Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Oraib Al-Rantawi
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US sanctions will not bring peace to Sudan
Last week, the U.S. determined that Sudan used chemical weapons during the ongoing War and, as a consequence, decided to place sanctions on it pursuant to the Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991. These sanctions, scheduled to commence on 6 June, encompass limitations on American exports...
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No milk, no diapers: US aid cuts hit Syrian refugees in Lebanon
Amal Al-Merhi’s twin ten-month-old daughters often go without milk or diapers. She feeds them a mix of cornstarch and water, because milk is too expensive. Instead of diapers, Amal ties plastic bags around her babies’ waists. The effects of their poverty is clear, she said. “If you see one...
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The int’l community is slowly cracking down on Israel’s foreign fighters and the butchers of Gaza
Walking through the airport of a popular European capital in April, it was difficult to miss the presence of hundreds of Israelis scattered throughout the terminals. To the untrained eye and at first sight, one would mistake their tanned features and foreign accents for one of the myriad Mediterranean...
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The Israeli genocide in Gaza targets foetuses, newborns and pregnant women
The ongoing Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, which has lasted for over 560 days, has killed over 50,000 people, including more than 16,000 children. This includes nearly 200 infants who were born and martyred during the war. A UN...
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Is the US willing to favour Turkiye over Israel in Syria?
As US president Donald Trump sat with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House earlier this month, the Israeli leader looked visibly uncomfortable and discontented, exchanging glances with his delegation as Trump expressed his views surrounding the growing rivalry between Israel and Turkiye in Syria. It was...
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What does the Trump administration want from Damascus?
Following US President Donald Trump’s administration’s decision to change the status of Syrian diplomats at the UN mission, which involved the US not recognising the new Syrian administration, a question comes to mind: What does the Trump administration want from Damascus? Is it using non-recognition as a bargaining chip...
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The US is disappearing dissenters in broad daylight
Just before breaking her fast during Ramadan, Rumeysa Ozturk—a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University—was forcibly taken by masked federal agents as she left her Somerville home to meet friends. There were no warnings, no charges and no explanation. Within hours, she had vanished into a system that has...
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Is Europe ready to accept Turkiye’s defence of the continent?
Europe has rarely found itself in as much of a bind as it faces now, arguably since the conflicts, territorial breakups and political transitions of the 1990s. Amid a perceived rising military threat from Russia, the faltering of Ukraine’s cause on the world stage and the withdrawal of the...
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Education is at risk in the West Bank from Israel’s military operation and funding cuts
Every day, Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank run the gauntlet of Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints and settler attacks on their way to school. Since the launch of Israel’s major military operation in the West Bank in January, though, the trip has become even more perilous. Thousands of troops...
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The death of the American dream after Trump axes refugee funds
Ali landed in the United States as a relieved refugee from Iraq just as Donald Trump moved back into the White House. His timing wasn’t good. “When I came to America, they assured me… they’ll help me financially, provide a place and food,” said Ali by telephone. “But when...
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Children in Gaza defy trauma to return to school
Children have returned to school in Gaza, taking classes in tents or in the rubble of schools where families sheltered during the war, but trauma, aid blockades and the threat of more fighting could derail their drive to learn. At least 14,500 children have been killed in the war...
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The mediation wars: how Turkiye and Saudi Arabia compete for the Ukraine file
When, on 11 March, talks hosted by Saudi Arabia resulted in the United States and Ukraine agreeing on a 30-day ceasefire in the ongoing war against Russian forces, it signalled possibly the most significant diplomatic breakthrough since the start of Moscow’s invasion three years ago. That agreement, which included...
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Sudan’s refugees face deadly game of ‘snakes and ladders’ in Libya
The mayday relay came in from Eagle 3, a surveillance aircraft for the EU’s Frontex border agency – a rubber boat crammed with 70 people was taking on water off the coast of Libya. Humanity 1, a rescue ship operated by the German NGO SOS Humanity, rushed to the...
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Al-Sharaa’s agreement with the head of the SDF is very important for Syria
The agreement between Syria’s interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, has cooled some of the rage in Syrian hearts following the intense frustration caused by the management of the coastal area battle with remnants of the Assad regime, which...
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The UAE should stop its violations of the UN arms embargo in Darfur
The civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started in mid-April 2023. Its impact has been dire on many levels, with thousands killed and millions displaced internally and in neighbouring countries. Infrastructure has been destroyed, and famine looms. This war, however, is...
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The US is targeting Saudi Arabia and the Global South
An attribute of strongmen is the uncanny ability to strike dread, confusion, panic in those around them – allies and adversaries, as well as global markets – through statements alone. Such was the case when, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 23 January, US...
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Palestinian refugees in Jordan fear ‘new Nakba’ with Trump’s displacement plan
Palestinian elder Mohamed Ahmed Jafar was forced to take refuge in Jordan after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Ever since, he has been living in the Jerash refugee camp, known locally as the Gaza camp, in northern Jordan. Jafar, 77, said that US President Donald Trump’s plan...
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Is Trump’s ‘takeover’ of Gaza an American colonial enterprise or a negotiation tactic?
Barely a month into his presidency, US President, Donald Trump, has made shockwaves throughout the world with his numerous proposals and plans, each one topping the predecessor in its seeming insanity and chaotic absurdity. After talks with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last week, Trump announced at a White...
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Saudi Arabia should consider regional leadership as an alternative to normalisation with Israel
Looking at the issue objectively, Saudi Arabia does not need to normalise relations with the occupation state of Israel after the collapse of the Iranian axis in the region, the end of Tehran’s influence in Syria in particular and its significant decline in Lebanon. The US and other right-wing...
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Vanishing mountains: winter air pollution smothers Iran
Toxic air that cloaked Iran this winter sent thousands to hospital, shuttered schools and forced Tehran to admit it must do more to tackle its top pollutants: old cars and filthy fuel. In the capital, a sprawling mountain-ringed metropolis that is home to more than 18 million people, residents...
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Israel’s men in Syria: Tel Aviv is exploiting the Kurds as proxies for its occupation
It has long been a classic hallmark of a colonial government or authority to groom a disadvantaged minority in a subjugated region to either foster long-term generational divisions or to counter a rival power – a strategy that does, tragically, exploit the real grievances of those groups. A century...
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‘We need everything’: Gazans ponder mammoth task of rebuilding
As bombs rained down and entire neighbourhoods around her were pulverised, Shayma Abualatta found the only way to cope with the trauma of Gaza’s 15-month-long war was to make sure she did all she could to get an education. Now the 21-year-old, who is studying computer science and computer...
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How will the new Syria handle its ‘Greater Israel’ problem?
When Israel’s far-right extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich acknowledged in October his aim for a Jewish state that encompasses not only all of the Palestinian territories, but also extends to Syria, some speculated about how such a goal would be achieved. In Israel’s classic strategy of “bit by bit”,...
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The politics of artistic expression
As 2024 draws to a close, much of the world is preparing to usher in the New Year. In Italy, however, the season’s festivities have been overshadowed by a heated debate over censorship, artistic expression and societal values, sparked by a controversy at the heart of Rome’s traditional New...