Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Bibi's strategy to keep justice at arm's length
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/12/2025
» Israel's prime minister, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, has just asked the country's president, Isaac Herzog, to "fully pardon" him of all three charges -- bribery, fraud and breach of trust -- that he has been on trial for since 2020. And the question is: Why did he only ask for it now?
Israel's Gaza plan not quite the final solution
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/08/2025
» 'Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas [from Qatar]," Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu told the parliamentary members of his Likud Party in 2019. They were questioning his policy of backing Hamas, and he was explaining why.
'Bibi' and the International Criminal Court
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/11/2024
» The indictment of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza has triggered a great deal of public moralising, both pro and con. Almost all of it is missing the point.
Second chance beckons for South Africa?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/06/2024
» Cyril Ramaphosa is the president of South Africa again, but everything else is different. He got his job back in a vote late on Friday, but only because at the last moment he managed to cobble together a coalition that has a majority in parliament. It's so new that the coalition partners still haven't agreed on who does what in the new government.
Israel held hostage -- and Joe Biden, too
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/01/2024
» Israel is withdrawing some troops from Gaza because the reservists who were called up for the fighting amount to 10%–15% of the country's workforce and the economy is showing the strain. But "nobody is talking about doves of peace flying", said a senior Israeli official. The intense fighting in Gaza will continue "for six months at least".
Israel pogroms reflect nation's shift to right
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/03/2023
» The dictionary definition of "pogrom" is "an organised massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jewish people in Russia or eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries." So, there is something deeply strange about hearing pogrom used in Hebrew to describe what some Jewish people are doing to Arabs in 21st-century Israel.
2 coups (failed) and random speculation
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/12/2022
» Could there be anything more ridiculous than last week's failed coup attempt in Peru?
Israel heads to yet another poll in just 3.5 years
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/10/2022
» Israeli voters are indefatigable. The election on Nov 1 will be the fifth in just three-and-a-half years, and yet the turnout is still likely to be around 70%. That's especially remarkable because all five elections have really been about the same question: should Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu go to jail, or should he be prime minister?
What's wrong with the Philippines?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/05/2022
» 'Bongbong" Marcos didn't just win the presidential election in the Philippines this week. He won it by a two-to-one landslide, despite the fact that he is the extremely entitled son of a former president who stole at least US$10 billion and a mother who spent the loot partly on the world's most extensive collection of designer shoes (3,000 pairs).
Today it's Zuma, tomorrow it could be Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/07/2021
» Sooner or later ex-president Donald Trump is bound to be indicted for some crime. It doesn't matter which -- it could be a fraud or corruption charge, or a sexual offence, or incitement to violence, or even just tax evasion. (That's what finally got American gangster Al Capone.) And it doesn't matter whether he's convicted, either; the real drama will come before that.