AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

A convenient culprit for Lebanon’s port blast

16 Aug 2020

All Lebanon’s political factions and ex-warlords are to blame for the massive blast in Beirut port that devastated three nearby neighbourhoods at a time when the country’s economy has collapsed...

Beirut blast

13 Aug 2020

When I saw images of Beirut’s streets once again strewn with debris and glass shards from the Aug.4 blast in the port, I wondered if my friend Ali and his...

Beirut blast was a disaster waiting to happen

09 Aug 2020

The powerful explosion at Beirut port that devastated nearby neighbourhods was a dreadful accident in-waiting for which the country’s politicians shun blame. In well run countries, presidents and/or prime ministers...

Spreading misinformation

06 Aug 2020

Corona conspiracy theories abound the world over as people struggle to internalise the so far little understood and uncontrolled pandemic that is infecting millions of people and killing hundreds of...

Anger against Netanyahu hits a new high

02 Aug 2020

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is facing the most serious crisis of his long career as the standard bearer of the Israeli nationalist and religious right. For several years middle-aged Israelis...

A controversial move

30 Jul 2020

Once proclaimed a “moderate democrat,” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become an immoderate autocrat bent on boosting his personal power both at home and abroad. On the domestic front,...

Netanyahu has shattered the two-state pipe dream

26 Jul 2020

The “one-state solution” for the Palestine/Israel dispute has come back into fashion because it is at long last admitted that the “two-state solution” has been buried under the millions of...

The inside story

23 Jul 2020

Mary Trump is a courageous woman. She has taken on her notorious uncle Donald who uses the Oval Office of the White House to bully and smear detractors and critics. She mounted her...

Netanyahu’s Covid management a ‘humiliating failure’

19 Jul 2020

Israel’s second wave of coronavirus infections should serve as a warning to global governments seeking to open schools in coming weeks. Israel’s Covid-19 cases have soared to 50,000, with nearly...

Catastrophic circumstances

16 Jul 2020

In June Medicines San Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) started supporting the Covid-19 treatment centre at the Shaikh Zayyed Hospital in rebel-held Sana’a, the capital of war, disease and famine ravaged...

Michael Jansen

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