Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Nasim Ahmed
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Trump's moment of truth on Palestine has arrived
For all his bluster during the election campaign, US President Trump has offered no clear indication which way his Middle East policy will go. The president has prevaricated on his election promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, implementing the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act; he...
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Remembering the Nakba
In 1948, the state of Israel was born following the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Israeli forces. What: The Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) When: 15 May 1948 Where: Palestine What Happened? On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the executive head of the World Zionist Organisation, declared the establishment of the State of...
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The facts are clear; the UN is biased towards Israel, not Palestine
Few have mastered the art of division and diversion better than Israeli governments, and even fewer have used it to greater effect. The manufactured outrage over the UN’s alleged bias against Israel is a classic example; instead of addressing the issues raised by many different UN bodies, Israel and...
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Trump will end up looking more stupid if he has no political solution to offer Syria
US President Donald Trump has got what he wanted; a chance to be commander and chief. But does anyone really believe that a military strike against President Assad, however deplorable he is, without a clear political goal will bring about anything positive? Since when has military intervention by the US...
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Israeli collective punishment under spotlight at the UN
Sadly collective punishment has been a common feature of the Israeli occupation. ...
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Syria 6 years on: What does the future hold?
When pro-democracy protests started six years ago in Syria’s southern city, Daraa, few would have anticipated that the violent clampdown by the regime would trigger a brutal civil war. Even fewer would have expected it to last more than six years. While the war has been characteristically unpredictable, it amplified...
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Battling to save schools in times of war
Over the past five years, thousands of schools have been attacked, damaged or totally destroyed by armed conflict in the Middle East. Across Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen and Libya, almost 9,000 schools have been rendered unsuitable for learning. With nearly 14 million children (40 per cent) from five war...
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With the Muslim ban, Trump poses a threat to the US constitution
It is easy to forget the temporary nature of our existence. We not only lose sight of our own mortality, but also become totally oblivious of the fact that our socio-economic context and political structures that shape our lives and ideals are neither permanent nor everlasting. While we feel and...
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Comparing the ‘Muslim ban’ to the ban on Israel is totally fallacious
Countering an allegation of wrongdoing with another allegation of wrongdoing is universally accepted as a misguided fallacy; two wrongs don’t make a right. This fallacy, however, has become a common theme in the current polarised political discourse. Take the “Muslim ban” ordered by US President Donald Trump as an example....
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Trump’s anti-Brotherhood bill is another Muslim ban in all but name
In the current political climate, the moves under way in the US to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation are unsurprising. On his way to the White House, President Donald Trump has given a powerful voice to anti-democratic elements within America; people whose view of the world...
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Rethinking foreign aid in the Middle East
The flow of money, it seems, defies the laws of physics. Despite endless promises of a fairer distribution of wealth, money has actually been gushing upstream towards a greater concentration of wealth, not downstream. This has been an irreversible trend to levels now unseen in history, with eight billionaires...
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Explained: Netanyahu's media corruption scandal
A new scandal is rocking Israel at the moment which may usher in the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political career....
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Terrorism cannot be defeated without political reform
This week the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is an arm of the US intelligence community that is in charge of long-term strategic analysis, published its assessment of the future. Taking into account the forces and choices shaping the world, it provided a forecast of the direction the world...
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Someone tell Trump that Israel's annexation of Jerusalem will sow seeds of perennial conflict
Donald Trump’s imminent arrival in the White House has become a source of anxiety and panic. For certain, there are many things to be worried about including his pledge to create a Muslim database and to ban Muslims from entering the US. Though his pledges alone are of grave...
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A year on, Palestinian entertainer still doesn’t know why Israel is holding him
The cruelty and injustice of Israel’s policy of administrative detention has once again been highlighted by its treatment of Palestinian circus and school performer, Mohammed Abu Sakha. Twenty-five-year-old Mohammed has been held by Israeli occupying forces (IOF) since December 2015. According to Addamer, the legal aid organisation representing Mohammed, he...
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Why was the First Intifada doomed to fail?
Today marks the 29th anniversary of the First Intifada. The mass uprising, which began in the refugee camps in Gaza in 1987, went on to become one of the longest protest against occupation and the bravest campaign for human rights that has been seen in recent history. Yet looking...
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The case against Tony Blair is more compelling than his case was for invading Iraq
The British Labour party voted down a motion seeking to hold former UK prime minister Tony Blair accountable for misleading parliament during the run up to the 2003 Iraq War by 439 votes to 70 earlier this week. Many would have shared the disappointment expressed by Alex Salmond, former...
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Palestine Book Awards 2016: Awarding literary talent
Leading figures from the political, academic and literary communities joined in the celebration and unveiling of the winners of 2016 Palestine Book Awards...
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Palestine Book Awards nominees come together for a night of literature
Following the welcome speech by Victoria Brittain, Professor Eugene Rogan opened the discussion by asking the authors to speak about themselves and the inspiration for their books. ...
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With Trump in the White House, where will it leave liberal Jews?
I’ve written previously about the inherent contradiction between liberalism and Zionism. I have argued that liberal Zionism is an oxymoron: while the former champions human rights, social justice and respect for international law, it is thus at complete odds with the latter’s colonisation, occupation and system of privilege and...
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A Curious Land: Stories from Home
“A Curious Land” by Susan Muaddi Darraj is a collection of short stories about the inhabitants of Tel Al-Hilou, which is a small Palestinian village in the West Bank. Spanning generations, and continents, the stories explore aspects of the Palestinian narrative through the lived experiences of characters in the...
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The challenge of dental health provision for refugees
Access to basic healthcare is a luxury for millions of refugees, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear about a group of dental surgeons offering much-needed relief to those in Greece and Calais. It is hard enough to bear toothache at the best of times; what about if you...
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War Against the People
“War Against the People” seeks to answer a common question amongst activists in the Israel-Palestine conflict: “How does Israel get away with it?”. The author, Jeff Halper, argues that conventional explanations to this question – the power of the Israeli lobby for example – are not satisfactory. The most common...
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Highlighting Israeli violations of a world heritage site is not ‘inflammatory’, UNESCO, it’s a duty
A draft decision by UNESCO, which criticises Israel’s activities at holy places in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, has been denounced by Israeli officials. “It ignores thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem and aids Islamist terror,” claimed Education Minister Naftali Bennett very dramatically. Never one to miss...