I arrived in Edinburgh in Scotland on 13 March to begin a 10-day string of speaking engagements arranged by my publisher, Pluto, to launch my new book, Palestine's Horizon: Towards a Just Peace. The Scottish phase of the visit went smoothly enough, (...)
There is little doubt that the mid-February meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump at the White House further dampened already dim Palestinian hopes for a sustainable peace based on a political (...)
Increasingly the Palestinians seem doomed to become subjects, or at best second-class citizens, in their own homeland. Israeli expansionism, US unconditional support, and UN impotence are combining to create dismal prospects for Palestinian (...)
There has been another fiery confrontation between Israel and UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, whose actions often touch the raw nerves of Western political sensibilities.
This time, the tensions have come in response to resolutions (...)
When it comes to the US presidential elections candidates and foreign policy, it seems at first glance to be a no-brainer.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee, is experienced, knowledgeable and intelligent, an internationalist who is known (...)
Few would deny that Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy now seems more frozen than ever. Even the US presidency of Barack Obama, which staked a lot eight years ago on its capacity to broker a deal, has now thrown up its hands in frustration.
Israeli Prime (...)
Rarely, if ever, has a newspaper ad mobilised such influential backing for a position held by prominent Israelis that is at odds with the elected leadership of the Israeli state.
The full-page ad appeared in the New York Times on 4 February and was (...)
Dear UN Secretary-General,
Having read of the vicious attacks on you for venturing some moderate, incontestable criticisms of Israel's behaviour, I understand well the discomfort you clearly feel.
Not since Richard Goldstone chaired the group that (...)
On the surface, Syria seems to offer an ideal case for humanitarian intervention. An incredible 50 per cent of the 23 million Syrians are either internally displaced or refugees living in dire circumstances, further worsening the migrant crisis (...)
Israel's relentless accumulation of territorial facts on the ground some years ago doomed the peace process associated with the Oslo Framework of Principles adopted in 1993. It became increasingly difficult to envisage an Israeli willingness to (...)
There are many reasons why nuclear weapons have been retained and acquired by sovereign states. It is an instructive insight into the workings of the war system at the core of the state-centric world order that the first five nuclear weapons states (...)
The Vienna Agreement, formally labelled by diplo-speak as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached by the P5+1 group on 14 July with Iran has been rightly hailed as a political breakthrough.
This is not only because it calms regional (...)
Assuming that the current prospects for US presidential elections candidates hold firm and Hillary Clinton is nominated by the Democrats, and Jeb Bush, Rick Rubio or Scott Walker win the Republican nomination, how should a conscientious citizen vote (...)
I was appalled by the embedded colonialism evident in a recent issue of The Economist (6-12 June). Boldly proclaiming a mood of geopolitical angst, the cover story was titled “Losing the Middle East.”
Any glimmer of doubt about the intentions of the (...)
As long ago as 1998 the late Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said reminded the world that acting as if Palestinians were equally responsible with Israelis for the continuing struggle of the two peoples was not only misleading but also (...)
The siren lure of big-time media is partly a romancing of the ego, partly a rare moment to inject a moment or two of truthfulness into the endless spinning of Israel's narrative that stresses its “humane response” to Hamas's flurries of rockets and (...)
The civilian population of Gaza is trapped in an overcrowded war zone with no exit. This situation reveals a serious gap in international humanitarian law. As the hideous Israeli assault on Gaza, named Operation Protective Edge, by the Israeli (...)
At this moment it is right to celebrate unreservedly the outcome of the vote in the US Presbyterian General Assembly decreeing the divestment of US$21 million worth of shares in Motorola Solutions, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar, companies long and (...)
I am not surprised that there are such contradictory reactions to Pope Francis's recent visit to Palestine and Israel. To begin with, there are sharply divergent views about the Catholic Church, and the papacy itself. Understandably for some, the (...)
A week ago Israel suspended participation in the peace talks in response to news that the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Fatah had for a third time concluded a unity agreement with the Hamas leadership of Gaza. Such a move towards intra-Palestinian (...)
There is a new mood of moral desperation associated with the ongoing strife in Syria that has resulted in at least 135,000 deaths, 9.3 million Syrians displaced, countless atrocities, and urban sieges designed to starve civilians.
As the second (...)
Omar is the second film directed by Hani Abu-Assad to be a finalist among foreign language films nominated to receive an Oscar at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony on 2 March. The earlier film, Paradise Now (2005), brought to life the preoccupation (...)
In a little noted initiative, the UN General Assembly on 26 November 2013, voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (...)
Two apparently related and revealing incidents have turned public attention briefly back to Libya just after the second anniversary of the NATO intervention that helped rebel forces hostile to the rule of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to (...)
During my period as UN special rapporteur for human rights in Palestine on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council, I have been struck by the persistent efforts of Israel and its strong civil society adjuncts to divert attention from the substance of (...)