Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Motasem A Dalloul
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The PA is exploiting financial hardship to divert attention from Israel’s annexation plan
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on pushing ahead with the annexation of large swathes of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Authority claims that it is opposing the plan. It has threatened several times to pull out of the Oslo Accords and related agreements with Israel. This has…
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Are we right to expect so much from the Turkish President of the UN General Assembly?
Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkir was elected 75th President of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, reported the UN News. Bozkir was the sole candidate in the secret ballot. Needing a simple majority to be appointed, he received 178 votes; 11 countries abstained. Born in 1950, Bozkir studied law and has…
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Fake news peddled by Israeli media promotes Netanyahu’s annexation plan
On Saturday, it was revealed that Israeli media are reporting fake news in order to market Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s annexation plan to the Palestinians. Such reports have been published by leading media outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel’s bestselling newspapers. According to Israeli affairs specialist Abdul Aziz Salha,…
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It might not take much effort to derail Netanyahu’s annexation plan
With less than a month to go until the date set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the annexation of large parts of the occupied Palestinian West Bank to begin, politicians and diplomats are stirring. While Netanyahu insists on going ahead with his plan, his partner in government, Defence…
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Why did the Israeli police kill a Palestinian with special needs?
Last Saturday, Israeli border police officers opened fire at a disabled Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City because they thought that he was a terrorist. They fired several live rounds at the man, who was named as Eyad Hallaq from the Wadi Al-Joz neighbourhood. The 32 year old had low…
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Israel’s Netanyahu will be victorious after all this political mayhem
After a long and complicated process that lasted 18 months, the largest Israeli political factions, the Likud and Blue and White, agreed to form a coalition government that was scheduled to be sworn in yesterday in an effort to end the period of acrimonious political instability in the country. While…
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It is too late for the PLO to cancel the agreements with Israel
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) has been threatening to cancel all the agreements with Israel over the latter’s intention to annex large parts of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including most of the illegal Israeli Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley. The PLO threatened to sever previous agreements on numerous occasions, however…
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Lies are part of Trump’s strategy for his war against Palestinians
As US President, Donald Trump has been doing his best to empower the Israeli occupation of Palestine. His recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s “united” and “eternal” capital fulfilled even the most ardent Zionists’ dreams. In doing so, he also fulfilled a 25-year-old pledge of previous US administrations to relocate the…
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Mismanagement is driving Saudi Arabia towards bankruptcy
On 6 March, the OPEC+ cartel failed to agree on a cut in oil production in the light of reduced demand due to the coronavirus pandemic affecting almost every country in the world. All of this came in the middle of a global financial crisis. Saudi Arabia proposed the cut,…
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Are the Israelis really helping the Palestinians?
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, hit out at the Palestinian representative at the international body at a Security Council meeting last Thursday because Riyad Mansour had blamed the Israeli occupation for the misery of the Palestinians. Mansour added that the occupation is undermining the Palestinian Authority’s efforts…
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Coronavirus: Gaza copes efficiently despite severe resources shortage
As of 23 April, the number of coronavirus cases around the world has reached 2,699,462 and the number of deaths has peaked at 188,930. The numbers are still multiplying in many countries, posing grave challenges ahead of many countries, including the most developed, with the best medical equipment and economic…
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Sisi is using Covid-19 to increase his power, so pity the poor Egyptians
The coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic is still with us, despite the efforts of governments and political leaders around the world, who have placed their countries in lockdown and suspended parliamentary sittings, normal economic activities and most domestic and international travel. Technology is being used to convene essential meetings to deal with…
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Mr Bennett, don’t teach us lessons about humanity
In response to a humanitarian appeal launched by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza to obtain $23 million in urgent aid, in addition to medicine and medical equipment including 250 respirators in order to deal with the coronavirus in the besieged enclave, Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett announced that…
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Netanyahu can’t be trusted, nor can Benny Gantz
Days after he was tapped by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to form the next government, the erstwhile head of the nominally centre-left Blue and White bloc, Benny Gantz, shocked everyone with an unexpected deal to join the government of his political rival and head of the right-wing Likud, Prime Minister…
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Its coronavirus response provides more evidence of Israel’s racism
The coronavirus Covid-19 has spread around the world, with 372,757 confirmed cases and 16,231 deaths according to an updating dashboard run by the World Health Organisation. The Director-General of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that it is “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and…
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Turkey’s battle in Idlib exposes US hypocrisy
On Sunday, Turkey and Russia launched their first joint military patrols along the strategic M4 highway, which connects Syria’s east and west. The patrols are part of a ceasefire agreement reached by the two countries at the end of last week that ended a Turkish operation in retaliation for the…
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Abbas has enlisted the coronavirus in the battle against his political opponents
As the coronavirus continues to infect people around the world, the Palestinian Authority has announced measures to try to curb its spread in the occupied Palestinian territories. President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree for a state of emergency and has suspended the work of all PA ministries and institutions, apart…
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Who is betraying the Palestinians, Hamas or Abbas?
Donald Trump’s “peace plan” gives to Israel almost everything that it wants, while the Palestinians are to be bought off and given territorial crumbs from the occupation table. The “deal of the century” was criticised around the world as a prescription for perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, although many of the…
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Netanyahu looks ready to do ‘anything’ to win next month’s General Election
It is a fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a fight for his political life, and doing everything possible to remain in the top job. Apart from anything else, he doesn’t want to go to prison for fraud and corruption. He has thus started to orchestrate mergers…
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Who is to blame for Tunisia’s political stalemate?
On Friday evening, Tunisia’s Ennahda movement announced its withdrawal from the talks on the formation of the government. “Ennahda has decided not to take part in the government or in a vote of confidence,” the Head of the movement’s Shura Council, Abdelkarim Harouni, told a press conference. Next day, Prime…
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A clash of former allies: Al-Sisi and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar
The venerable University of Al-Azhar in Cairo organised a two-day international conference on Islamic thought and practice at the end of January. Senior Egyptian and international scholars and politicians were invited to deliberate over the issue in a modern world. Sources within Al-Azhar said that the conference was organised under…
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The schizophrenia of Mahmoud Abbas as he looks for an ‘honourable end’
At the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab League held an emergency summit in Cairo on Saturday to discuss Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”. The US President’s plan envisages Israel’s annexation of major settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, with the…
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This is America’s most generous deal ever for Israel
US President Donald Trump has revealed his long-awaited “deal of the century” which has been cunningly rebranded as a “peace plan” to bring “precise technical solutions” for the Palestinians and Israelis and make the Middle East “safer” and “much more prosperous”. He described it as a “win-win opportunity” for Israel…
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Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist?
Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War…