Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Nasim Ahmed
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UK Labour owes an apology to pro-Palestinian British Jews ‘purged’ from the party
It seems a long time since UK’s Labour was accused of “purging Jews” from the party over allegations of anti-Semitism. But does the party and its leader Keir Starmer owe an apology to anti-Zionist Jewish members for the way they have been treated? Near universal concern over Israel’s metamorphosis into an anti-democratic apartheid regime suggests that an apology is long overdue. British Jews critical…
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Israel’s ‘right to exist’ challenged in expert testimonies
“Israel’s right to exist” has been challenged in expert testimonies by leading scholars Professor John Dugard and Professor Avi Shlaim. Dugard is an advocate of the High Court of South Africa. He has served intermittently as Judge of the International Court of Justice. His other high-profile appointment was at the…
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Israel has never had a democracy, so how can it lose it?
What should we make of the daily warnings issued about democracy being in peril in Israel? Over the weekend it was US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides who sounded the alarm. “What unites America and Israel is the love of democracy and democratic institutions,” said Nides while calling on the…
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Thomas Friedman shows that liberal Jews have no reason left to defend Israel
I watched the recent discussion between Thomas Friedman and Peter Beinart with great interest. Friedman, a New York Times columnist and arguably the journalist who has most shaped the US debate over Israel-Palestine in recent decades, was invited onto Beinart’s podcast to talk about Zionism, the two-state solution and Israel’s…
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Is Rishi Sunak really going to appoint critic of IHRA UK’s free speech tsar?
A staunch critic of the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism is reportedly being considered by the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to become the first ever Director for Free Speech on university campuses. Favoured by Israel, the IHRA has become a major fault line between…
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Jewish supremacy is state policy, says Netanyahu
American Jewish leaders are right to be worried. As Benjamin Netanyahu peels away at the façade that has maintained support for the occupation state within liberal Jewish constituencies in the US and elsewhere, they are discovering that their democratic image of Israel is but a figment of their imagination. Any…
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The Israel you knew, has not ‘gone’ it never existed
Israel’s war on Palestine is not confined to the battlefield. It is also waged in the media, nowhere more prominently than in the New York Times. Long regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”, its record on impartially reporting on Israel’s brutal military occupation and takeover of…
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What British comedian, David Baddiel, gets wrong about Israel and anti-Semitism
British comedian, David Baddiel, is right about one thing: Jews are not “collectively responsible” for the policy and behaviour of the State of Israel, but he is complaining about the wrong group. Instead of criticising left-wing progressives and black anti-racists for why he thinks “Jews Don’t Count” within such spaces,…
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Donors withdraw millions in support for controversial programme whitewashing Israeli crime
One of Israel’s most successful initiatives peddling state propaganda has suffered a major blow following the decision by major donor, the Adelson Family Foundation, to pull millions of pounds from the “Birthright” Israel programme. The highly controversial initiative offers all-expenses-paid trips to Israel for 18–26-year-old Jews. Since its inception in…
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Outrage over the rise of Jewish Power will not stop shameless dishonesty about Israel
Israel’s far-right ultranationalists have become the new power brokers. For the foreseeable future, the government of the Occupation State will include openly fascist parties. The likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are likely to be handed important ministerial positions that will further entrench Israel’s illegal occupation. Nevertheless, despite their…
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Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial
One of the most startling aspects of Israel’s ongoing takeover of historic Palestine is how, despite the catalogue of human rights abuse, violations of international law and the practice of the crime of apartheid, the Zionist project has been able to maintain support for its cause amongst large sections of…
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Historians reveal Israel’s use of poison against Palestinians
The details of Israel’s secret use of biological weapons and poison against Palestinians during the 1947/48 ethnic cleansing campaign has been revealed in a recent article by historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar. The 84-year-old Kedar is professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the more well-known Morris…
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British democracy undermined by ‘lawless’ Labour weaponising anti-Semitism
The first of three programmes produced by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) on the turbulent five years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the UK Labour party was aired yesterday. It began by asking: is UK Labour a “lawless party”? Revelations by the I-Unit – which is the same team behind…
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Elizabeth II: Britain’s last colonial queen
When Queen Elizabeth II took to the throne in February 1952, the British Empire had entered its last days. Though Britain maintained control over vast swathes of the planet and counted hundreds of millions of people as subjects, the beginning of the “Second Elizabethan Era” was marked by unrest and…
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An anti-Semitism expert says that progressives ‘have the right to exclude Zionists’
A leading expert on anti-Semitism has said that university campus groups “have the right to exclude Zionists.” Writing in the Times of Israel, Kenneth Stern argued that, although it may be “hurtful” and counterproductive, the right of progressive groups to exclude advocates of the occupation state must be respected. Stern…
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Attack on anti-Zionist Jewish leader exposes scale of UK Labour’s anti-Palestine problem
The scale of Labour’s anti-Palestine problem under the leadership of Keir Starmer was laid bare yesterday following the election of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Wimborne-Idrissi, who is a co-founder of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) – the main grouping of left-wing Jews in the Labour…
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Palestine exposes the limits of free-speech and the morally bankrupt ‘cancel culture’
The firing of Palestinian American woman, Natalie Abulhawa, has sparked a debate over free-speech, “cancel-culture” and the ever-growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. The 25-year-old athletic trainer was fired by a private girls school in Bryn Mawr over years-old social media posts criticising Israel. In March the Council on American-Islamic Relations…
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‘The world is bigger than five,’ says Turkiye’s UN reform campaign
Turkiye brought its UN reform campaign to London last week with the fifth panel discussion in a series of public events across 12 countries. “The world is bigger than five” is the key message of the campaign launched by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nearly a decade ago. It has…
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Israel’s visa refusal to Palestinian Harvard Fellow sparks calls for academic boycott of Apartheid State
Israel has refused to grant a visa permit to one of Gaza’s highly acclaimed poet and former Harvard fellow, Mosab Abu Toha. Author of one of the shortlisted books for this year’s Palestine Book Awards (PBA), Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, Toha now faces…
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In the name of combatting anti-Semitism, Labour ignored Islamophobia and established a ‘hierarchy of racism’
The long-delayed Forde Report examining the handling of anti-Semitism complaints within the Labour Party as well as allegations of bullying, racism and sexism, was finally released yesterday. The 138-page conclusion of the inquiry led by Martin Forde QC not only confirmed claims that anti-Semitism was used as a “factional weapon”…
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US ambiguity over Abu Akleh’s killing ensures Israel’s impunity remains unchallenged
A “forensic analysis” by the US Security Coordinator (USSC) has concluded that shots fired by an Israeli occupation solider “was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh”, the US State Department said yesterday in a statement on the killing of the Palestinian-American journalist by an Israeli sniper in…
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Labour ‘witch-hunt’ on pro-Palestine MP, Apsana Begum, takes ugly turn
The UK Labour Party is under pressure to investigate allegation of a “vicious and misogynistic” campaign against Poplar and Limehouse MP, Apsana Begum. The 32-year-old faces the prospect of being de-selected in a “trigger ballot” procedure which will decide whether Begum can stand as a Labour candidate at the next…
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Hamas and Fatah battle for Gaza following Hamas’s landslide election victory
What: Hamas and Fatah battle for Gaza When: June 14, 2007 Where: Gaza What happened? Hamas’s surprising landslide election victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election was met with anger and hostility, especially in Washington. The US reacted with a series of covert operations spearheaded by the US State Department…
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Remembering the Naksa
In 1967, Israel launched a war against its neighbours and took control of the parts of Palestine which it had failed to capture during its 1948 “War of Independence”. What: The Palestinian Naksa (“Setback”) When: 5 June 1967 Where: Palestine What Happened? On 5 June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive…