Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Nasim Ahmed
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2017 was a year of chaos and instability under the Trump doctrine
It has now been a year since Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, and the question on many lips is whether America can recover from what has been a humiliating fall. Its President has been denounced as “vulgar”, “racist”, “ignorant” and “childlike”. Questions are being...
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Trump is a bully, the UN must stand up to him
The torment of waking up to a Trump presidency has been described by some American’s as a glitch in the matrix; of being transported to a parallel universe in which a loutish red-haired charlatan, a bully accused of being a serial abuser of women – while bragging that as...
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Palestine Book Awards 2017 celebrates another year of literary excellence
The PBA ceremony is MEMO's flagship event and the culmination of months of hard work....
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The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine
The author, Ben Ehrenreich introduces readers to his book “The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine” with this sharp observation: “The world is made not only of earth and flesh and fire, but of the stories that we tell”. With these comments Ehrenreich makes his intentions...
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Billionaire pro-Israelis offered to fund legal case against Al Jazeera
Billionaire founders of a “charity” that provides funds to Israeli soldiers and bankrolls Canada’s pro-Israel lobby groups privately offered financial support to a former Al Jazeera journalist suing the media network for over $100 million, MEMO can reveal. Egyptian born, Mohamed Fahmy, launched a legal case against his former employers...
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Leaked emails: UAE wants Qatar to be ‘accountable’ for supporting BDS
Qatar’s support for the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel was a major cause of concern amongst senior UAE diplomats in Washington during the months leading up to the imposition of the Saudi-led siege on Doha. The UAE plays a leading role in the siege on...
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My Name is Rachel Corrie
Fourteen years have passed since 23-year-old Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by Israeli bulldozers in Gaza. The American activists, along with other members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), were taking part in nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition when the...
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The Oslo Accords: A Critical Assessment
This collection of essays analyses the 1993 agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It was published originally in 2013 as an e-book to mark the 20th anniversary of the Accords. Although hailed at the time as a historic...
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Remembering the October War
On 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a military campaign to reclaim territories they had lost to Israel six years earlier in 1967...
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Remembering the Iran-Iraq War
22 September 1980 marked the beginning of one of the longest and bloodiest wars in Middle East history...
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Patriarch warns of Christian flight from holy land
A member of the Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem warned an audience in London last week about the plight of Arab Christians under Israeli occupation. “The flight of Arab Christians from the holy land will turn churches into museums,” said Archimandrite Abdallah Giulio Brunella. Arab Christians, he explained,...
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Terrorism won’t be defeated if governments keep their heads in the sand about its causes
The subject of terrorism is rarely off the agenda these days. If the public aren’t being shaken by mindless violence then it’s the security forces foiling an attack which captures our attention. This week it was the turn of a TV drama that piqued the nation’s interest, but not...
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Threats are real but the US has to stop the narrative of perpetual war
How different would American be if it heeded the stark warnings of its 34th President and one of its most celebrated general, Dwight D. Eisenhower? As the most powerful country with a military budget that dwarfs every other nation, one assumes Eisenhower’s remarks about the dangers of the military-industrial...
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The embarrassment of Saudi and the UAE exposes regional misfortunes
It was clear from the moment that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain issued their 13-point ultimatum to Qatar at the end of last month that they had bitten off more than they could chew. It was no surprise then to see the Gulf triumvirate and their Egyptian...
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Al Jazeera pivotal to ‘the second wave of the Arab Spring’
The Middle East is going through a period of “historical regional re-arrangement” where Al Jazeera is an enemy to the forces opposed to democracy, government accountability and press freedom, a panel of journalists and media heads said at an event in the Houses of Parliament yesterday. In a discussion about...
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Qatar-based foundation joins UN steering group for global education programme
With one of the highest youth populations in the world, the Middle East has the potential to be the main beneficiary of one of the biggest UN-led initiatives to improve education around the globe. The details are outlined in a highly aspirational UN Resolution: “Transforming our world: the 2030...
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US foreign policy has been hijacked by ideologically driven individuals
The Saudi-led blockade on Qatar has exposed deep divisions within the Trump administration over its response to the diplomatic crisis rocking the region. Repeated confessions by senior US officials denying any kind of feud have done little to check the suspicion that the American administration has locked horns over...
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Failure to protect education in conflict zones undermines our security
Protecting schools in conflict zones is crucial to our efforts in building peace and prosperity across the Middle East and deterring people from future conflicts and extremism, Professor of Law, Maleiha Malik, tells MEMO on World Refugee Week. The author and lecturer advocates for an internationally recognised set of standards...
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The blockade of Qatar may have more to do with Palestine than we think
Israeli officials must have been tripping over each other in their rush to endorse the Saudi-led blockade on Qatar. “The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of...
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Corbyn’s victory is greater than the keys to Number 10
Britain underwent the most important general election of this century. For the second time in a row, Conservative leaders scored the most spectacular own goal ever to be seen. Twice within the period of two years, British prime ministers gambled with the lives of the British people and lost;...
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Why I will be voting for Jeremy Corbyn
The night before the most important general election of my generation is probably the best moment to share this personal story and say why I wish to see Jeremy Corbyn emerge victorious tomorrow. I first met Corbyn during a cross party delegation to Syria in 2009. With representatives from six...
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Remembering Israel’s deadly assault on the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla
On 31 May 2010, Israeli commandos attacked a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid and activists to Gaza. The assault took place in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine civilians were killed by the Israeli soldiers. What: Sea and airborne assault on the Freedom Flotilla When: 31 May 2010 Where: In...
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Why are British rabbis endorsing a ‘festival of hate’ in Palestine?
Let’s imagine a scenario. A leading Muslim figure, an imam no less, and a member of the British House of Lords, extends a personal invitation to members of the British Muslim community to join a festival which has been known for inciting violence, extreme provocation and calling for the...
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Israel is an apartheid state; let’s not pretend otherwise
In an editorial about a recently proposed bill in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) which seeks to impose Israeli law on Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, Haaretz said somewhat peevishly that the measure could officially transform Israel into an apartheid state. The bill was proposed by two extreme...
