Arab/Palestinian – ME

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created in December 1948 as a temporary agency to handle shelter, medical assistance and education for the roughly 700,000 Arabs who left what became Israel. Over seventy years later it continues to artificially extend its mandate. UNRWA’s term …

On March 30, 2020, the Toronto Star wrote an article “Fearing Gaza coronavirus spread, Hamas preps for mass quarantines” which painted Hamas as a reasonable and responsible government caring for its citizens. The article opened with a woman returning to Gaza from Egypt who was surprised that Hamas had set …

In 2004,  shortly before the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, the Pope’s ambassador in Jerusalem, also known as the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, invited me to his  home on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem to present a document that he had received from Arafat. The document, in Arabic, …

FACT: As in the specious claim that Israel is refusing to help Palestinians in the West Bank contain the coronavirus, similar lies are being disseminated about Israel’s treatment of those in Gaza.  The Guardian reported, for example, “An Israeli blockade, in place since 2007 although eased in recent years, has …

Press Release Islamic Waqf Takes Advantage of Temple Mount Closure to Conduct Digs Photos uploaded yesterday to the official Facebook page of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf showed them conducting unauthorized digs on the Temple Mount. “Despite the closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram esh-Sharif due to coronavirus, the staff, workers and …

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Philippe Lazzarini of Switzerland to be the new head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Upon hearing that the head was going to be from Switzerland and not England which …

The Times ran an exclusive in May 2018 about a young child, an aspiring footballer in Gaza being shot whilst playing football with his friends. A few months later the World Health Organisation (WHO) published an embellished version on their website -having the Israeli soldier deliberately shoot the child after …

Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialist and candidate for United States president, has been vocally against the Israeli government which he has called “racist,” and against Israel’s “military occupation” of Palestinian land which denies the Palestinians “dignity.” Whether one agrees or disagrees with the notions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu …

The latest US proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been predictably rejected by the Palestinian side. In fact, it was rejected before it was even tabled.  Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced the day before the plan was released, ‘We reject it and we demand the international community …

For two days now, there have been a stream of articles calling Trumps ‘peace plan’ everything from a conspiracy to Apartheid.  Quite a few of the ‘predictable’ politicians from the UK and US have bitterly attacked the initiative.  Judging by Emily Thornberry’s comments in parliament it seems that many of …

The Trump administration put forward a new Middle East Peace Plan as the latest instalment of a series of frameworks over the years to try to find an enduring peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.  Like every proposal before it, it was declared dead on arrival. The Israelis had made …

Assessing the overall long-term merits of the “Deal of the Century” is a little like trying to hit a rapidly moving target.  Over the years, I have expressed what are generally considered distinctly hardline, hawkish views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I categorically opposed any notion entailing the establishment of a …

It looks like a civil revolution is taking place in Iran, where the people are rising up against the regime of the Mad Mullahs. The courage, the sheer bravery of the Iranian citizens is awe-inspiring. They face arrest, torture and death and yet are not giving up. It is clear …

  How heartening to see a leader make a bold decision that improves the state of the world! My friends, I spent hours on Wednesday attempting to find the most effective words to convey my thoughts on President Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani. There are, I wanted to say, …

  The Talmud (Sanhedrin 72:1) tells us, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up early in the morning and kill him first.” I seriously doubt that President Donald Trump considered this source when giving the order last Friday morning to kill Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the IRGC …

I have written before about the importance of semantics in the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how frustrated many people are about losing various battles over nomenclature, such as references to the disputed territories as “occupied,” and “Judaea and Samaria” as the West Bank.  An arguably more important semantic …

 I think it is time to have pity, as they say in Yiddish, rachmunas, for Palestinians. Maybe  “A Day of Pity.” Think about it.  They are from an honour/shame culture that revolves around vengeance.  What greater embarrassment for them than waking up every day to see that Israel, the Jewish …

I never gave liquorice much thought until I met Victoria. This lady, now in her 80s, had lived in Iran until 1979.  Her late husband’s business was to harvest the roots of the liquorice plants which proliferate naturally near the town of Kermanshah, and to sell the liquorice  for food …

The saga of the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) which have cast their lot with UNRWA for generations may finally be coming to an end. Since 1949, the United Nations has promised Arabs who used to live and work in what became Israel, that they would be entitled to move …

Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of the assassination of PIJ – known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad, terror mastermind Bahaa Abu al Ata and his wife in an Israeli airstrike, PIJ in Gaza has stated that Israel has crossed a red line and is now at war with …