AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

Shamsie paying the price for backing Palestinians

26 Sep 2019

Anglo-Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie staunchly supports the “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” (BDS) movement designed to put pressure on Israel over its brutal treatment of the Palestinians, although her stand...

Netanyahu on shaky ground in bid for second term

22 Sep 2019

Israel’s second parliamentary election this year has taken the country back to square one: to political deadlock between sitting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz. Netanyahu, who...

The spy who tried to stop a war

19 Sep 2019

In early 2003, Katherine Gun, an unknown Mandarin Chinese translator with British intelligence, tried to foil the US-UK conspiracy to wage their disastrous war on Iraq. Last week, a film, entitled...

Sacked Bolton wanted war, not peace, in Afghanistan

15 Sep 2019

Donald Trump’s summary firing of National Security adviser John Bolton was hardly surprising. Bolton’s dismissal followed Trump’s cancellation of his meeting with the Taliban at the US presidential retreat...

Trump's empty promises

12 Sep 2019

Donald Trump’s decision to call off negotiations and a covert face-to-face meeting with the Taliban demonstrated, once again, that he is a loose cannon on the international scene. Trump...

Trump’s sanctions on Iran are connected with Israel

08 Sep 2019

Washington has missed multiple opportunities to improve relations or reconcile with Iran since the 1979 Iranian “revolution”that toppled the Shah, a longstanding US ally. The latest occupant of the...

Preserving dignity

05 Sep 2019

Trump-administration driven Western sanctions are blocking the massive reconstruction aid and investment Syria needs to rebuild. Syrians refer to the present phase of the conflict gripping their country as...

UAE presence in Syrian fair boosts Arab ties

01 Sep 2019

Syrians enthusiastically received the Emirati and Omani delegations to the Damascus International Fair which opened on August 28th. The sight of white thobes and kuffiyeh and agal and Omani...

Egypt in the West

29 Aug 2019

Fatima Said made her singing debut at 14 at the Cairo Opera House and had progressed to become the first Egyptian soprano to win a scholarship to study at the...

Vladimir Putin has begun to reel in Tayyip Erdogan

25 Aug 2019

Moscow last week demonstrated that Russia is unwilling to tolerate Turkey’s efforts to sabotage Syria’s repeatedly postponed campaign to recapture the country’s north-western Idlib province from al-Qaeda and its...

Michael Jansen

The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.