Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Asa Winstanley
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So-called Islamic State "a useful tool" says Israeli think tank
This is not the first time that influential and powerful Israeli figures have argued in favour of using Islamic State as a way to indirectly attack Iran...
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Israel's 'civil eliminations' campaign spreads to Europe
As I outlined in a recent column, this year Israel declared the newest phase in its “war” against pro-Palestinian human rights groups and organisations. They have named their new tactic: “targeted civil eliminations”. By inserting the word “civil” into their usual euphemism for cold-blooded assassination, Israeli officials are very...
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Olympic-sized Israeli lies
Israel rarely fails to take opportunities in international fora to present itself as a “normal” state just like any other. “Brand Israel” propaganda regularly indulges in such distractions in order to distract the world media from the realities of its crimes. Since these are legion, great effort must be...
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Israel's ‘civil eliminations’ campaign branches out to charities
At the end of March, an Israeli government minister threatened “targeted civil eliminations” of the leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This violent-sounding language was deliberately calculated to intimidate Palestine solidarity activists. The phrase “targeted eliminations” is a common Israeli government euphemism for assassinations of Palestinian...
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Faked Labour antisemitism crisis was a stalking horse
There’s a continuity in what is happening right now in the internal Labour Party attacks on left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn. For much of 2016, the prime vector of attack in the right-wing campaign against Corbyn has been false and weaponised allegations of anti-Semitism. Corbyn has decades of experience in...
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Another summer of Corbyn
It was only one year ago that we were in the same situation. Back when he was a seemingly marginal left-wing campaigning MP, Jeremy Corbyn once called for Labour Party leaders to be subjected to annual re-election contests. Now it seems like he is getting his wish, as previously-unheard...
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Fabricated Labour antisemitism crisis dies down…for now
Palestine solidarity campaigners and the Labour Party left should be under no illusions: this strategy will in all likelihood be used again in the months and years ahead....
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Tony Blair must now face war crimes charges
The Chilcot inquiry into the British decision to invade and occupy Iraq in March 2003 was established by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It is only now, two elections later, that it is reporting. Seven years and 2.6 million words later, the inquiry’s report was finally published on...
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Lawfare on the run again
Israel’s strategy of “lawfare” has once again hit the rocks. This strategy is the attempt to use courts and spurious legal actions around the world to attack, sabotage and distract Palestine solidarity activists, and make it sure they cannot carry out their campaigns. Unlike the Israel lobby, pro-Palestinian campaigners...
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After Brexit vote, don't forget Jo Cox murder
With the debris from the Brexit fallout still causing political chaos in the country, it may be too easy to forget that less than two weeks ago a Labour MP was shot dead in broad daylight in the streets of a northern town by a man allegedly shouting “Britain...
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Israeli calls for ethnic cleansing grow louder
Israel is a state that owes its very existence to ethnic cleansing, massacres and seemingly perpetual wars. The events of 1947-48 when the state was founded are known as the Catastrophe (Nakba) by Arabs. This is because of the simple fact that 750,000 Palestinians were expelled by...
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Israel fires opening salvoes of cyberwar against BDS
At a cyberwar forum in Tel Aviv in January, Israeli officials threatened to use the country’s spy agencies to attack the BDS movement, the Palestinian-led global campaign to boycott, divestment from and sanction Israel for its mistreatment of the Palestinians. The Associated Press (eventually) published a report on these...
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The growing influence of Israel’s most hard line settlers
With the assent of Israel’s hard-right new defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, the man he replaced warned of the direction Israeli political life is now taking. “Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement,” Moshe Yaalon said gravely. Of course Yaalon himself could rightly be considered...
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Israel cosies up to Austria's Nazis
There is nothing fundamentally incompatible between Zionism and fascism. These far-right racist parties have a certain admiration for Israel for several reasons......
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Why B'Tselem's latest report is ground breaking
The reality, the report concludes is that the human rights group's "cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement systems has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it."...
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The Palestinians imprisoned by Israel for their Facebook posts
The propaganda goes that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East”. But for anyone familiar with the realities that Israel imposes on the Palestinians and on its neighbours, this has always been a cruel joke. The West Bank, occupied in violation of international law by Israel since...
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The rise of fascism in Israel
The truth is that liberal Zionists are complaining about Lieberman's appointment, not because of his aggressive policies but because they see him as bad for Israel's international image – too frank, too crass and not a good enough propagandist....
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A Palestinian police state in waiting
When it comes to Israel, and to supporting Palestinian rights, at the far reaches of acceptability in mainstream British party politics is the idea of supporting a Palestinian state in Gaza and (some) of the West Bank. In recent years, this has focused on the campaign to recognise the...
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The lawless state of Israel
Israel tries to present itself in front of the world as “the only democracy in the middle east”. In more explicitly racist and colonial terms, it sometimes claims to be a “villa” of civilisation in the “jungle” of the middle east, as war criminal Ehud Barak once put it....
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Blaming the victim in Palestine
Israel’s most recent anti-BDS conference in Jerusalem had some fall-out in terms of negative global coverage, but only in alternative and independent media. The fact that the Israeli intelligence minister made a blood-chilling threat against the founder of the boycott Israel movement (an entirely non-violent civil society campaign) was...
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Uses and abuses of the word 'Zionism'
The Labour right, in close coordination with pro-Israel propaganda organizations like BICOM has orchestrated this entire scandal out of thin air....
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Deadly Israeli euphemisms
There is a concerted campaign going on in the UK, in France, in the US and in the entire western world to suppress any form of criticism of Israel – especially the movement to boycott Israel. It takes many forms.A prime example is the current witch hunt in the...
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Privatised psi-ops
A recurring theme of this column has been Israeli propaganda. More specifically, I have looked at some of the ways in which Israeli government entities, and Israeli corporations like to over-value and exaggerate their impact on the world and their effectiveness against their enemies. In a way, one can...