Habib Siddiqui

  by  Ramzy Baroud   Posted on At a recent New York event, the President of the Foreign Press Association Ian Williams declared, before an approving audience, that it is time "to reclaim the narrative on Palestine." This phrase – "reclaiming the narrative" – is relatively new to the Palestinian discourse. Years ago, the concept, let alone its implementation, were quite alien: the pro-Israel crowd refused, and still refuses, to acknowledge that Palestinians, their history and political discourse matter; some in the pro-Palestinian movement relegated Palestinian voices as if they were simply incapable of articulating a coherent narrative. For many years, I, along with other Palestinian intellectuals, raged against the misrepresentation and marginalization of Palestine and the Palestinians, not only by Israel and its allies in mainstream media, but also against the elitism that existed within the Palestinian movement itself. Hearing Williams utter these words was quite

 UAE is known for committing war crimes in places like Yemen. France has no morality, which it never had, to selling warplanes to UAE. Shame on the UAE also to buy weapons to kill from a government that has had a history of bigotry against Islam. =========== The United Arab Emirates signed a record 14-billion-euro contract for 80 French-made Rafale warplanes and committed billions of euros in other deals as President  Emmanuel Macron  kicked off a Gulf tour on Friday. The biggest international order ever made for the Rafale jets came as Macron held talks with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh  Mohammed bin Zayed  at the start of a two-day trip which will also take in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The resource-rich UAE, one of the French defense industry’s biggest customers, also inked an order for 12 Caracal military transport helicopters for a total bill of more than 17 billion euros. “This is an outcome of the strategic partnership between the two countries, consolidating their capacity to act

  The head of a United Nations team investigating ISIL’s (ISIS) atrocities in Iraq has said the armed group’s fighters committed crimes against humanity and war crimes at a prison in the northern city of Mosul, where at least 1,000 mostly Shia Muslim prisoners were systematically killed seven years ago. Christian Ritscher  told the UN Security Council  on Thursday that evidence collected from mass graves containing the remains of victims of executions carried out at Badush Central Prison and from survivors shows detailed preparations of the attack by senior ISIL members followed by an assault on the morning of June 10, 2014. “Prisoners captured were led to sites close to the prison, separated based on their religion and humiliated,” he said. “At least 1,000 predominantly Shia prisoners were then systematically killed.” Ritscher said the investigators’ analysis of digital, documentary, survivors and forensic evidence, including ISIL documents, has identified a number of members from the

  BY   PHILIP WEISS   Earlier this month, the human rights group B’Tselem  issued an important report titled,  “State Business: Israel’s misappropriation of land in the West Bank through settler violence” that said the Israeli government “fully supports and assists” the spike in settler violence. Israel is using the settlers to widen the “Jewish-only space” on Palestinian lands, a process that has gone on for decades, B’Tselem said: Settler violence against Palestinians serves as a major informal tool at the hands of the state to take over more and more West Bank land. The state fully supports and assists these acts of violence, and its agents sometimes participate in them directly. As such, settler violence is a form of government policy, aided and abetted by official state authorities with their active participation… Today the good news is that the pogroms by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank are finally getting coverage in the western press. The Guardian  covered settle

  A hmed Abu Artema On November 19, British Home Secretary Priti Patel  announced  that she is seeking a terror designation for the Palestinian movement Hamas. Its military wing has already been banned in the United Kingdom, but now the government wants to extend the measure to the political party as well. If the designation is approved by the British Parliament, this would effectively criminalise support for the movement, including actions such as wearing clothing with its slogans or flying its flag. Patel claimed that the proscription order is vital for protecting the UK’s Jewish community and combatting anti-Semitism. It is well-known that Hamas has no formal activities in the UK. So it is hard to believe that this move is actually meant to uproot some kind of Hamas presence on British territory that somehow threatens the Jewish community. On the other hand, there are many initiatives in the UK supporting the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian population in Gaza and there are sev