Arab/Palestinian – ME

On November 11, there was a ‘botched’ Israeli special forces raid near Khan Yunis in Gaza. We cannot know exactly what the mission intended, but Nour Baraka, a regional commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (military wing of Hamas) was one of those killed in the exchange of fire. Following …

Any lingering thought that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would have any role to play in President Trump’s soon to-be-released peace plan has vanished – after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that $165 million had been deducted from funding to the PLO because of its continuing “pay for slay” …

President Trump’s National Security Adviser – John Bolton – has exposed the fiction that there is a legally-constituted “State of Palestine” – shredding United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations (UN) resolutions misleadingly recognising such a state when none – in fact – exists. Bolton was …

Don’t underestimate Trump’s deal-making ability to end what he himself has called “the war that never ends” Creating another Palestinian Arab state – in addition to Jordan – has been seemingly consigned to the garbage bin of history following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s CNN interview on 28 September. President …

President Trump’s decision to close the PLO mission in Washington, cancel the visas of the Palestinian Ambassador and his family and order their bank accounts be closed – mark the PLO’s final humiliation for condemning Trump’s proposed peace plan before its contents have even been published. Strangely however the United …

Nose to Nose Assuming 😞 that efforts to persuade deputy head of government of Ireland and Government of Ireland second-most senior officer Tánaiste Simon Coveney to cancel his meeting with Mahmud Abbas fail, what should they talk about over coffee and biscuits?

President Trump has created a veritable diplomatic tsunami affecting the political fortunes of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hamas and Jordan – with his decision to cease all future donations to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – currently US$360million per annum and comprising about 30 percent of …

Two major developments this past week could see a large part of Judaea and Samaria (West Bank) being reunified with Jordan – as existed between 1950 and 1967 – or becoming a Jordanian enclave – under President Trumps’ yet-to-be- announced “ultimate deal” intended to resolve the100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict. Those developments …

As Fatah party contenders who hope to succeed Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly arm themselves ahead of a looming power struggle, Fatah’s arch rival, Hamas, is making its own preparations to dominate the West Bank. The fundamentalist Islamist movement has already established a de facto state and terrorist …

The first instalment of a conversation on the street outside the Presidential Compound, Ramallah. Earlier this year I visited Ramallah for the first time, accompanied by a German journalist and guide. As we were returning to our vehicle, having visited Arafat’s tomb, a Palestinian lawyer began to chat with our …

The fires around Israel have been burning for weeks, a direct result of the hundreds of arson attacks launched by Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza.  And the United Nations has been silent. Well, not exactly. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov made remarks …

I know that people like to simply say “The Palestinians”, but we are actually dealing with two very different groups, different experiences and different histories, and trying to make sense of it whilst not separating them.  The one group lived in Judaea/Samaria, on what became known as “the West Bank” …

My visit to the so-called ‘occupied West Bank’ in November 2017 has taken me some time  to get ‘down on paper’.  I just haven’t managed to find the time to do it. I was staying with a with a friend in Jerusalem who, when I mentioned I’d be interested in …

“Jordan sees largest anti-government protests in years”   “Al  Jazeera ”, June 4,2018.  “Jordanians take to the streets to protest austerity measures”   CNN, June 4, 2018 “Jordan: thousands protest against IMF-backed austerity measures”   “The Guardian , June 3, 2018.   These are  merely a small sample of the international media coverage …

Those of us who follow the never-ending Long Arab and Muslim War against the Jews of the Middle East are familiar with the arson tactics used by contemporary Palestinian-Arab Islamist racists. Therefore it is not surprising that the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of Islamic …

The privation in Gaza is not the cause of the enmity towards the Jewish state. Quite the opposite! It is the enmity towards the Jewish state that is the cause of the privation in Gaza. No cliché has dominated the discourse on the Gaza situation more than the perception of …

After a quarter –century, all the Palestinians have managed to establish is a corrupt kleptocracy under Fatah & a tyrannical theocracy under Hamas. Merit is no qualification for freedom…. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense …

Denying—or delaying—the inevitable does not make it any less inevitable, only more costly  To remain at peace when you should be going to war may be often very dangerous….Let us attack and subdue…that we may ourselves live safely for the future. – Thucydides (c. 460–395 BCE) No government, if it …

This is a timely repost of an excellent article………..   Mahmoud Abbas completed his PhD dissertation for Lumumba University in Moscow in 1982. For years I have been reading that this piece of writing – which to the right is the original cover – entitled “The Other Side: The Secret …

On April 18, 2018  51 Members of Congress signed a letter to President Trump requesting that he order the declassification of a document- which was classified “despite no apparent national security threat or known historical precedent for classifying such a report” Ongoing Congressional misgivings According to the Congressmen, “this classification …