Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Yassir Zaatreh
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So why did Netanyahu apologise to Turkey now?
Under normal circumstances, when one country apologises to another it usually passes without comment. When the country doing the apologising is Israel people sit up and take notice. Israel is not accustomed to apologising to anyone; in fact, it is more often on the receiving end of apologies, deserved or…
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Freedom of expression has limits in a responsible society
The media has played a vital role in the Arab Spring, from social networks to TV stations. It would be foolish to think otherwise, but if the media was not available the old regimes would have found it much easier to suppress the wishes of the people. Commentators have spoken…
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Salam Fayyad: the rise and fall… and rise again?
Yasser Arafat’s attempt to support the Aqsa Intifada in order to rebel against the terms of the Oslo Accords backfired. Far from ending the Palestinian Authority’s role as a lackey of the Israeli occupation, it strengthened it, not least because Salam Fayyad was parachuted in from the halls of the…
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Iran in Syria mirrors the Soviet Union in Afghanistan
Only a few months after the fighting in Syria began in earnest I wrote about the Afghan model there. Unfortunately, this has been confirmed over time. After more than two years of the Syrian revolution we can only hope that the fighting does not last as long as it has…
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What does Rouhani’s victory in the Iranian election mean?
As was widely predicted, reformist candidate Hassan Rouhani won the first round of the Iranian presidential election, gaining more than half of the votes cast. This outcome was not surprising given the disarray of the conservative trend, which fielded five candidates; Rouhani was the only reformist candidate. Some forecasts had…
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Where is the flaw in the Syrian revolution?
There are many reasons why the Syrian regime is still in control after more than two years of revolution. At the forefront is its reliance on a minority to control the military and security agencies as well as support from other minorities and, indeed, some of the wider majority, in…
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What is behind the resumption of negotiations in Washington?
US Secretary of State John Kerry has worked hard on the Israel-Palestine portfolio since he came into office earlier this year. He has made six tours to the region, the most recent ending in the announcement of the resumption of negotiations. It would be foolish to say that Kerry’s tours…
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The goals behind intervention in Syria
Syria’s apparent use of chemical weapons provides a good excuse for an American-Western military intervention in Syria. If the West was driven by the immorality of killing on a mass scale, then the killing of over 100,000 Syrians would have been enough for them to take action against the regime…
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Hamas and Gaza in the eye of the storm
The campaign to remove Hamas from government in Gaza has started: a “rebellion” movement has been announced; journalists have been invited to meet its “secret” leader; and Fatah’s Azzam Al-Ahmad has said that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is still looking at how to respond to Hamas’s call for factions…
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The chemical weapons deal exposes the conspiracy against the Syrian revolution
The conspiracy against the Syrian Revolution has never been more pronounced than it is now after the deal to rid the country of its chemical weapons. It is clear to anyone who is thinking critically that we are witnessing an international conspiracy with the implicit approval of Arab states; as…
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Where is the true allegiance to Palestine, Jerusalem and its sanctities?
Towards the end of September, the Israeli authorities announced that researchers working with an archaeologist from the Hebrew University had found a valuable item near Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. It is a necklace engraved with a menorah, a shofar and a Torah scroll. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called this a…
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On the shifting of positions in the region
When you find a report titled “The story of the secret meeting in Beirut: Lines of communication restored between Damascus and Washington” in the pro-resistance newspaper Al-Akhbar, it means that the resistance party no longer views a relationship with Washington forbidden or wrong. When the “resistance and opposition” circles celebrate…
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How did the Syrian revolution become militarised?
The aforementioned question seems a bit odd at the moment, it has been two years since the Syrian Revolution turned into an armed revolution and therefore there is no point in posing this question after all that has happened during the past two years. However, the difficulty that the revolution…
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They mourn the negotiations, continue the negotiations, and then make ironic threats
Every other day, it seems, figures from the group who believe that “life is negotiations” mourn the current negotiation process; they sometimes get upset and resign; at other times they analyse or complain, but the result is always the same. They continue to negotiate and, more importantly, when they make…
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Hamas, Gaza and a double confrontation
When the Israelis finally complete their “Iron Dome” missile defence system they are more likely to consider another attack against the people of the Gaza Strip. Once again, the likely pretext will be “missiles” launched from Gaza at 1948-occupied Palestine. Israel says explicitly that Hamas is not interested in a…