and Shatila to Gaza: The cost of impunity
Imagine this scene: “One young woman, fearing she would not survive, stepped out of the crowd and handed her infant to one of the female doctors.” Those are the words of American Jewish nurse Ellen Siegel, recalling that moment from Shatila—one of Lebanon’s 12 official Palestinian refugee camps, established in…
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Oslo at 33: Anatomy of an ongoing Palestinian disaster
According to the popular narrative surrounding the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), some of sort of fully functioning, internationally recognized Palestinian state should have been established over two decades ago. The Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 explicitly mandated a transitional “interim period” not…
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Gaza’s famine one year on: Did the world learn anything?
On 22nd August last year, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) officially confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, including Gaza City, after determining that famine conditions had already existed by mid-August 2025. More than half a million people were facing starvation, destitution and death. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher,…
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The violent annexation of the West Bank: From the siege of Qusra to de facto sovereign control
The ongoing, siege of Palestinian homes in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, shows how Israel’s creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank has shifted into an accelerated, paramilitary phase. Beginning on August 10, 2026, armed extremist settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes on the village outskirts—including the property of…
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Calculated deception: How Israel uses diplomacy to buy time for Gaza’s destruction
Last week’s mass funeral of 112 people—including 44 children from two closely related extended families—was not a new tragedy; it was the agonising, delayed accounting of a crime committed nearly three years ago. The victims, all belonging to the Abu Sharia and Al-Hassayna clans, lived in adjacent residential blocks in…
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Darkness: How corruption, mismanagement, and heat ignited Libya’s protests
When temperatures crossed 43°C across western Libya in July, with some places like Al-Azizia, just south of Tripoli, recording near 50°C, it was not merely the air that reached a boiling point—it was the collective patience of a population pushed beyond its limits. What began as desperate protests against devastating…
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Paying the warlords: The cynical economics of EU border control in Libya
As the European Union seeks to further fortify its external borders, its Home Affairs Council met in Luxembourg on June 8 to finalize a common policy on establishing controversial “return hubs” in third countries under an overhauled Return Regulation framework. But as EU interior ministers pushed to export asylum processing…
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Sitting ducks: Why the US security umbrella no longer protects the Gulf?
In Kuwait alone—less than 150 kilometres across the Gulf from Iran—the United States maintains a major military hub of approximately 13,500 personnel spread across installations such as Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base. To its south, Saudi Arabia hosts roughly 2,700 U.S. troops, centered at Prince Sultan Air…
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Lebanon’s Faustian bargain: The mirage of the trilateral framework
Can Lebanon extract a genuine, equitable peace from the 26th June Trilateral Framework Agreement (TFA)? The simple answer is yes, but that “yes” comes at a devastating cost. Marketed by Washington as a breakthrough, the framework is fraught with severe imbalances. As Lebanese political figures and civil society groups have…
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Oil, elites, and empty promises: Inside the US-backed coup against the UN in Libya
Following the conclusion of the United Nations-facilitated Structured Dialogue, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNSMIL, Hanna Tetteh, briefed the UN Security Council on the fragile state of play in Libya. Her briefing shed light on the UN’s latest efforts to revive a stalled political process, but…
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Maximum pressure: How Trump spent five years proving Obama was right about Iran
Tomorrow, Friday June 19, will mark yet another historic day in the international community’s decades-long preoccupation with Iran’s nuclear program—an assumed ghoul that, despite endless Western hyperbole, never actually materialized into a weapon. With the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Geneva between Washington and Tehran, the true history…
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Arab states condemned Israel publicly, but quietly moved on from Gaza
Since the launch of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, Tel Aviv—heavily shielded by Western political pressure and strategic intimidation against any state rejecting its actions—has faced widespread regional rhetorical backlash. Almost all Arab states, including those with formal ties to Israel, have issued varying forms of public condemnation. Yet behind…
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Qatar Chooses Geography Over Ideology in Its Iran Diplomacy
Over the years, tiny Qatar has emerged as a pivotal regional mediator, deploying balanced approaches to critical crises stretching from the Gulf to the Horn of Africa with a high degree of success. More recently, Doha has had to navigate increasingly volatile conflicts closer to home, most notably the fallout…
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The ceasefire illusion: Managing genocide under the “Board of Peace”
For two years, images of dead Palestinian children, flattened neighbourhoods and starving civilians flooded television screens and social media feeds around the world. What once shocked global audiences gradually risked becoming routine. The war in Gaza — from October 2023 until the ceasefire of October 2025 — left behind extraordinary…
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Maps of a vanished world: The myth of containing Iran
Despite decades of maximum pressure, crippling sanctions, and diplomatic isolation, the geopolitical reality of the Middle East suggests a profound paradox: the more the West and its regional allies speak of “containing” Iran, the more central Tehran becomes to the regional order. From the Levant to the Gulf of Aden,…
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The anatomy of a fracture: The structural forces behind the UAE’s OPEC exit
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was primarily established by five oil-exporting nations as a defiant response to the dominance of the global energy giants. These corporations, famously known as the “Seven Sisters,” wielded absolute control over the industry—dictating production levels and setting prices without even consulting the…
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The barometer of volatility: How the world became a hostage to Trump’s mood
Last Friday, 1st May, Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, commented to journalists that his assessment of global stability was reduced to a startlingly simple metric: the morning temperament of the American President. “Everything is under pressure, including oil prices, depending on how President Trump wakes up,” Fico remarked, noting that…
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Greater Israel: Coming soon to a neighbour near you; lines may change without notice
For seven decades, Israel has functioned not within fixed borders, but through the calculated deployment of “fluid lines.” From the 1947 Partition Plan to modern military doctrines, its geography remains a moving target—a series of unilateral impositions designed to facilitate expansion while evading international law. Effectively, Israel recognizes no definitive…
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After the ceasefire illusion: Why Gaza’s “Day After” still has no buyer?
The international community remains fixated on a phantom: Gaza’s “Day After.” While Washington, Cairo, and Doha debate elaborate governance frameworks and the “Board of Peace,” these plans share a fatal flaw—they lack a viable “buyer” on the ground. This diplomatic theatre has been eclipsed by the US-Israeli aggression against Iran…