Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Iqbal Jassat
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Netanyahu's 2019 'Wish List' To End In Despair, Defeat and Humiliation
Israel’s war criminals who head the settler regime’s apartheid government, are in all likelihood deeply disappointed at the way 2018 has ended. Since Donald Trump’s election as America’s president, Israel felt pretty smug about the prospect of gaining a foothold within the White House. Overnight, the magical world of fantasy...
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Will a UNHRC without America rebuild and flex its muscles against Israel?
The UN Human Rights Council’s allegedly “unconscionable” approach to Israel is the reason cited by the Trump administration for withdrawing unceremoniously from the international body. Using the excuse that the UNHRC is biased against Israel, the United States has, without blinking — and in typical, cowardly fashion — exited...
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The legacy of Sam Nzima's iconic photo will live on in Palestine
Nothing could illustrate the stark contrast between a post-1994 democratic South Africa and Israel’s apartheid structures than the iconic photograph of Hector Pieterson taken by Sam Nzima. The picture of the dying 13-year-old Pieterson, who was shot by police in Soweto on 16 June 1976, was listed by Time...
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From Deir Yassin to the Great Return March, Palestinians have been massacred
At a time when South Africa is mourning the passing of the country’s beloved icon of the freedom struggle Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the world is reeling from yet more evidence of Israel’s brutality. In the full glare of the world’s cameras, Israel’s “Defence Forces” have mown down Palestinian demonstrators in...
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The Great Return March signifies the start of a new defiance campaign
In a remarkably fresh approach to their resistance against Israel’s seven decades of colonialism, Palestinians have mobilised en masse in what has been dubbed the Great Return March. Starting on Friday, 30 March, thousands upon thousands headed towards the homes and land from which they have been forcibly expelled...
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Modi's 'de-hyphenated' policy on Palestine contradicts India's struggle against British colonialism
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s brief stopover in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the West Bank has been hailed by parts of India’s media as “historic”. It is premised on what they tout as “the first ever Prime Ministerial visit to Palestine from India.” Strangely, the media interest seems...
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Kashmir from Nehru to Modi; what's changed?
Generations of Kashmir’s people have waited in vain for an end to India’s brutal military occupation and to celebrate their independence and freedom. Alas, seven decades have passed and the deeply-felt objective of standing proudly alongside free nations of the world remains as elusive as ever. Seventy years of...
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Bollywood betrays India's anti-colonial past to embrace war-criminals
On a massive drive to cast Israel as a “normal democracy” and woo audiences in India’s film-crazy population, its war criminal leader Benjamin Netanyahu has just made a whirlwind tour of the subcontinent. He was hosted by fellow right-wing extremist Narendra Modi, who as leader of the Hindu nationalist...
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A tale of two SAs
South Africa and Saudi Arabia represent two distinctly different countries, populations and regions. Much can be written and said about the huge chasms that separate the two “SAs”, not only ideologically but also in terms of governance. One SA is located in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula while...
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South Africa has a moral duty to clip the wings of Israeli settlement growth
The approval of thousands more housing units in Israel’s illegal colony-settlements across the occupied West Bank is the latest undertaking by the country’s extreme right-wing regime led by war-criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. This daring move, despite being in direct contravention of UN resolutions and international law, doesn’t end there. The...
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Hajj 2017 went well, but the Rohingya matter not a jot in Saudi Arabia
The House of Saud will, no doubt, be quite pleased with itself that the Hajj 2017 has concluded without any setbacks or hitches worth reporting. In fact, it will pat itself on the back rather cynically that in addition to a smooth, incident-free pilgrimage, its enormous team of bureaucrats...
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A tale of two golden jubilees
Renowned Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote in his latest op-ed for the newspaper that, “A state that celebrates 50 years of occupation is a state whose sense of direction has been lost, its ability to distinguish good from evil impaired.” Using typical, hard-hitting honesty, Israeli journalist Levy pulled no...
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Israel faces the inevitable collapse of its apartheid system
Israel’s racist right wing regime is turning the heat on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists. Is this any different to the “total onslaught” against freedom struggle activists by the former apartheid government in South Africa? In fact, it is much worse. Daily accounts reveal severe repression whereby Palestinian...
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The media must not be held hostage by the pro-Israel lobby
Has President Jacob Zuma ever considered replacing his official spokesperson with David Saks of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies? Perhaps he should, for the two share an apparent desire to muzzle the media. Zuma has many reasons to do so, and thus avoid media coverage of his...
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Is South Africa’s ambassador to Israel a victim of state capture?
Israel’s war of terror against the Palestinians and their land is an unrelenting act of aggression and hostility. That it is ongoing after seven decades, and that the brutality is clearly visible across global media, one wonders why its ability to act with such impunity persists. Many reasons have...
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Passing Palestine's nightmare to Israel
The month of September carries painful memories for Palestinians. It is marked by commemoration activities recalling the horrors of Israel’s brutal and bloody massacres. Without exception, Palestinians as a collective remember those tragic events which robbed them of dear friends and family members. One such was the 1982 massacre...
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Saudi’s betrayal is about more than getting close to Israel
Toenadering is an Afrikaans term which was used as derisively by the far-right to describe the implied closeness between the former Apartheid government of the National Party and the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC). The aim was to discredit the party’s secret meetings with the ANC during...
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Anti-BDS tactics are doomed to fail
While Israel believes that playing the anti-Semitism card will do the trick, the opposite is true. European activists, academics, journalists and student movements will not be browbeaten into silence....