Middle East
Ontslag wegens een mening
Een oud stuk, opnieuw actueel. De strijd om het Midden-Oosten woedt sinds 11 september 2001 in toenemende mate aan Amerikaanse universiteiten. Pro-Israëlische groeperingen zijn er uitermate actief. Van hen komen de campagnes om andersdenkende als Norman Finkelstein...
‘Voor Israël begint de oorlog in Oekraïne in Syrië’
Israël bevindt zich nogal in een spagaat wanneer het gaat over de oorlog in Oekraïne. Enerzijds is het een trouwe bondgenoot van de Verenigde Staten en het Westen, anderzijds onderhoudt het goede relaties met zowel Rusland als Oekraïne. Israël werpt zich nu op als...
Spionageschandaal: ‘Israëls Pegasus bedreigt democratieën wereldwijd’
Op 19 juli maakte producent Ben & Jerry’s bekend dat het niet langer ijs wil verkopen in de bezette Palestijnse gebieden, omdat dat in strijd is met de waarden waar het bedrijf voor staat. Het besluit leidde tot een storm van verontwaardiging in Israël. ‘De boycot...
Narcoterrorism: Venezuela, Hezbollah and a cocaine invasion
Hezbollah militants backed by Iranian mullahs plotting alongside Venezuelan generals, Colombian revolutionaries and drug lords to first flood the US with cocaine and then launch the next 9/11 attack. It sounds like your typical Hollywood action flick, yet it stems...
ICONOGRAPHY OF A REAL AND IMAGINARY EGYPT
Youssef Nabil left Egypt in 2003, yet really never left. With his hand-painted photographs and videos he created his own personal iconography of the Egypt he loved, the Egypt that once was and he wishes to preserve. Inspired by cinema, it is an imaginary Egypt, yet...
The curious case of Assad Barakat: Evil Genius or Scapegoat?
EXECUTIVE MAGAZINE; Nov. 8, 2018 Text/ images Peter Speetjens More than a year has passed since US President Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn and promised an answer to the “menace” of Hezbollah. The Americans have long had Hezbollah in their crosshairs,...
TOTAL REBIRTH OF COOL
Hassan Hajjaj gives you the Orient In all its warmth and colors. Yet his is not a nostalgic Orient that stood still in time. No, his orient has fully come to grips with modernity. His does not fear or resent it, but embraced and enriched it. Hassan talks about...
Netanyahu in India: Shared Ideologies, Shared Enemies
When Narendra Modi became the first Indian prime minister ever to set foot in Israel in July 2017, he made a quick stop at the grave of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World Zionist Organization and spiritual father of modern Israel. The 67-year-old placed a small...
Calling for a boycott of Israel is not anti-Semitic
The Dutch chapter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement recently asked me to write an essay for Art, Solidarity and Palestine, a day of conferences and debate about the pros and cons of an Israeli boycott due to be held on 29 November, the United...
What’s a Life Worth? The Kafkaesque Ordeal of Guantanamo Bay’s Youngest Ever Prisoner
MIDDLE EAST EYE; Sept 2, 2017 Text Peter Speetjens What's a life worth? That is the question that came to my mind when Canada's Supreme Court awarded former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr $8.4m in damages earlier this summer. It produced a wave of moral outrage...
Why Mark Twain’s Trip to the Middle East 150 Years Ago Still Resonates
This month 150 years ago, Mark Twain left New York aboard a retired Civil War vessel named The Quaker City for a “pleasure trip” across Europe and the Middle East. Aged 32, Twain was not yet the Twain we know today. Born in 1835 as Samuel Clemens, he was a young...
Alexis de Tocqueville: Father of Western Liberalism; Advocate for Colonizing Algeria
“Alexis de Tocqueville is one of the greatest political thinkers of all time” - so I was told as a young law student at Erasmus University some two decades ago. It is a statement that will not surprise many people in the West. Born in Paris in 1805, the French...