Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Asa Winstanley
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Cut the bluster; the West also endorses political assassinations
We do not know for sure who carried out the chemical weapon attack in the small English city of Salisbury last week. Although it is said that Russia was behind it, this claim must be treated with caution. Indeed, while many politicians have been lining up to condemn Russia,...
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Israel's online incitement of violence against the Palestinians
A major Israeli propaganda talking point is the concept of “Palestinian incitement”. The idea behind it is that Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation is so self-defeating, so irrational, that it can only be the work of outside agitators. The Official Enemy of the past, supposedly responsible for such “incitement”,...
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The Kingdom of corruption
Crown prince and defence minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman was in the UK last week for meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May. The visit was intended to “usher in a new era in bilateral relations,” according to a government statement. Bin Salman is the first in line...
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How the CIA recruited Nazi war criminals
The Central Intelligence Agency portrays itself as a protector of Americans and their freedoms. It claims to act in the best interests of the people and their government. The reality, of course, is very different. The CIA has a long history of violent anti-democratic behaviour around the world, and...
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Israel is now arming seven rebel groups in Syria
The illegal Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights has now been in place for more than 50 years. This substantial territory, part of southern Syria, was conquered by Israeli occupation forces in the 1967war. The majority of the Syrian population in the territory was then either expelled, or...
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Israel's favourite British colonel libelled Baroness Warsi
Solicitors acting for former government minister Baroness Sayeeda Warsi announced last week that she had won £20,000 in libel damages plus costs from the Jewish News, after it published a defamatory article by Colonel Richard Kemp. In the April 2017 article, the ex-British Army officer claimed falsely that the...
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The Egyptian regime is complicit in Israel’s gas racket
The Egyptian regime has signed a long-gestating deal to begin importing natural gas from Israel. The Financial Times reported this week that Israeli company Delek has signed a deal to supply 64 billion cubic metres of gas over a decade to Egypt’s Dolphinus. The deal is reported to be...
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Palestinian Authority collaborated with CIA to spy on Palestinian dissidents
As I’ve written in this column several times before, the “Palestinian Authority” is, at best, a misnomer. It is neither particularly Palestinian nor even remotely authoritative. Since its inception in the mid-nineties, the PA has been made to serve the interests of the Israeli occupier. Indeed, it was entirely...
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There is still collusion across the River Jordan
Reports in the Jordanian and Israeli media this week say that Israel will soon reopen its embassy in Amman, which was closed following a deadly incident last July. That’s when one of the agents from Israel’s notorious Shin Bet secret police agency guarding the embassy building shot dead Mohammed...
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The Zionist Lehi was the last self-proclaimed terrorist group
Secret files released by MI5 in December give a fascinating new insight into a bombing campaign which terrorised London in the years following the Second World War. This was carried out by some of the Zionist groups fighting to seize control of Palestine from the British government who took...
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Israel welcomes Nazis while banning pro-Palestinian Jews
When former Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone was asked by a BBC interviewer if what Hitler did was legal, his response included the historical facts about a deal between the Nazis and the German Zionist movement. Coming as it did at the height of the 2016 “Labour anti-Semitism”...
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There is no such thing as progressive Zionism
A strand of Israeli propaganda with a long history has been to misrepresent the Zionist movement as a “progressive” cause. For example, over the past few years we have been told that Israel is good for women, the LGBTQ community, people of colour, the environment and even for technological...
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The ISIS war against Hamas in Gaza
At his ridiculous address to the UN General Assembly in 2014, Israel’s sadistic and deluded Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed that, “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.” He continued: “When it comes to its ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas.” Since then,...
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When Israel invited a South African Nazi on a state visit
One of the most under-reported aspects of security policy in the Middle East is Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. This apartheid state is estimated by the US government to have somewhere in the region of 200 nuclear warheads. The secret programme to develop these weapons of mass destruction started in...
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The lies of Israel
Israel claims to be a light unto the nations. But it casts a dark shadow over the region. Israel claims to be the only democracy in the middle east. But 4.5 million of the Palestinians it rules have no vote. Israel claims to be a villa in the jungle....
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Labour should repudiate Emily Thornberry's embrace of Israel
One of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s few allies in the Parliamentary Labour Party has been Emily Thornberry. It was all the more disappointing, then, when she gave a terrible speech to Labour Friends of Israel last month. As I wrote for The Electronic Intifada, the speech may as...
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Stars of Oscar-nominated Palestinian documentary imprisoned by Israel
One of the most boring refrains of liberals on the rare occasions they talk about Palestine is, “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” This tedious argument is periodically dredged up by some clueless know-it-all who seems to think it an original thought. I think I first came across it in...
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The real scandal is Israelgate, not Russiagate
When former US General Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, the media hype train about supposed Russian interference in last year’s US election went into overdrive once again. Flynn, a former national security advisor to President Trump, appeared in federal court in Washington DC earlier this...
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What next after Bin Salman has ordered Abbas to surrender to Israel?
Saudi Arabia and Israel represent a twin threat to the Arab world. Both states have long received the military and political backing of the world’s sole remaining superpower, the United States of America; the regimes of both states abuse human rights, have committed war crimes and discriminate against their...
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The EU already recognises Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, just more quietly than Trump
Viewers watching the televised emergency session of the United Nations Security Council on Friday may be forgiven for thinking the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) representative to the UN was trying to bore the Israeli ambassador into submission with his speech. The meeting had been called in response to US President...
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Israel's nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place
Privately, it has been well understood by US officials since the 1960s that Israel has the capacity to build its own nuclear weapons. Publicly, Israel has a policy of not confirming or denying its nuclear stockpile, even though by now it is a well-established fact. Since 1968, or possibly...
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The UN list that could send the boycott of Israel into overdrive
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been preparing a list of some 150 companies which operate in Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein has been leading the effort to document Israeli and international businesses which provide services and products to Israelis living...
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Legal challenge to UK press over 'grossly misreported' Palestine meeting
Campaigners on Friday unveiled a legal challenge to the British print media’s self-regulating body over inaccurate coverage of a Palestinian meeting in Parliament last year. Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine activist Jonathan Coulter is attempting to crowdfund initial legal costs of about $27,000. The Independent Press Standards Organization, IPSO, in April mostly dismissed Coulter’s complaint on...
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The Israeli spy company which protected Weinstein operates in London; Britain must investigate its activities
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the story was the paranoid raving of the strangest of conspiracy theorists, but it’s true; alleged multiple-rapist and disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein really did hire former agents of Israel’s Mossad spy agency to snoop on his accusers and on journalists who were...