Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Motasem A Dalloul
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Will Palestine refugees really go back home?
Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been marching near the nominal border fence for the fourth consecutive Friday with their eyes on their lands and homes which were occupied by Jewish militias in 1948. Up to 700,000 indigenous Palestinian residents were forced out of their villages, town...
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Bin Salman is heading to the Saudi throne along an Israeli path
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has created widespread speculation about the potentially controversial nature of his future Kingdom as and when he succeeds his father. Mohammad Bin Salman has attracted attention through a series of actions and comments that are seen by many as a coup against Saudi,...
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Why did Palestinians take part in the Great March of Return?
It was a surprising image: tens of thousands of peaceful and unarmed Palestinian civilians gathered just a few hundred metres from the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip where, according to advance Israeli media reports-cum-warnings, 100 army snipers were deployed in preparation for a crackdown on the popular protest....
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Britain can do much more than express platitudes about the ‘human rights priority’ of Israel’s treatment of children in detention
In the wake of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi being sentenced to eight months in prison by an Israeli court for slapping an Israeli soldier who had entered her home, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued a statement calling upon Israel to improve the treatment of Palestinian children in military...
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It is not Hamas, but Israel which incites violence
An Israeli propaganda group has claimed that the call by Hamas for the Palestinians to take part in a “Friday of Rage” demonstration was incitement to terrorism that led to the killing of two Israeli soldiers near an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin....
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What the residents of besieged Gaza will ask Prince William if he visits them
In the wake of the announcement that Britain’s Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, is going to visit the occupied West Bank, Israel and Jordan this summer, residents of the Gaza Strip, which is part of the occupied Palestinian territories, have expressed scepticism about his visit and asked whether...
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Palestine is no longer a priority for the Arab world
Media reports have recently published pictures and videos of a new Israeli military watchtower being set up at one of the most famous entrances of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Damascus Gate. “It is,” described the Israeli news website Ynet News, “a noticeable part of the landscape and an example of...
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Is Abbas serving the Palestinians or fooling them?
Earlier this month, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would start preparing a plan for full disengagement from the Israeli occupation. The decision was taken by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which held a three-hour meeting chaired by PA and Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas in his...
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Israel will never go to war with Syria or Iran
It was not easy to trust the news reports that Syrian air-defence missiles targeted an Israeli F16-fighter jet and downed it in response to Israel shooting down an Iranian drone that, according to the Israelis, had entered their airspace. This happened, though, and a wide-scale war in the region...
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Return us to our homes before closing UNRWA, say Palestinian refugees
When more than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in historical Palestine by Jewish terror gangs in 1948, followed by the establishment of the state of Israel on their land, the UN General Assembly established the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East...
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Gazans cannot cope with ‘unprecedented’ economic crisis
Since October 2017, the knot around the neck of the Gaza Strip has been tightening due to the strict Israeli-Egyptian siege and the punitive measures imposed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), leading the coastal enclave to an inevitable economic collapse. One day before the start of the second semester,...
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Egypt is not an honest broker for Palestinian reconciliation
The Egyptian security forces shot dead a Palestinian fisherman on Saturday. Abdullah Zaidan, 33, was killed on board his boat while he was working off the Rafah coast in the south of the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian authorities claimed that Zaidan had strayed into Egypt’s territorial waters, but the...
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With PA delays and Israeli threats, Gaza is heading into the unknown
The two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, are behind the internal Palestinian division but together they signed a mutual reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt on 12 October last year. The Palestinians in Gaza celebrated the deal, which was announced as the end of the 10-year Israeli, Palestinian Authority...
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The UN is another lost battle for the Palestinians
After the US used its veto at the UN Security Council to block the adoption of a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Palestinian Authority (PA) immediately announced it would turn to the UN General Assembly to seek a vote on the same...
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Double amputee shot dead by Israel was an inspiration in Gaza
Hundreds of protesters made their way to the eastern border of Gaza to protest against Trump's decision ...
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What was Trump thinking? Simple. Why delay the inevitable?
American President Donald Trump announced yesterday that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and said he had directed the Department of State to start working on moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city. “I have determined that it is time to officially recognise Jerusalem as...
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Are Hezbollah and Iran the real threat to Arabs in the Middle East?
The dramatic recent Saudi-led hike of incitement against Iran and Hezbollah peaked when the government in Riyadh called for the Arab League to convene a meeting and issue a statement on behalf of all the Arab nations criticising Iran and calling for Tehran to stop meddling in the affairs...
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Shaikh Raed Salah stands between Israel and Al-Aqsa Mosque, so he is kept in custody
On 15 August, the Israeli occupation police raided Umm Al-Fahm, the second largest Arab city in Israel, broke into the house of Shaikh Raed Salah and detained him for questioning. The Israeli courts extended his detention several times until the Public Prosecutor filed an indictment against the veteran community...
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‘Britain is responsible for my tragedy’
On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, the British promise to help create a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, Motasem A Dalloul interviews 81-year-old Palestinian, Abdul-Hamid Ramadan Al-Aloul, who has lived through the British occupation, the Nakba and Israeli air strikes on his home. “My mother told me...
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Kuwait envoy represents conscience of Arab nations
The tide is turning on Israel's narrative and people are now able to see its atrocities...
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Was Hamas weak to make many concessions to Fatah?
The Palestinian Islamic Movement Hamas and the Palestinian Secular Movement Fatah signed last week a landmark reconciliation agreement that ended an 11-year rift between the two factions. They agreed on three main issues and postponed talks on the controversial issues that might have undermined the agreement. Brokered by Egypt,...
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Israel’s colony-settlements are growing and are illegal; when will it be held to account?
In an attempt to change Jerusalem’s demographic balance in favour of the Jewish population, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz and Knesset Member Yoav Kisch have proposed a bill seeking to extend the municipal boundaries of the holy city. If approved, this would involve the annexation of the illegal Jewish...
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Waiting for Palestinian reconciliation is like waiting for Godot
Despite the positive measures taken by Hamas and the positive remarks made by Fatah, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are still doubtful about Palestinian reconciliation. The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has made positive remarks about ending internal division and reconciling with Hamas after the latter...
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Is Abbas ready to end his punishment of Gaza?
As the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Ismail Haniyeh, made his way back to the Gaza Strip after an 11-day trip to Cairo, during which he announced the dissolution of the administrative committee in Gaza and agreed to reconcile with Fatah, the residents of the territory waited...