January 30, 2021 |
Asa Winstanley Last week when I broke the story of Assaf Kaplan, a recent Labour Party hire, the main feedback – often objection – I received on social media went along...
January 23, 2021 |
Asa Winstanley When I first began my journey into the Palestine solidarity movement two decades ago, there was much debate about whether or not Israel is truly an apartheid state. These...
January 22, 2021 |
Asa Winstanley Israeli human rights group B'Tselem made the headlines this week when it released a new paper in which – for the first time – it described Israel as an...
January 9, 2021 |
Asa Winstanley On the evening of 18 November, 1985, Jay, an innocent-looking analyst, left his office at the US Naval Intelligence. Jay was in his early thirties, looked slightly overweight, sported...
December 24, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Earlier this month, Israeli and British military officials signed a joint agreement to formalise and increase their "defence relationship". The full terms of the pact are secret, but it...
December 18, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Anyone visiting the West Bank, as I have done on many occasions, will discover something rather common, especially in rural communities: signs, billboards and plaques advertising the European Union...
December 16, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley In 2018, veteran Palestine solidarity campaigner and Jewish anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein was expelled from the Labour Party after being smeared as an anti-Semite. As has been seen so often...
December 5, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley A new report on the Gaza Strip by a United Nations (UN) agency makes for sobering reading. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that the economic...
November 27, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley There is an old saying that you should not put the fox in charge of the hen house. It makes perfect sense, and yet that's exactly what Western governments...
November 26, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Although it is only one of Israel's many injustices, the case of Mohammed El-Halabi is a particularly egregious example of the colonial-settler state's criminality. El-Halabi was a leading Palestinian...
November 21, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley At the start of this year, in this column, I argued that the annexation of the West Bank was coming, one way or another. The West Bank and the...
November 14, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Although the final full results of the US presidential election have yet to be officially announced, all the indications are there that Joe Biden has won the electoral college...
November 7, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley This week the Undercover Policing Inquiry finally got underway, albeit in an unusual, coronavirus-restricted virtual fashion. There has been a delay of more than five years since it was...
October 28, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Believe it or not, the Jewish Chronicle hasn't always looked increasingly like a racist, anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim rag. Under the ownership of Asher Myers and Israel Davis between 1878 and...
October 24, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley We are now only ten days away from the US presidential election. Like it or not, the election affects us in the UK almost as much as those in...
October 17, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Palestinian political prisoner Maher Al-Akhras has been on hunger strike for 83 days now. A father of six children, Al-Akhras was arrested by Israel in July and has been...
October 10, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley On Saturday, Palestine solidarity activists will be protesting once again outside the UK headquarters of the Israeli arms firm Elbit. The new group, Palestine Action, has called for supporters...
October 3, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley A message left on the answerphone of a 71-year-old Jewish woman said: "You f***ing Nazi b**ch… You should burn in the gas oven. You dirty f***ing b**ch…. Stinking, stinking...
October 1, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Recently, I conducted a long interview with former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone for an upcoming project. He told me a number of interesting things. Right-wing commentator Charles Moore...
September 26, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley The signing of the so-called "Abraham Accords" last week was an empty sham. A "peace deal" between three countries – Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain –...
September 19, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley The Trades Union Congress (TUC) this week agreed a motion proposed by the general union Unite, opposing Israel's plan to annex much of the West Bank, and calling for...
September 12, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Last week, US President Donald Trump's administration announced that it was imposing economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The decree was announced by...
September 5, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley The release of leading Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist Mahmoud Nawajaa last month was a welcome reminder that people power can work. When Nawajaa was kidnapped by...
August 29, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley "The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies" – thus spoke the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl. Herzl was far from the only Zionist...
August 27, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley The massive explosion which devastated Beirut earlier this month was nothing short of a catastrophe. Some 220 people lost their lives and, according to the BBC, as many as...
August 18, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley One year ago I predicted in this column that a Saudi embassy to Israel in Jerusalem was coming soon. With last week's news about the United Arab Emirates, it looks as if we...
August 8, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley It is a common platitude amongst some of the weaker parts of the Palestine solidarity movement that "Israelis want peace" and do not support their government's policies of oppression...
August 1, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley A nine-year-old boy shouts: "Leave dad alone. Get out. Your dog doesn't scare me!" The boy's home has just been invaded in the middle of the night by a...
July 31, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Earlier this month an Israeli court ruled that notorious cyberwarfare spyware firm NSO Group would retain its export licence. The ruling came despite the fact that lawyers for Amnesty...
July 22, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley The global Black Lives Matter movement has become a major strategic threat to Israel. At least, that's how the pro-Israel lobby increasingly views it. One obscure lobby group recently...
July 9, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley Today marks 15 years since the official foundation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine. The movement against Israeli apartheid has a long history and deep...
July 1, 2020 |
Asa Winstanley It is common to think of Black Lives Matter as a single group when it isn't; it is a movement. Indeed, it is a movement for Black liberation which...
![Assaf Kaplan [Facebook]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/kaplan.png?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Last week when I broke the story of Assaf Kaplan, a recent Labour Party hire, the main feedback – often objection – I received on social media went along...![Graffiti saying Welcome to Apartheid Street, following the adoption of the Nation State Law [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/nation-state-law-Twitter-Search.png?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
When I first began my journey into the Palestine solidarity movement two decades ago, there was much debate about whether or not Israel is truly an apartheid state. These...![Palestinians take part in a rally against apartheid in the West Bank town of Hebron on 14 September 2012 [Mamoun Wazwaz/Apaimages]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2012_9-14-protet-against-ApartheidMW00-6-.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem made the headlines this week when it released a new paper in which – for the first time – it described Israel as an...![Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, leaves a New York court house on 20 November 2015 [Spencer Platt/Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Jonathan-Pollard.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
On the evening of 18 November, 1985, Jay, an innocent-looking analyst, left his office at the US Naval Intelligence. Jay was in his early thirties, looked slightly overweight, sported...![#ShutDownElbit - Protesters in the UK for closure of arms factory exported to Israel [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/stop-arming-israel.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Earlier this month, Israeli and British military officials signed a joint agreement to formalise and increase their "defence relationship". The full terms of the pact are secret, but it...
Anyone visiting the West Bank, as I have done on many occasions, will discover something rather common, especially in rural communities: signs, billboards and plaques advertising the European Union...![Palestinian children at the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Gaza on May 15, 2017 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20170517_2_23724244_22185763.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
In 2018, veteran Palestine solidarity campaigner and Jewish anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein was expelled from the Labour Party after being smeared as an anti-Semite. As has been seen so often...![Gazans wait in line with their vehicles at the Rafah border crossing, on November 02, 2020 in Gaza City, Gaza [Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201102_2_45150129_59417529.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
A new report on the Gaza Strip by a United Nations (UN) agency makes for sobering reading. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that the economic...![Israeli soldiers throw smoke grenades at a group of people including journalists, near a gate leading to Hebron's main al-Shuhada street,, during an annual demonstration in memory of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, in Hebron, on 22 February 2019. [HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GettyImages-1126740088-e1608994645287.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
There is an old saying that you should not put the fox in charge of the hen house. It makes perfect sense, and yet that's exactly what Western governments...![Tehani Zakkut delivers a speech as Palestinian protesters hold posters of Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision International's manager of operations in Gaza, who was arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza City, Gaza on 28 March 2017 [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/20170328_2_22685178_20387782.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Although it is only one of Israel's many injustices, the case of Mohammed El-Halabi is a particularly egregious example of the colonial-settler state's criminality. El-Halabi was a leading Palestinian...![US President Donald Trump in Fayetteville, US on 2 November 2020 [Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201102_2_45160061_59432082.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
At the start of this year, in this column, I argued that the annexation of the West Bank was coming, one way or another. The West Bank and the...![Supporters of Joe Biden gather in Florida, US on 15 October 2020 [Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20201016_2_44856577_58929971.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Although the final full results of the US presidential election have yet to be officially announced, all the indications are there that Joe Biden has won the electoral college...![Protest to denoucne spycops in the UK [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/spycop.png?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
This week the Undercover Policing Inquiry finally got underway, albeit in an unusual, coronavirus-restricted virtual fashion. There has been a delay of more than five years since it was...![A pile of newspapers and magazines on 14 January 2015 [MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NEWSPAPER.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Believe it or not, the Jewish Chronicle hasn't always looked increasingly like a racist, anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim rag. Under the ownership of Asher Myers and Israel Davis between 1878 and...![Anti-Semitism and Criticism of Israel - Cartoon [Cartoon Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/latuff.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
We are now only ten days away from the US presidential election. Like it or not, the election affects us in the UK almost as much as those in...![Gaza's Ministry of Prisoners held a protest outside the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City in support of hunger striking prisoner Maher Al-Akhras who is now on the 78th day of his strike on 12 October 2020 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/6Z8A1119.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Palestinian political prisoner Maher Al-Akhras has been on hunger strike for 83 days now. A father of six children, Al-Akhras was arrested by Israel in July and has been...![Palestine Action activists stage a protest against Israeli defence company 'Elbit System' in London, UK on 5 September 2020 [Palestine Action]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Palestine-Action-Elbit-demonstration-_5.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
On Saturday, Palestine solidarity activists will be protesting once again outside the UK headquarters of the Israeli arms firm Elbit. The new group, Palestine Action, has called for supporters...![Jewish Voice for Labour stall at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and Rally on July 21, 2019 in Tolpuddle, England [Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GettyImages-1163359264-scaled-e1601735256348.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
A message left on the answerphone of a 71-year-old Jewish woman said: "You f***ing Nazi b**ch… You should burn in the gas oven. You dirty f***ing b**ch…. Stinking, stinking...![Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely pose for a selfie on election night at his Likud Party headquarters in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv early, on 10 April 2019. [THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1136088043.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Recently, I conducted a long interview with former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone for an upcoming project. He told me a number of interesting things. Right-wing commentator Charles Moore...![A group of people gather to stage a protest against normalisation deals with Israel in Istanbul, Turkey on 25 September 2020 [Mehmet Eser/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/20200925_2_44525525_58406035.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The signing of the so-called "Abraham Accords" last week was an empty sham. A "peace deal" between three countries – Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain –...![Jewish Voice for Labour supporters demonstrating against false claims of anti-Semitism, in London on 26 March 2018 [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/180328-jvl.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) this week agreed a motion proposed by the general union Unite, opposing Israel's plan to annex much of the West Bank, and calling for...![US President Donald Trump (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) at the White House on 27 January 2020 in Washington, DC [Kobi Gideon/GPO/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Netanyahu20200127_2_40538858_51582272.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Last week, US President Donald Trump's administration announced that it was imposing economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The decree was announced by...![Israeli forces detain 64 year old Palestinian Hayri Khanoun during a protest against the planned illegal Israeli settlement in the region, in Shufa village of Tulkarm city, West Bank on September 01, 2020 [Nedal Eshtayah / Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Demonstration-against-the-construction-of-Jewish-settlements-in-the-West-Bank_9.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The release of leading Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist Mahmoud Nawajaa last month was a welcome reminder that people power can work. When Nawajaa was kidnapped by...![Israeli Jews wave the Israeli flag outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City on 2 June 2019 [Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190602_2_36736153_45018434.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
"The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies" – thus spoke the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl. Herzl was far from the only Zionist...![A damaged car and building are seen after a fire at a warehouse with explosives at the Port of Beirut led to massive blasts in Beirut, Lebanon, 14 August 2020 [Enes Canli/Anadolu Agency]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/20200814_2_43886263_57416314.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The massive explosion which devastated Beirut earlier this month was nothing short of a catastrophe. Some 220 people lost their lives and, according to the BBC, as many as...![Palestinian protesters prepare to tear apart a portrait of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on August 14, 2020 at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, during a protest against a US-brokered deal between Israel and the UAE to normalise relations [-/AFP via Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1228044090-scaled-e1597492920331.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
One year ago I predicted in this column that a Saudi embassy to Israel in Jerusalem was coming soon. With last week's news about the United Arab Emirates, it looks as if we...![Israeli settlers gather next to their flag on a rooftop of a house in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank on 12 June 2018 [Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018_8-12-settlers-in-BethlehemGettyImages-972211284.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
It is a common platitude amongst some of the weaker parts of the Palestine solidarity movement that "Israelis want peace" and do not support their government's policies of oppression...![Mahmoud Nawajaa, the General Coordinator of the BDS movement, Mahmoud Nawajaa [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017_3_24-Mahmoud-Nawajaa.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
A nine-year-old boy shouts: "Leave dad alone. Get out. Your dog doesn't scare me!" The boy's home has just been invaded in the middle of the night by a...![An Israeli woman uses her iPhone in front of the building housing the Israeli NSO group, on 28 August 2016, in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. [JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Israeli-spyGettyImages-596871430.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Earlier this month an Israeli court ruled that notorious cyberwarfare spyware firm NSO Group would retain its export licence. The ruling came despite the fact that lawyers for Amnesty...![Black Lives Matter protests take place in London on 7 June 2020 [Lauren Lewis/Middle East Monitor]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_6614.jpeg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The global Black Lives Matter movement has become a major strategic threat to Israel. At least, that's how the pro-Israel lobby increasingly views it. One obscure lobby group recently...![BDS protesters [Twitter]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/dddd.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Today marks 15 years since the official foundation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine. The movement against Israeli apartheid has a long history and deep...![Black Lives Matter protests take place in London on 7 June 2020 [Lauren Lewis/Middle East Monitor]](https://web-archive.nli.org.il/National_Library/im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/IMG_6877.jpeg?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
It is common to think of Black Lives Matter as a single group when it isn't; it is a movement. Indeed, it is a movement for Black liberation which...