AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

Repairing history

11 Apr 2019

Homs is gradually recovering from eight years of a devastating warfare. The Old City, under rebel and al-Qaeda rule until May 2014, has come alive. Cars and pick-ups vie for...

The war isn’t over yet as heavyweights continue to prolong it

08 Apr 2019

The war on Syria has not ended with the defeat of the Daesh false “caliphate.” The US and Europe’s heavyweights, Britain, France and Germany, as well as “Brussels” continue the...

Going hammer and tongs

04 Apr 2019

Ahead of Israel’s April 9th general election, a poll conducted by the army radio found a newly minted opposition party was still leading the long dominant Likud by a narrow...

A morale-booster for Palestinians

31 Mar 2019

Michael Jansen, Political Commentator The good news from the US is that for the first time, perhaps ever, 50 per cent of that country’s citizens support the creation of a...

Leading the way

28 Mar 2019

The image of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugging a grieving Muslim woman projected onto the face of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, was a moving tribute...

Golan: Trump upsets Arabs again

24 Mar 2019

Donald Trump’s tweet favouring US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, has been widely condemned in this region and Europe, but he...

Terror in Christchurch

22 Mar 2019

Three factors made normally peaceful New Zealand vulnerable to an anti-Muslim terrorist attack: a history of white supremacy, proximity to Australia, and lax gun laws. While New Zealand and Australia...

America has been shunned and shamed

20 Mar 2019

A week ago Hassan Rouhani paid his first official visit to Iraq as Iran’s president. He has been preceded by a series of visits by the first vice president,...

Syria should be put back together again

11 Mar 2019

Students in Syria’s northwest Idlib province have protested the closure of 13 higher education institutes since January by the so-called Salvation Government imposed by al-Qaeda’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. The...

Global school strikes over climate issue

09 Mar 2019

Twenty thousand British students joined Continental colleagues a week ago to call on governments to take action to counter climate change. Students in more than 60 towns and cities around...

Michael Jansen

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