Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Motasem A Dalloul
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Gaza’s severe crises still unresolved approaching 2020
It was a very happy moment when the Palestinians knew that they would cast their votes in order to choose their representatives, after waiting a long time. They voted and unexpectedly, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won the overwhelming majority of the parliament seats, but this was not...
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Turkey’s efforts to delimit its maritime boundaries have prompted a colonial response
At the end of November, after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the head of the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez Al-Sarraj, the two countries announced that they have signed two memorandums of understanding. According to Anadolu news agency, the MoUs are related...
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Where is Hamas today, 32 years after it was founded
Hamas released its first statement on 14 December 1987, just five days after the start of the first intifada. The intifada was triggered when an Israeli lorry driver ran over a number of Palestinian labourers east of Gaza city while they were returning home after a long working day...
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Will Palestinians actually hold legislative and presidential elections?
The Palestinians have had some cause for optimism lately about holding democratic elections in the occupied Palestinian territories. This followed marathon meetings between the head of the Central Elections Committee (CEC), Hanna Nasir, and representatives of the Palestinian factions. After getting positive responses from both of the main factions –...
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Have the Great March of Return protests backfired?
Friday was the third consecutive week that the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege protests did not take place in the Gaza Strip. They had been held every week since 30 March 2018 until this hiatus. The High Committee for the Great March of Return said that the...
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All the signs are that Netanyahu’s political career is about to hit the buffers
Ever since Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit announced last Thursday that he was indicting Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, the Prime Minister has been blundering about in the political arena. The longest serving Israeli premier in history has been trying to convince the...
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Israel tries to hide its crimes by shooting journalists
On Tuesday, doctors at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem announced that they had successfully removed the remains of the left eye of Palestinian photojournalist Muath Amarneh, 32, who was shot by Israeli border police while covering their violent dispersal of protesters in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. While...
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Are the killings of women and children a real victory on terror?
Israeli officials have been boasting about their “great victory” over “terror” in the Gaza Strip following their two-day onslaught in Gaza, during which they killed, according to an official statistic, 34 Palestinians, including eight children and three women, and wounded 111 others, including 51 children and 11 women. After ending...
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Will the ongoing tension between Israel and Gaza end tonight?
Since the early morning, the continuous Israeli strikes in Gaza have resulted in the death of five Palestinians, including Bahaa Abu Al-Ata, the senior commander of the Jerusalem Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, and wounded, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza over 30 others. Israeli army...
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UN measures against UNRWA are intended to negate the Palestinians’ right of return
Last week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced that Pierre Krähenbühl, the General Commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), had resigned over “management issues”. In a statement, Guterres said that the findings of an internal UN inquiry “revealed management issues...
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Israel: is it really a democratic state?
Most global democracy indices rate Israel as the most democratic state, or even the only democratic state, in the Middle East. Freedom House and many others have also given Israel high scores regarding human rights, political freedoms and the right of people to express freely what’s on their minds....
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Gaza Christians are not a minority, but an intrinsic part of Palestinian society
Samer Tarazi, 39, was at his desk giving instructions to a news producer and a cameraman at Al-Watania Media Agency on the ninth floor of Al-Jawhara Building in the centre of Gaza City when I met him. “Please,” he told his colleagues, “go to Al-Attareen Market and take shots...
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The Arab League’s anger at Turkey exposes the organisation’s crass hypocrisy
Turkey started its military operation in Syria on 9 October aiming, according to Ankara, to secure a 30 km-wide safe zone along the border. It is planning to clear the zone of Kurdish YPG militants, which are regarded as terrorists by Turkey. Local Arab Syrians were ethnically cleansed by...
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Turkey’s ‘Operation Peace Spring’ and the world’s hypocrisy
When Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced the launch of Operation Peace Spring on Wednesday, he faced criticism from almost all countries over the world; however, he is clearly announcing that he is fighting terror, maintaining the national security of his country and working to assist in the resettlement...
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How Hamas made Palestinian factions in Gaza its fans
In the late of 1970s, Islamists began to emerge as an effective group in the battle against the Israeli occupation. Their rise led to the formation of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the 1980s which became an effective Palestinian national movement along with secular organisations Fatah and...
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Netanyahu’s political and personal reputation is in shreds
Israel’s General Election two weeks ago has presented it with its second major political deadlock this year. The Blue and White party won 33 seats and the Likud won 32; the other parties will only be significant if they join a coalition with one of these two major blocs....
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Will Arab MKs turn Gantz into a dove of peace?
The Arab dominated Joint List on Sunday recommended the head of Israel’s Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) party Benny Gantz to head the country’s next government in, what it claims, is an attempt to oust Likud party head and incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his position. This gives Gantz...
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Is Saudi Arabia’s glitter beginning to fade?
The largest oil exporting country in the Middle East announced last weekend that its Abqaiq petroleum processing facilities and Khurais oil field were attacked by a number of missiles and rockets, causing a huge fire and a 50 per cent cut in its daily oil production. Saudi Arabia’s Aramco...
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Why do so many spy agencies take so much interest in Gaza?
The Gaza Strip is a part of Palestine with more than two million Palestinians living in around 365 square kilometres. It has been occupied by Israel since 1967, which has imposed a near-total 13-year land, air and sea blockade. It is regarded as one of the most densely populated...
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Medical negligence by Israel is a major cause of death among Palestinian prisoners
Bassam Al-Sayeh was 47 years old when he died in an Israeli prison on Sunday. His family, rights groups and Palestinian campaigners allege that he died because of maltreatment by the Israeli Prison Service and deliberate medical negligence. Al-Sayeh was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and was detained while attending...
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The battle for the Israeli premiership has left morality behind
Last Thursday, Israelis living abroad started to cast their votes to choose the make-up of the 22nd Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The General Election is slated to take place on 17 September. The Likud, led by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Blue and White alliance, led by former Chief...
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Why do people emigrate from the Gaza Strip?
A Palestinian pharmacist from the Gaza Strip, Tamer Al-Sultan, 38, passed away last week in a hospital in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was admitted after catching a disease believed to be caused by a sting or insect bite. He was a husband and father of three young children. Al-Sultan...
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Israel’s ban on Tlaib and Omar has thrown the spotlight on the Palestinian cause
When Benjamin Netanyahu and three of his cabinet ministers cancelled the visit to Israel of Democratic US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, he no doubt thought that he had achieved a victory for “the only democracy in the Middle East”. Israel’s Prime Minister said...
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What does Netanyahu build and plant in occupied Palestinian lands?
During his visit to the site where Israeli settler Dvir Sorek was earlier this week found dead, near the illegal Israeli settlement of Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s response to the alleged murder will be to build what...