Tag: Palestine

The persistence of the Palestinian Authority

On some of the reasons the PA has not yet been overthrown:

As the first two intifadas were largely unpredicted, it has since become a fairly regular occurrence for pundits to predict a “third intifada”. Usually alongside this prediction comes another: that its first target will be the Palestinian Authority. This makes a certain logical sense, as the PA is – as Edward Said said it would be – little more than a Palestinian subcontractor for the Israeli occupation regime.

And yet, years later, the Palestinian Authority endures. Despite occasional murmurous of discontent and even demonstrations against the PA (such as 2012’s brief surge of protest against the neoliberal policies of unelected former Prime Minister Salim Fayyad), the West Bank seems largely under the control of the PA – and hence of Israel. What accounts for this?

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

 

Saudi aggression in Yemen will fail

On the Saudi war against Yemen:

Saudi Arabia is an absolutist monarchy which does not even have the pretence of fixed elections. The two regimes are very different in many ways, but similar in some key respects. Both are systematic human rights abusers. Although in rather different ways, both have religious fundamentalism at the heart of their state institutions. Both did their level best to destroy and hijack the democratic uprisings that broke out in the Arab world in 2011.

Both are fêted in Western capitals. And both invade surrounding countries and start wars of aggression – although Israel does this far more.

And so to Yemen, which Saudi Arabia, backed by other regional despots has just launched a murderous war against.

Read the whole thing over at MEMO.

Netanyahu’s lies

On Netanyahu’s Sorry-not-sorry:

But in fact Netanyahu did not even apologise for his comments as claimed in the headlines. If you check the actual quote, it’s clear that what he said was that he was sorry that Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens took offence at his racism: “I know that my comments last week offended some Israeli citizens and offended the Arabs of Israel … I’m sorry about that”.

Read the whole thing here.

Israel’s elections: a festival of all-party racism

On the racism of all Zionist political parties:

A brilliant and incisive post-election analysis published this week by Adalah, a civil rights group run for Palestinian citizens of Israel, shows that such racist views went right across the political spectrum in this election, with the exception of the non- and anti-Zionist Joint List of mostly-Arab political parties (which came in third place).

Read the whole piece here.

Cameron buries Muslim Brotherhood report to please Gulf tyrants

Yet another delay, probably for good this time:

Reports in the British press suggest that Sir John has cleared the Brotherhood of any violent extremist tendencies. It is “not a terrorist organisation but should be more open about its dealings,” is how The Independent summarised the findings on Monday, when the report failed to materialise.

Read the full story here.

Israeli army admits aiding al-Qaeda in Syria

On the Israel/al-Qaida alliance in Syria:

“We don’t ask who they are, we don’t do any screening,” the unnamed Israeli military official told the paper of the hospital treatment of al-Qaeda fighters. “Once the treatment is done, we take them back to the border [sic – ceasefire line] and they go on their way [in Syria],” he said.

An unnamed military official also said there is an “understanding” between Israeli forces and al-Qaeda fighters there and that “there is a familiarity of the [al-Qaeda] forces on the ground”.

Read the full article at MEMO.

Israel an ‘apartheid state’, says South African Muslim MP they tried to woo

On Israel’s disastrous PR operation in South Africa:

Even someone their officials perceive as a “good Muslim” like Cassim, is treated in a racist manner at the airport. This apparently happened to Cassim too.

“I believe I was targeted and it was clear racial profiling that was taking place, being stopped even before going into the airport and being interrogated and searched and having my bags turned inside and out,” Cassim told Radio Islam.

Full article over at MEMO.

Peter Oborne: HSBC closures of pro-Palestinian accounts part of US ‘attack on democracy’

My interview with Peter Oborne, who recently quit The Telegraph in protest:

Tamimi says they all have one thing in common: “We participate in pro Palestine or pro-democracy rallies. That’s what we do and that’s common amongst all of us. So probably someone has been monitoring.”

But the piece was published on the website openDemocracy. What few realised at the time was the reason it had not seen the light of day in The Telegraph.

The truth only became clear last month, when Oborne sensationally used the openDemocracy platform to announce his resignation from the paper. The coverage of HSBC in the Telegraph is “a fraud on its readers,” he wrote. The paper, he said, had allowed the giant bank’s advertising contracts to significantly and fatally influence its news coverage

I talk to Voice of the Cape about the Hamas attack on an Israeli military base

I spoke to the South African Muslim community radio station Voice of the Cape about Hamas’ now-famous attack on the Nahal Oz Israeli military base near Gaza. The video we discuss is embedded below. I also wrote a column about the incident.

War of the puppets

The Dahlan-Abbas war of words:

Palestinian Authority “President” Mahmoud Abbas (whose elected term expired years ago) is currently at war with rival Muhammad Dahlan. It is a war of words for the most part, although money, influence and trading insults in the media is also a big part. Dahlan has been exiled from the West Bank since 2010, along with some of his closest goons.

Cameron’s Knesset cuckoo-land

I read Cameron’s speech to the Israeli parliament so you didn’t have to:

Cameron spends large portions of the speech trying to prove his Zionist credentials. Just how much more will I do for thee, Israel? He changed the law to make it easier for Israeli war criminals to visit Britain without fear of prosecution under universal jurisdiction laws. His country is investing in Israel more than ever. And so on.