Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Jamal Kanj
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The king of deception
Outgoing Israeli president Shimon Peres talked in a recent interview about a peace agreement he reached with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 2011. According to Peres, the Israeli prime minister rejected the draft understanding telling him “to wait a few days Tony Blair could get a better offer.” The President...
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Intimidation of John Kerry
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon articulated publicly what Israeli leaders say privately: Give us your tax money, weapons and your veto power but “leave us alone.” He called the US peace efforts “not worth the paper it is printed on,” and accusing US Secretary of State John Kerry of being...
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Maintaining Israel's demographic majority, but at what cost?
In America, the Jewish community’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) promotes racial integration, equality and multiculturalism within American society. The ADL and other Jewish organisations work closely at local levels with school administrators across the US to educate young children about the virtues of tolerance and multiculturalism. As a promoter of...
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Nuclear irony is lost on the West
It is ironic that Western nations seeking to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions are the same countries which sold nuclear technology to Tehran in the first place. Iran has worked with the US and Western nations since the 1950s to develop its nuclear energy capabilities. In 1975, German conglomerates Kraftwerk Union...
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The real story of the Six-Day War
Last Tuesday was the 45th anniversary of the outbreak of a war between Egypt and Israel that reshaped the Middle East. At 7.30am, on 5 June, 1967, 200 Israeli fighter jets took off in a massive surprise attack, neutralising Egypt’s air force on the ground before troops advanced to...
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Syria on verge of civil war
What started as an extension of the Arab Spring is pushing Syria to the verge of civil war. Bashar Al-Assad must stop deluding himself by blaming the frustration of the Syrian people on a foreign conspiracy. Indulging in such self-denial is what could eventually justify outside intervention. In addition, the...
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US veto for sale
Pre-empting Mitt Romney’s campaign visit to Israel, President Barack Obama last Friday signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Co-operation Act of 2012. The bill was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and co-sponsored by Israeli firsters Barbara Boxer and Howard Berman, of the US Senate and House...
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By way of deception
WESTERN and Israeli media are full of purported leaks giving details of the joint efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak to enlist reluctant military chiefs to their plan to attack Iran. All this is hogwash. Israel has no intention to move against...
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21st century robotic wars
On the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a new “sanitised” kind of war is reshaping the future of America’s military industrial complex. The use of unmanned drones – robotic war – is carried out through a string of military sites stretching from the Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada...
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Who gains from the latest anti-Islam film?
ZIONISTS and right-wing Christian evangelists appear to be exploiting America’s freedom of speech to fuel sedition and hate between the people of two great religions. In response, right-wing religious elements are manipulating Muslims’ righteous indignation by turning lawful protests into uncontrollable violence. In the US, it is argued that inflammatory...
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Another (made for Israel) global disaster derailed
LAST August I predicted that as the US election drew closer, and as the President’s re-election became certain, a credible scenario would be for Israel to strike Iran, pre-empting Barack Obama’s new term in the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance at the United Nations (UN) General...
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America is a partner in Israel's wars
On 15 November, 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) National Council, a body representing all Palestinians, declared an independent Palestinian state. The gesture did not change life for Palestinians under occupation or in exile, but that wasn’t the intention. The pronouncement was sugar coating major, unreciprocated political concessions, for the...
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Reconciliation and repression are incongruent
Israel’s war on Gaza has not stopped since Palestinians exercised their democratic free will and voted for Hamas in the 2006 election. The relentless warfare has alternated between overt bloody and covert muted, but let’s clarify some distortions. Contrary to most Western media reports, the current escalation was sparked by...
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A supreme Morsi mess
EGYPTIAN democracy is alive and well. That is about the only positive observation on the current pro-Morsi and counter-demonstrations in major cities across the country. President Mohamed Morsi’s pronouncement on November 22 granting himself supreme powers instigated the current crisis. His far-reaching decrees came on the heels of a Gaza...
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Israeli settlements, unsettling realities...
A DAY after the UN vote to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN, the right-wing Israeli government responded by adding 3,500 illegal Jewish-only homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel was blatantly defying more than two- thirds of the international community, which recognised Palestine as a state...
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New Israeli Herods and Christians
I’m writing from Finland this week, where the omnipresence of snow and festive Christmas lights heralds another celebration of the birth of Jesus. In parallel, the descendants of the first Christians in Palestine – the “Living Stones” – are marking another year of abominable Israeli occupation. Indulged with indifference to the...
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Obama and the Israel Lobby
The Israel Lobby is flexing its muscles against Barack Obama’s expected nominee to be the next Secretary of Defence. Frontrunner Chuck Hagel is co-chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Committee. Hagel was a Republican Senator representing Nebraska from 1996 until his retirement in 2008 and was one of...
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Megalomaniac versus monomaniacs in Syria
SYRIAN President Bashar Al Assad has a penchant for blaming outside conspirators for the troubles in Syria. While plausible, he is mistaken in linking public demands for political reform with presumed plots against his country. His pompous speech three weeks ago on a political resolution for the carnage in Syria was...
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There are no short cuts in democracy
Egypt is an experimental democracy in progress, but when the evolution of this process turns bloody it begs the question: is it worth it? An Egyptian tourist guide who has lost his job, or a businessman affected by ongoing street violence, would probably respond with a resounding no. This should be...
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The definition of insanity
WESTERN media is obsessed with presenting a positive spin on everything related to Israel, while trivialising good and accentuating negative news on Palestine. It’s admirably free in many aspects, but when it comes to discussing Israel the Western media loses its spark. Disingenuous news spin and Israeli pampering are doing...
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"The invention of the Jewish people"
The Invention of the Jewish People was a book written by Shlomo Sand, an Israeli professor of history at the University of Tel Aviv. The author wasn’t probing a belief system, but Zionist fabrications of a spurious common lineage for people of the Jewish faith. Sand argues the implausibility of Jews...
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Palestine Spring in the making?
A third Palestinian uprising is simmering slowly, fuelled by the denigrating policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With the chances for a political resolution steadily diminishing, and lacking other options, the conditions are ripe for a new Palestinian Intifada. While the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly committed to a peaceful settlement, Israeli governments...
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EU-funded Israeli theft
A leaked report commissioned by the European Union (EU) has concluded that Israeli settlement construction “remains the single biggest threat” to peace in the Middle East. The confidential, 15-page report outlines 10 recommendations for the 27 EU states to consider regarding Israel’s wanton activities in occupied Palestine. It describes proposals by the...
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Israeli appetite for US welfare funds
FAILING to agree on ways to reduce the deficit, the US president was forced earlier this month to enact the Budget Control Act (BCA) into law. The debt ceiling compromise was originally agreed to between Congress and the president in summer 2011. Known as sequestration, it forces across the board spending...