Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Oraib Al-Rantawi
-
Visiting AlUla: Inside Saudi Arabia’s mission to revive a dead past
Driving along the long road northward from the holy city of Madinah, the shifting of the scenery surrounding me was fascinating. It went from the distinctive black rocky hills and mountains of the Hijaz to the flourishing greenery – brought on by the increased rains in the region in...
-
Music vs. Morals: When Eurovision’s apolitical mask slipped
In the world of music, there exists a singular event that annually brings together nations from across the globe. That event is Eurovision. Or, one might say, was Eurovision. In 2023, the Eurovision Song Contest shattered previous records for online engagement, captivating no fewer than 162 million viewers. Why...
-
The US continues to use sanctions against developing nations for having the ‘wrong’ kind of relations
When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Pakistan last month, the two neighbours essentially opened the door to swift reconciliation months after they both conducted light strikes on each other’s territories and suffered a diplomatic fallout. Aside from presenting an opportunity for Islamabad to further express its condemnation of Israel’s...
-
The Gulf states will not move against Yemen’s Houthis without decisive Western intervention
There are few active armed movements that are as aggressive and assertive – reckless, even– as Yemen’s Houthis. Since the start of Israel’s ongoing offensive and genocide of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have launched attacks on cargo vessels linked to the occupation state passing through...
-
‘These airdrops claim our lives’: Aid airdrops reveal international failure and complicity in dehumanising Palestinians
International aerial drops of aid in the Gaza Strip are the result of further policies of collective humiliation and dehumanisation of the besieged population in Gaza. While Israel’s friendly countries race to demonstrate their aerial military capabilities over the Gaza sky to drop humanitarian aid into Gaza, what they...
-
Dune 2: a tale of Palestinian resistance against Israel’s occupation
Stories have always conveyed messages to the human subconscious. From the bedtime stories children are taught, to the movies we watch and the novels we read, the art of the story is possibly the most effective tool a propagandist can use. Speeches and the spoken word may impact the...
-
Profit over people: A symbolic gesture for peace at the Oscars
In the glamorous world of Hollywood, where glitter and gold often speak louder than words, a small but significant symbol made its appearance at the latest Academy Awards ceremony, otherwise known as the Oscars. A red pin, a symbol of solidarity with the Artists4Ceasefire movement, was worn by a...
-
Palestinian tech firms adapt to survive as war hits business
Before the Israel-Palestinian war, the women of the occupied West Bank-based tech non-profit Female Innovators and Investors of MENA (FINOMENA) had grand plans. Some were honing their coding skills ahead of a hackathon in partnership with Microsoft. Others were planning excitedly to travel to a networking event in Dubai...
-
Will mercenary Gulf armies signal a new Western colonial security order?
Much has been written over the past decade on the prevalence of mercenary forces – so-called private military companies (PMCs) – in combat zones, ranging across Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and even Sudan. Much has also been written on the various efforts by Gulf Arab states to create a...
-
Italy greenlights Red Sea mission: A strategic response to protect European commerce
Earlier this week, the Italian Parliament approved three new major international missions: Levante, Eunavfor Aspides and Euam Ukraine. The approval of these missions marks a significant step towards expanding Italy’s involvement in global affairs. “Operation Levante” seeks to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, whereas “Operation Aspides” (Greek for ‘shield’)...
-
Twickenham Arms Fair
Twickenham Rugby Stadium, renowned for its historic ties to rugby, once again finds itself at the centre of a contentious debate far removed from the sports world. It hosted the International Armoured Vehicles Fair for the third consecutive year from 22-25 January, 2024. The weapons expo boasts about being...
-
In resistance to Israel’s genocide, Palestinians unleash initiatives
Even under the genocidal eliminationist Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people nevertheless uphold their will to strive, to fight, to survive and maintain righteousness on their own land. Hundreds of individual and group initiatives have emerged and are flourishing from within the crucible of Gaza’s destruction and...
-
Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe under the RSF militia
The war that broke out in April 2023 between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces left a devastating impact. Thousands were killed and millions displaced, in addition to massive destruction of infrastructure, with millions left facing acute hunger. Ten months into the war, while the...
-
The West must decide what to support: Israel’s genocide in Gaza or Ukraine’s war against Russia
Walking the streets of Lviv in western Ukraine in December, trying to avoid the deadly black ice which is the bane of winters there, the last thing I expected to hear was the question “What do you think about Israel and Palestine?” I turned my face to Yulia, a...
-
Israel treats Palestinian detainees in a degrading way, in defiance of international law
Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on 27 October, the occupation forces have detained thousands of Palestinians, mostly civilians, holding them incommunicado for weeks in unknown locations, refusing to reveal the detention sites and hostage numbers, while also banning the Red Cross, lawyers...
-
Gaza: Palestinian returns to his area but hardly recognises where he lived
Tamer Kaskeen managed to return to his neighbourhood in Gaza City recently, but he hardly recognised the place where he lived. It was hard for him to locate the site of his home, which was destroyed by Israel during its devastating onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. When...
-
A US military withdrawal from Syria could overturn the chessboard, but not for the better
Many have hailed this decade as one of American withdrawal from the world stage, whether for strategic reasons or due to simple ineptness by civilisational decline. As the world witnessed the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, though, it became ever more evident that such a...
-
Protesting Germany’s far-right: Fear of Africanisation, Orientalisation and Islamisation
The past days in Germany were moving. Over the weekend, more than 1.4 million people took to the streets to protest the far-right and their plans to deport people, from Berlin in front of the Parliament to the conservative state of Bavaria, where more than 200,000 people gathered. This...
-
Palestine Book Awards 2023 winners announced during night of solidarity with Gaza
MEMO hosted the 12th annual Palestine Book Awards (PBA) this evening, showcasing literature on Palestine while remembering the 2.3 million Palestinians who are currently trapped in Gaza and struggling to survive through Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign. The event, held virtually in order to allow the participation of authors in...
-
Has the Axis of Resistance finally found the ‘road to Jerusalem’?
Much attention has surrounded the ‘Axis of Resistance’ over the years, with many anticipating the actions of that loose coalition of movements, militias, and states united in their claimed opposition to the West and its allies in the Middle East. The Axis’s slogans have been grand, its parades and...
-
Profile: Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas
In 1948, along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians ethnically cleansed by the nascent state of Israel, a child named Ahmed Yassin and his family were forced to flee to the Gaza Strip, a part of Palestine which was to become synonymous with Palestinian refugees and the brunt...
-
Gaza is the dystopia that conspiracy theorists fear, so why do they still support Israel?
Since the start of Israel’s renewed bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the invasion to eradicate Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, along with the entire Gazan population, it served to further shed light on which individuals, sectors of society and political affiliations persist in support for the occupation. There emerged...
-
Palestinians lose jobs as Israeli firms seek foreign replacements
When Taha Amin-Ismail Khalifeh dialled into a conference call with his Israeli employer last month, the Palestinian hotel worker expected a briefing on how the Israel-Palestine war was affecting business. Instead, he and 40 others were laid off. Khalifeh, who lives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had worked as...
-
Pro-Palestine activists are in danger
People who are pro-Palestine are in danger and social media is responsible. I don’t make such a claim lightly. Social media giants are already being accused of apparent bias in the conflict. Elon Musk has just announced new censorship for Palestinians. Meta and TikTok are censoring pro-Palestine content disproportionately....