Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ibrahim Hewitt
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Forget idealism, undemocratic democracy rules, OK?
Jeremy Corbyn has, we are told, “shaken up politics” with his surprise campaign for the Labour Party leadership. Unwittingly, perhaps, he has done much more than that. His campaign and its popularity has demonstrated more than anything else that there are far too many politicians who pay lip-service to democracy…
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Cameron back in No 10 looks like bad news for Middle East peace
The closest fought UK General Election for many years has produced an unexpected victory for David Cameron and the Conservative Party. With predictions of a hung parliament built around Westminster fears of a tartan invasion by Scottish National Party MPs, the result of a clearly failing first-past-the-post electoral system is…
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What legitimacy does Israel have to be de-legitimised?
Southampton University is hosting a conference next month which has stirred a whole raft of Zionist anger. “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism” is, say its detractors, “anti-Semitic” and will, according to one British MP, “de-legitimise the existence of a democratic state”. Ah, is that…
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Israel latches onto the War on Terror to hide its own terrorism
Ever since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, Israel has been able to convince the West, America and Europe in particular, that its brutal “self-defence” is part of the global “War on Terror”. An active lobby promising votes and electoral finance has played its part well. In November…
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Will the real David Cameron please stand up?
In March this year, EU leaders met to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. In a media statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned Russia and said that the “territorial integrity of an independent nation has been violated” by Moscow’s action. “The aspirations of the Ukrainian people… are being crushed,” he…
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Humanitarian aid is still a target for the Israeli occupation
I have been the chair of trustees for 17 of Interpal’s 20 years as a British charity helping Palestinians in desperate need; it is a privilege to be in such a position. Being a trustee has enabled me to meet and work with some wonderful people, including our incredible beneficiaries…
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Almost thirty years on, there’s still blood on the Holy Land
“What we have seen within the past week can only be described as racist, state-controlled terrorism and military anarchy. There is no less than an apartheid system existing to differentiate between Israeli Jews, Arabs of the originally occupied territories, now called Israel, and Arabs of the territories occupied during the…
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Exclusive Interview with Khaled Meshaal, the Head of the Hamas Political Bureau
‘It is the occupation, not Hamas recognition of Israel, which is the core problem’ It is rather unnerving to come face to face with a man regarded by many people in the West as the leader of a terrorist organisation, and by possibly more people elsewhere in the world as…
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US exceptionalism makes it a poor choice as world leader
With a growing list of US military interventions around the world, and their accompanying human rights abuses including the ongoing shame of Guantanamo Bay in the background, it is difficult to imagine a more unsuitable candidate as the leader of the free world than the American president. Indeed, as American…
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Is it time to bypass governments in the search for justice?
One of the conundrums about Israel is that the country’s media often carries far more robust stories about the state than the many pro-Israel media outlets in the West. Discussions take place within Israel that are blocked or stifled by lobbyists in Europe and Americas; its activists appear to be…
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‘Victory’ in Gaza is illusory
How much longer is the farce of the Palestinian Authority going to continue? I ask because it has been obvious over the past few months that the PA, under President Mahmoud Abbas, is there more for Israel’s benefit than that of the people it is meant to serve, the Palestinians.…
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Make Israel a pariah state through BDS, Pappé tells Joburg audience
As the Israelis and Palestinians try to agree on ceasefire terms in Cairo, public disgust at Israel’s savage military assault on the civilians of Gaza is growing. Such public disquiet is a worldwide phenomenon. At the University of Johannesburg on Wednesday evening, Professor Ilan Pappé told a packed auditorium that…
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Netanyahu should look at his own record, the schmuck
Standing in front of a map of what both no doubt hope will one day be Greater Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Tony Blair have today given a practical demonstration of chutzpah. Translated roughly as “audacity” (but could also mean “insolence”), the two men with blood on their hands tried to…
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Remember the USS Liberty? The US and Israel wish you didn’t
It is often assumed that Israel was on the defensive in the Six-Day War of June 1967. That is testimony to the success of its propaganda, because the reality was very different. “From the very beginning,” wrote James Bamford in Body of Secrets (2001), “an essential element in the Israeli…
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Israel’s timeline of terror
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making familiar noises about Hamas and “terrorism” in the wake of the announcement of the Palestinian unity government. “I call on all responsible elements in the international community not to rush to recognise a Palestinian government which has Hamas as part of it and…
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When lies sound truthful and murder is respectable
The language used by politicians and the media colours and determines the way that we see things; it forms opinions. Thus, Western governments have refrained from calling the military takeover in Egypt a coup, from which we can deduce that “interests” are taking precedence over justice. Israel’s massive brute of…
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Where is it written that Palestinians have to be killed? Good question.
The speaker was a Palestinian woman, a refugee from Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Syria; she is now a double refugee living, if that’s the right word, in northern Jordan. Where, she asked, is it written that Palestinians have to be killed? It is a good question. Hard-core Zionists might cite…
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The right of return is for individuals to decide, not for Abbas to concede
Yet again, we hear that President Mahmoud Abbas has more or less conceded the lawful right for Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Last year he told Israelis that although he would like to visit his birthplace in Safed, which is now in Israel, he did not expect to…
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House of Commons vote suggests that democracy is not quite dead yet
The real surprise this week was not that the British House of Commons voted against the government’s plans to attack Syria, but that people were surprised that elected MPs should vote pretty much in line with public opinion on the issue. Democracy, it would seem, is alive and if not…
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From bombs to books and development to diplomacy, Middle East involvement in Africa has it all
Visiting South Africa is always a pleasure, but when the purpose is to attend a conference there is usually something extra special to look forward to. The Afro-Middle East Centre’s “In whose interests? Exploring Middle East involvement in Africa” in Pretoria on 5-6 November was no exception. AMEC and the…
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Palestine’s “forgotten people”
By Ibrahim Hewitt When concern about the after-effects of Israel’s aggression against the civilian population in Gaza was still high, Time magazine described Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as “A Forgotten People” (25th February, 2009). It is an apt description, especially as the first anniversary of the start of Israel’s bombardment…
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The times they are a-changin’
By Ibrahim Hewitt In his classic 1963 song The times they are a-changin’, American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wrote, “For the loser now will be later to win, for the times they are a-changin’”. Having observed closely the situation in Palestine for more than twenty years, I can say in all…
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Sixty-two years, and counting
By Ibrahim Hewitt This week saw the first anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza, but only one anniversary really matters in 2010: it is now almost 62 years since the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis by the creation of the state of Israel. Hope for one people was…
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Purity of arms?
Boycotts don’t work. At least that’s what we are told by Israel’s apologists whenever the topic of a cultural, academic or trade boycott is mentioned. It was with great interest, therefore, that I read an obscure little article in the Daily Telegraph: “Israeli army calls for boycott over model’s refusal…