As US and Israeli officials prepared for the meeting between George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon on April 14, the Arab world was full of rumours that the Bush administration had agreed to give Sharon "assurances" and "guarantees" in return for Israel’s purported agreement to withdraw from Ghazzah...
The assassination of Shaikh Ahmed Yassin as he returned to his home after fajr prayers on March 22, 2004 (Safar 1, 1425) was a shock but not a surprise. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon had declared him to be at the top of the list for assassination, and he had survived an attempt on his life in September last year, when Israeli fighter aircraft fired several missiles at the building in which he was staying...
The recent flare-up of ethnic violence involving Syria’s Kurdish minority (apparently inspired by the constitutional gains made by the Kurds in Iraq) and the growing US pressure on Damascus to sign a peace deal with Israel and "end its occupation" of Lebanon, indicate the increasing threats to the stability of a country that is already undermined by the enduring alliance between the ruling Asad dynasty and the Ba’ath party...
In the first week of March the scene in Egypt could well have come out of a black comedy. The General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood launched an initiative for reform in Egypt in a press conference held at the Press Association...
Considering the fact that divisions inherent in Iraqi society are supposed to be the greatest problem facing Iraq as it seeks a new future following the American occupation, there seemed to be remarkable consensus among Iraqis of most communities following the signing of the American-dictated interim constitution on March 8, 2004...
When Egyptian president Husni Mubarak told an interviewer on January 2 that there will be no bequeathing of power in Egypt he was stating the obvious...
UN secretary general Kofi Annan helped the US off a hook of their own making on February 19, when he announced that a UN fact-finding mission headed by Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy to Iraq, had concluded that elections are not feasible in the country before the June 30 date set for the supposed handover of power to an Iraqi administration...
President Husni Mubarak of Egypt has stepped up his role as ‘mediator’ in disputes between Muslims and non-Muslims – such as the Palestine-Israeli war and the Bush administration’s confrontation with Syria and Libya – to take the side of the non-Muslim party in each case...
When a US secretary of state tells an Arab country to follow Libya’s example, and a US president praises colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi for his "wise" and "responsible" decision, the view that the Bush administration’s foreign policy is fundamentally and cynically imperial is reinforced.
Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher witnessed the strength of Palestinian anger at Egypt’s duplicitous role in talks with Israel on December 22, when he was heckled and abused by dozens of angry Palestinians during a visit to the Masjid al-Aqsa...
Last month’s announcement that Israel has agreed to a "prisoner" exchange with Hizbullah again highlights the deviousness of the zionists: Israel has kidnapped scores of Lebanese and other activists and held them hostage, while Hizbullah has captured Israeli soldiers in battle.
When the history of the US occupation of Iraq is written, November 2003 may well come to be recognised as a turning point, a month in which a number of developments took place indicating the US’s increasing desperation in the face of determined and increasing Iraqi resistance to its presence in Iraq.
Differences over internal policy have emerged into the open among the usually secretive members of the House of Saud, who have until now maintained a facade of unity in times of crisis.
Speaking on the campaign trail in Kentucky on October 10, George W. Bush brushed aside the embarrassing failure of US officials to find the weapons of mass destruction that he had made the centrepiece of his case for war in Iraq, saying that the US invasion "thwarted future plots against the US by the madman Saddam."
It is perhaps not surprising that of all the incidents of violence in Palestine over the last month, the one that attracted the most headlines worldwide was the roadside bomb that killed three US ‘security guards’ (CIA agents, according to some reports) on October 15.
A prominent human rights campaigner in Saudi Arabia told western journalists last month that the government plans to hold national elections in three years’ time.
The UN’s announcement on September 27 that it is withdrawing its international staff from Iraq for security reasons came as a massive blow to the country’s US occupation authorities, who have been desperately trying to convince the world that they have full control over Iraq and are succeeding in introducing freedom and democracy to a grateful population.
Eighty-three Muslim worshippers were martyred by the bomb that exploded outside the mosque at the Imam Ali mausoleum in Najaf immediately after juma prayers on August 29, but there was little doubt that its main target was Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of Majlis al-Aala l’il-Thawra al- Islami f’il-Iraq (The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).
Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin said on September 24 that Hamas, Palestine’s leading Islamic movement and the most popular political group among Palestinians, would not accept any suggestion that it should disarm or declare a truce.
The Bush administration, apparently unable or unwilling to learn any lessons from its recent foreign policy debacles, is making the same charges against Syria as it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which have been shown to be not merely exaggerated but patently false.
