Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Motasem A Dalloul
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Normalisation with Israel will trigger an arms race in the Middle East
Giving up its decades-old position against Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Sudan has agreed to normalise relations with the Zionist state. Tellingly, this was announced by US President Donald Trump on Friday at the White House. He is, of course, seeking a second term in office in next week’s presidential election.…
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The Nagorno-Karabakh crisis is helping to shape US foreign policy
As the war gets fiercer between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the mountainous region of just 150,000 people in the South Caucasus, Armenia has lost control of territories it regarded as the buffer zone between the land in question and Azerbaijan. The decades-long conflict re-erupted on 27 September and has…
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Has Fatah betrayed the Palestinian revolution?
When it was launched on 1 January 1965, the Palestine National Liberation Movement, Fatah, declared that it intended to fight the Israeli occupation until the liberation of the last piece of Palestine’s soil. According to a study by Dr Mohsen Saleh, most of the movement’s founders were members of the…
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Is Turkey really against the Arab countries and people?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Kuwait and Qatar last week to discuss regional and international issues. He received a very warm welcome with royal receptions in both countries where he was greeted as a great friend of the leaders and the people. In Kuwait, Erdogan met with the new…
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Is Macron really working to de-radicalise Islam?
As he revealed his plan to fight “separatism” in France, President Emmanuel Macron referred to the preference given to religious law over the country’s republican and secular values by Muslim citizens. In doing so, he put himself on a collision course with Islam and Muslims in his attempt to fight…
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Abbas is still lying to the Palestinians
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced recently that he would accept all the outcomes of the conference of the factional secretaries-general held last month in Beirut. They included an end to the internal division, unity between all of the Palestinian factions, and restructuring the PLO so that Hamas and Islamic…
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Why has the US ambassador’s ‘misquoted’ comment angered the Palestinians leadership?
A right-wing Israeli daily close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has misquoted US Ambassador David Friedman saying that Washington is thinking about replacing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with the once-disgraced Fatah security official Mohammed Dahlan. Israel Hayom’s Ariel Kahana apparently asked Friedman whether the US could like to appoint…
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Macron has toned down his anti-Turkey rhetoric, but is it enough?
As the tension over maritime borders in the East Mediterranean was escalating between Turkey and Greece, France stepped up with a big stick in support of its fellow EU member and threatened Turkey. President Emanuel Macron said that the government in Ankara “is no longer a partner.” The standoff between…
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Palestinian fury over UAE-Israel deal is just a ‘media show’
Prior to the meeting of the Arab League on Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki called on his Arab counterparts to reject the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-Israel normalisation deal. The deal was declared by the US, the UAE and Israel on 13 August, surprising the Palestinians and…
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Macron is doing his best to win Lebanon back for colonial France
French President Emanuel Macron was the first international or regional leader to visit Beirut following the devastating explosion a month ago. He even toured the port and city before most of Lebanon’s leaders. The Lebanese people, who were already suffering from economic, social, health and political crises, surrounded Macron and…
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Who won Gaza’s battle of the incendiary balloons, Israel or the resistance?
The Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas, announced on Monday night the end of a period of cross border tension. Thanking Egyptian and Qatari mediation for the understanding with Israel, Hamas stressed that it had won a new battle with the occupation state. The Head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh,…
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Israel stands to get a huge economic boost through its deal with the UAE
Yesterday, the first commercial Israeli flight arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. This was organised just two weeks after US President Donald Trump announced the peace deal between the UAE and the occupation state of Israel. Trump tweeted that the deal is a “HUGE breakthrough”…
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Turkey is becoming a superpower
After extensive exploration, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cheerfully announced on Friday that his country had made the biggest natural gas discovery in its history. The gas discovered in the Black Sea was estimated by 320 billion cubic metres. Erdogan said that production for commercial use could begin in 2023.…
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Tunisia: A technocratic government is a prescription for chaos and instability
With less than ten days for designate Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi to acquire parliament’s approval for his government, Tunisians are wary that his government could be the prescription for instability in the country, or at least bait used by President Kaïs Saïed to dissolve parliament. On 25 July, Saïed…
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Suspending annexation will not cleanse UAE crown prince’s sins
US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that his administration had achieved a “historic breakthrough” deal that would witness the United Arab Emirates (UAE) exchange official and overt diplomatic relations with the Israeli occupation state, in return for Israel delaying its plans to annex large swathes of the occupied Palestinian…
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Israel is too weak to launch a new offensive against Palestinians in Gaza
Israeli war jets struck several targets in the north of the Gaza Strip on Sunday. “The strike was carried out in response to the launching of incendiary balloons from Gazan territory into Israel over the course of the day,” claimed the Israeli occupation army. On Tuesday morning, the occupation forces…
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Israel whitewashes its barbarism through offering help to Lebanon
A massive explosion hit the Lebanese Port of Beirut on Tuesday, causing much havoc in the capital city, with at least 137 deaths and 5,000 wounded, while hundreds are still missing raising fears that the death toll will rise significantly. The blast turned more than 300,000 people homeless according to the…
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Will the demonstrations end Netanyahu’s political career?
Massive demonstrations across Israel are calling for the unseating of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption cases and his alleged mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. Worryingly for Netanyahu, the protests are growing, and look set to get even bigger, fuelled by hate speech and violence from his supporters and police.…
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Tunisia faces hard tests to protect its democracy
External interference in Tunisian affairs and acute ideological disagreements among the political components have been the main factors that have seemingly undermined the Tunisian Revolution, triggering the Arab Spring in 2011. The external interference represented is the persistence of certain international and regional powers to keep the Tunisian Islamists, the…
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Israel or Turkey: which one is the real democracy?
Israeli Professor Ron Robin announced his resignation on Tuesday from his position as the Chairman of Israel’s Association of University Heads. He attributed his resignation to the dominance of factional and personal political interests over national institutions, including universities. Robin cited attempts by the Israeli government to “terrorise, weaken, censor…
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The court ruling has overturned a historic injustice; Hagia Sophia was already a mosque
Turkey’s senior administrative court issued a ruling on 1 July that annulled the 1934 decision of the Turkish Council of Ministers to transform Hagia Sophia Mosque into a museum. It was another step in the secularisation of the Republic of Turkey under its founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. “The decision was…
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Return of skulls of freedom fighters a step towards reconnecting Algeria with its glorious past
The skulls of 24 Algerian freedom fighters, who resisted French colonialism in the middle of the 19th century, arrived in Algiers on Sunday. An emotional official and popular reception was organised for their arrival, which coincided with the 58th anniversary of Algeria’s independence. They were laid to rest at El…
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Why did Netanyahu pull back on annexation?
Despite the opposition of many Israeli officials and world leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be determined to push ahead with his annexation of large parts of the occupied Palestinian West Bank on 1 July. However, the date set for the annexation process to begin came and went,…
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Macron is a role model of presidential hypocrisy
Concluding an official visit to Paris on Monday, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron held a press conference and spoke about their discussions. Among other issues, they tended to concentrate on political and economic matters of mutual interest. Saied looked like someone begging for French support…