AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

Iran polls: Conservatives key power centre

30 May 2021

By restricting the field of candidates for the upcoming presidential election in Iran, the conservative clerical establishment has not only tightened the hardliners’ grip on power but also narrowed the...

A raging conflict

27 May 2021

Before the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Gaza Strip was peaceful coastal bridge between Egypt and the Levant. In his memoir, Palestinian author Edward Said wrote of boyhood drives...

It is time to take stock of what happened

23 May 2021

Now that flights of Israeli bombs and Hamas rockets have stalled, it is time to take stock of what happened over the 11 days in May which have challenged world...

United in rejection

20 May 2021

Several years ago I went to the town of Ramleh in central Israel to interview a Palestinian woman employed by the New Israel Fund, a human rights organisation working for...

Biden also caves in to Israel’s inhuman plans

16 May 2021

People in this region heaved a sigh of relief when Democrat Joe Biden took over the White House from Republican Donald Trump but Biden has failed to alter the destructive...

A bone of contention

13 May 2021

I spent my first night in East Jerusalem in Shaikh Jarrah in the family home of a new-found Palestinian friend. In the morning, I was introduced to an Italian architect...

Mistrust of US underpins revival of Iran N-deal

09 May 2021

Ahead of last Friday’s launch of the fourth round of talks on reviving the nuclear deal with Iran, an unidentified senior US state department official predicted that the return by...

Stripped of dignity

06 May 2021

In her debut as director, Farah Nabulsi has not only made a name for herself with her fourth semi-documentary film, “The Present,” but also has broken through the thick wall of...

Vaccines, rich nations should help poor countries

02 May 2021

“We are not safe until we all are safe,” should be the global motto at this time of pandemic but it is not. As usual, politicians in wealthy mainly Western...

Against all odds

29 Apr 2021

While the UAE is the first Arab and Muslim country to send an orbiting probe to Mars to collect essential scientific data about its atmosphere, Gaza’s Louay Elbasyouni is the...

Michael Jansen

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