US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was meant to represent a finality of sorts, an event reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama’s premature declaration of the ‘End of History’ and the uncontested supremacy of western capitalism. In effect, it was a declaration that ‘we’ – the US, Israel and a few allies – have won, and ‘you’, isolated and[Read More…]
Weakened by Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu risks being caught between a rock and a hard place as Jordan, the Palestine Authority and the United Arab Emirates manoeuvre for control of what is to Jews the Temple Mount and to Muslims the Haram ash-Sharif, the third most holy site in[Read More…]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t mince his words at this month’s opening of parliament. In his first assertion of a claim to a lost non-Turkic part of the Ottoman empire, Mr. Erdogan declared that Jerusalem is Turkish. “In this city, which we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across[Read More…]
Trump’s declaration on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli state and the transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is the natural continuation of 100 years of colonization in Palestine and the 1917 Balfour Declaration. It is part and parcel of the ongoing attempt to liquidate Palestinian rights and to accelerate the ethnic cleansing[Read More…]
The pieces were already put in place during the Wentworth federal by-election, a hopeless, needless gambit that reduced the Coalition government’s majority whilst giving the outgoing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull a crack at some vengeance. His successor, Scott Morrison, decided to make himself a prisoner of policy in advance. That prison cell, it transpired, was Australian policy towards Israel and[Read More…]
President Trump’s decision announced on 6th December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to order the transfer of US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem reminds one of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel. Trump has ignored the claims of Palestinians to have their capital in[Read More…]
[Prefatory Note: This post is the modified text of an interview on behalf of the Tasnim News Agency in Iran as conducted by Mohammed Hassani. It tries to assess the wider implications of the UN reaction to Trump’s December 6th decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to follow this by relocating the American Embassy from Tel Aviv[Read More…]
Of 193 voting members of the UN, 65 sanctions-deserving, pro-Apartheid states shamefully failed to support the December 2017 UN General Assembly Resolution condemning US-backed Apartheid Israel’s unilateral annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem. While this moral failure is understandable for serial genocidal and genocide-based nations like Australia and Canada and countries complicit in WW2 Nazi atrocities like Croatia, Hungary, Latvia,[Read More…]
On 7 December, US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; ordered the US Department of State to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; and unleashed a diplomatic storm with the potential for disaster, not exactly unforeseeable. The US’ diplomatic isolation is almost complete. Trump’s action was shocking, but not surprising. The decision fits[Read More…]
One hopes that the overwhelming rejection of the Trump Administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on the 21st of December 2017 will compel Washington DC to rescind its decision. Given Trump’s track record so far —- on the Climate Change Accord and UNESCO —it is very unlikely. The most we[Read More…]
The Trump administration suffered a humiliating defeat in the UN General Assembly Thursday as 128 countries condemned the president’s December 6 announcement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The 128-9 vote, with 35 abstentions, reflects the extreme isolation of the United States and increases the prospect of a violent clash in the Middle East. The vote was preceded by[Read More…]
Oxford: Not 20 minutes had passed following President Trump’s outrageous “Capital offense” declaration recognizing all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel when shouts were heard in parts of Lebanon of an arriving apocalypse.Some self-flagellations were observed in certain Shia quarters, predications of end of times spread as well as many calls for a Third Intifada to “liberate Jerusalem.”[Read More…]
Grossly human rights-abusing and US-backed Apartheid Israel wants Indigenous Palestinian land but not the Palestinian inhabitants and have annexed Occupied East Jerusalem while making the Palestinians they haven’t expelled residents but not citizens. Pro-Apartheid Trump America, Australia and Canada rank 1, 2 and 3 in the world for supporting Apartheid Israel and hence its racist and genocidal policies in[Read More…]
Nazareth: It is tempting to interpret the announcement this week of a delay until the new year in US vice-president Mike Pence’s visit to the Middle East as the ultimate travel warning. It follows an eruption of regional unrest over Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. During protests last Friday, Israeli occupation forces killed four Palestinians and[Read More…]
Fulfilling his election promise, President Donald Trump announced on December 6, recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, this reversal of longtime U.S. policy did not come out of blue. A series of reports published since December 6, unveil the role of major Arab countries in Trump’s not-unexpected announcement. Israeli journalist and head of the Arab desk at[Read More…]
The Istanbul Declaration adopted at an Extraordinary Islamic Summit Conference in Istanbul on the 13th of December 2017 invites “the whole world to recognise East Jerusalem as the occupied capital of the State of Palestine.” It further pledges to ‘mobilize support in the name of entire humanity to strengthen the State of Palestine and its institutions in every field.”[Read More…]
Israel is the only state in the world that is not allowed to locate its capital in a national city of its choice.” It seems like an innocent enough proclamation, and even accurate pushback against global double standards, until one considers the political and legal dimensions. The dramatic performance of U.S. President Donald Trump , in which he announced he[Read More…]
After Trump announced his decision on Jerusalem being the capital of Israel to be signaled by moving the U.S. embassy there, the condemnation came swift and strong, as well as the praise coming swift and strong from those supporting the decision – in the latter case mainly the Christian evangelicals and the Israelis. The comments were generally clear, without equivocation.[Read More…]
Recent decision of US President unilateral decision to move its Embassy of Israel in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem made tremors in seven decades old impeccable support to Palestine. Independent India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was strong believer of democracy, freedom and liberty and an international statesman also known to be as contemporary world leader in modern politics[Read More…]
On December 6th in front of a Christmas tree American president Trump gave Israeli Zionist Jews; anti-Christians, who still brag about murdering Jesus and routinely insult every Christian priest in Jerusalem, an early Christmas present when he officially recognized Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel and declared his intention to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.[Read More…]
Now that the American mask has completely fallen, Palestinians require an urgent rethink in their own political priorities, alliances and national liberation strategy. Business should not go on as usual after US President Donald Trump accepted Israel’s definition of Jerusalem as its capital, thus violating the overwhelming international consensus on the matter. The Fatah movement, which has controlled the[Read More…]
President Trump’s unilateral decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital earned him worldwide criticism and condemnation, except for Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called charm offensive in Brussels, where he wanted to convince the EU to follow Trump’s example, was shunt by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, saying that “this move will not come.” She stressed the support of the[Read More…]
In 1995, a few short years after the official end of the Cold War when hope-filled nations were focusing on peace and prosperity, the United States Congress unanimously passed the “Jerusalem Embassy Act” into law. The law recognized “Jerusalem” as the official capital of Israel. The passage of this law was left unnoticed by most. Few objected to a law[Read More…]
What’s going on in Jerusalem is what has always been going on in Palestine since 1948 –the forced dispossession of Palestinian Arabs of their identity, land and heritage. Because of Donald Trump’s declaration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and the resultant global outrage regarding this decision, many people have become interested in understanding what is going on in[Read More…]
Over 200 Palestinians were injured and at least two killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday. The protests came in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and pledge to move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, in a move that upended decades of US[Read More…]
Now that US President Donald Trump has fully adopted the Israeli rightwing political discourse on Palestine, the Palestinian Authority is in a very tough spot. “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said in Washington on Wednesday. The embattled president has done what many had asked him not to do.[Read More…]
He may have small hands, but US President Donald Trump appears to have a big foot. And with his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he has shoved it squarely up the part of conventional international Middle East peacemaking diplomacy that never sees the sun. So far, so good, you might think. Decades of international peacemaking efforts have, after all, failed,[Read More…]
You do not have to be an insider, a foreign policy expert, or a political pundit to realize that the Unholy Trinity, the new axis of evil – United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia – are preparing joint military actions against Iran and Hezbollah. The Spanish colloquial word, Ojo, meaning eye, expresses it all – careful – be on watch[Read More…]
The Jerusalem story is the centerpiece of news this week. Donald Trump and Mike Pence, an evangelical, in favor of moving the embassy and Rex Tillerson and John Mattis opposed in their discussion prior to the announcement. That State and Defense departments both found the move detrimental to U.S. interests underlines how politics trump sound policy. Mr. Trump is[Read More…]
American Muslim civil advocacy groups Thursday (Dec 7) vehemently opposed President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. They were of the view that Trump’s announcement serves no one’s interest but undermines the Middle East peace process couple with inflaming anti-U.S. sentiment across the globe. On Wednesday,[Read More…]
“The near-universal opposition to Trump’s decision by much of the military, intelligence, and foreign policy establishment is not out of concern for the fate of the Palestinians or international law. Rather, they fear that effectively recognizing exclusive Israel control over the third holiest city in Islam will provoke a backlash throughout the Islamic world. Reactionary clerics and other Islamist[Read More…]
In a major policy shift US President Donald Trump has decided to recognize the Jerusalem as capital of Israel and has directed the official to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem which in his opinion the previous Presidents had promised but did not deliver. The President said “I’ve judged this course of action to be in the[Read More…]
“‘Declaration of war’: Trump’s Jerusalem decision lights Middle East powder keg” – Russia Today Trump does seem like a dangerous idiot suddenly and unexpectedly set loose on the world of international affairs, a world which normally assumes an appearance of restraint and order and careful words. With virtually everything he touches, he resembles a big, ungainly child breaking things –[Read More…]
What ramifications and when? The recognition of Jerusalem as the natural capital for the State of Israel by US President Donald J. Trump was promised by the buffoonish steward of the empire. Delivering on it was not necessarily expected – US presidents, keen on courting pro-Israeli groups, had been promising to do so for years. Overthrowing the shackles of convention[Read More…]
Early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. The 39-year-old Jerusalemite was scheduled to hand himself over to serve a term of 4 months in jail for, allegedly, trumped up charges of ‘trying to hit an Israeli soldier’. Misbah is familiar with[Read More…]
Nazareth: A decision by Donald Trump this Thursday could prove fateful for the immediate future of Jerusalem, the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the region. He must decide whether to renew a presidential waiver, signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama, that expires on June 1. The six-month waiver delays implementing a law passed by Congress in 1995 that requires the US[Read More…]
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President has ushered in a new era of uncertainty, nowhere more so than in the Middle East. The rules of the game have indeed taken a turn for the better for Bibi Netanyahou, who gave the final push to the construction of 566 new homes in East Jerusalem. The new lodgings will[Read More…]
He is one of Australia’s truly singular politicians, relentlessly zealous, hewn from the granite of an older fanaticism. Despise him, loathe him, but consider him for one fundamental point: he has escaped the management artists, the curbing focus groups, and the broad political classes in a way unusual for the modern Australian politician. Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
