Conn Hallinen. “Democracy is like a tram; you get off when you have reached your destination.” The comment by Recep Tayyip Erdogan—made more than 20 years ago when…
Yassamine Mather. Commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the February 1979 uprising in Iran has been marked by dozens of scholarly seminars in Europe, numerous documentaries produced by…
by Lara al-Kateb and Omar Abbas with contributions from Selin Cagatay, Frieda Afary, Fatemeh Masjedi and socialist feminists inside Iran The Me Too movement against sexual assault and…
Two poems by Solmaz Sharif Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned By Solmaz Sharif this mangy plot where by nowonly mothers still come, only mothers guard…
Toufic Haddad The rise and expansion of right-wing populism and the dramatic unfolding of global politics in the Trump era have had significant and alarming implications for the…
Behnam Gharagozli. Shortly after the horrific attacks on 9/11, it was discovered that there was an American plan to dismantle the regimes of seven countries: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,…
Ramzy Baroud. Five years after spearheading what is inaptly referred to as a ‘government of national reconciliation’, Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah, has finally resigned. “We put our…
Nicolas J.S. Davies and Medea Benjamin A shorter version of this article was originally published by The Hill. When the Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of the Iran…
Maged Mandour. Scene One President Abdelfattah Al Sissi, Egypt`s military autocrat is having an interview with the American television program 60 minutes, on CBS. Unlike other interviews, with…
Joseph Daher. As it draws closer to the eve of September 30—when three years earlier Russian military intervention in Syria first began—it is telling that Russia’s influence in…
Conn Hallinan. Keeping track of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is like trying to track a cat on a hot tin roof: We’re pulling out of Syria (not…
Kathy Kelly. On January 27th, 2019, the Taliban and the U.S. government each publicly stated acceptance, in principle, of a draft framework for ongoing negotiations that could culminate…
Omar Sabbour. In September 2018, when the Assad regime was preparing to launch its (now on-hold) offensive against rebel-held Idlib in northern Syria, a rather surprising report emerged in the…
Bree Busk. It is May 2018 and as winter descends on Santiago, Chile, a new wave of feminist activity is exploding into life. Anti-patriarchal graffiti covers the city…
Michael Roberts. The two issues that the rich and famous in world capital like to discuss with wringing hands and weeping are: global warming and climate change; and…
Internationalist Commune of Rojava. The threat of yet another war looms over northern Syria once again. Turkish troops and their Islamist mercenaries are massing on the borders of…
Kourosh Ziabari. Instagram, widely used in Iran among small business owners, students, influencers and even senior officials, is the latest social media application to come under scrutiny and…
Ron Augustin. The presidential elections in Cuba may have marked the end of an era. On the face of it, Raúl Castro’s decision to step aside symbolized, more…
Posted on Middle East Monitor. More than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s Ofer Prison yesterday launched an open-ended hunger strike, in protest against the occupation’s continuous violations against…
Shemuel Meir The title of Ehud Barak’s recently published autobiography My Country, My Life declares that it is a book not just about Barak’s life, but also a…
Ramzy Baroud. The game is afoot. Israel, believe it or not, is demanding that seven Arab countries and Iran pay $250 billion as compensation for what it claims was the…
Yassamine Mather. Iranian workers have been staging large protests since early November in two major industrial complexes: the Haft Tapeh sugar plant and the Foulad steel factory in…
Vijay Prashad. On Jan. 1, 5.5 million women in the Indian state of Kerala (population 35 million) built a 386-mile wall with their bodies. They stood from one end…
Mina Yousefi. For a little over a year, Iran has witnessed a new wave of civil resistance, which had been brewing in various towns and cities around the…
Conflicting Claims over Property in Algeria. Robert P Parks. December 22, 2013, 40 families living at 11 Boulevard de la Soummam — the Champs Élysées of the western…
James Miler. “This is what democracy looks like!”—for some of us protesting Trump in New York on January 21, 2017, this was a familiar chant. We’d heard it…
Sahar Esfandiari. TAs Mehdi Khakyan’s hands move skilfully across the piano keys, the soft chatter in the room subsides to hone in on the melody of a well-loved…
Salem Jubran: The Exile The sun walks through the borderGuns keep silentA skylark starts its morning songIn TulkaremAnd flies away to supWith the birds of a KibbutzA lonely…
Rushi Kumar. Laila Haidari is considered a criminal, despite never committing a crime. The 40-year-old works with drug addicts in Kabul. “The addicts I work with are considered…
Mücella Yapıcı is an architect and activist, known for her work against urban renewal projects and environmental destruction in Turkey. She is the secretary and spokesperson of the…
Michael D Yates. [Author’s note: This essay is based upon arguments made in Chapter 2 (“Some Theoretical Considerations”) of my book, Can the Working Class Change the World? Unless…
Hilary Klein Twenty-five years ago today, the Zapatistas rose up in arms. Twenty-five years – it’s hard to believe! It’s been many years since the Zapatistas were the…
Patrick Cockburn The number of people killed by the violence in Yemen has for the first time risen above 3,000 dead in a single month, bringing the total…
Maysam Behravesh. US President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement last week of the withdrawal of American troops from Syria caught many people off guard, including his own administration officials. It…
Michael Roberts Well, there has not been a year starting like this for a long time. The US government is in disarray. The President of the Unites States starts…
Dr Hawzhin Azeez If you want freedom you have to take it! You cannot appeal to the conscience of the imperialists, the colonialists, the oppressors, and the creators…
Bianca Britton and Gul Tuysuz. Syria’s army said Friday it had entered the northern city of Manbij for the first time in years after Kurdish fighters called on…
Ramzy Baroud. An eerie video composed of a recorded audio prayer and a photo of one ‘Hajj Jamal Ghalaini’ occasionally pops up on Facebook. The voice is that…
President Trump has announced that the U.S. will withdraw troops from Syria, in a move that has been praised by some in the American peace movement and some…
Koenraad Bogaert, Globalized Authoritarianism: Megaprojects, Slums, and Class Relations in Urban Morocco (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018). Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Koenraad Bogaert (KB):…
Paul R Pillar. The record of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia has included a trail of regional destabilization. Foremost on…
Aveek Sen, Mojtaba Mousavi, and Udayan Tandan. Zeinab, the mother of a four-year-old girl suffering from blood cancer, says that “Mina has been under medication for nearly five…
Douglas Gerrard. Of the four countries into which Kurdistan is divided, the region spanning Iran is the least prominent in western consciousness. Rojava is well known amongst leftists due…
Concluding part of dialogue: Political Islamism, women and democracy Ardeshir Mehrdad: As you have probably observed, amongst the authors dealing with feminist-Islamism some place their emphasis on the…
Jeffrey St. Claire. At the close of the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was denounced as a ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti oil…
Peter Corboy. Born in tabriz, iran in 1985 and 1991 respectively, street art siblings ICY and SOT began making work under less than hospitable conditions. initially influenced by…
This is the second part of a three-part conversation carried out with the Syrian academic Aziz Al-Azmeh. Here Professor Al-Azmeh addresses the various forms that political islams take…
Seth Ferris. The history of sanctions teaches us that they are like a pole – you can find a way around them, and in the process, find a…
This is the first part of a three-part conversation carried out with the Syrian academic Aziz Al-Azmeh. Here Aziz Al-Azmeh addresses the relation of contemporary political islams and…
Eve Ottenberg. “Can the Working Class Change the World?”, Michael D. Yates Monthly Review Press. If the working class doesn’t save our vastly unequal and dying world, it’s…
Ramzy Baroud. Although ties between Washington and Tel Aviv are stronger than ever, Israeli leaders are aware of a vastly changing political landscape. The US’ own political turmoil…
Jessica Barnes. The possible link between climate change and political upheaval in the Middle East has attracted increasing media attention and is generating a new wave of academic…
Lisa Gleeson. When it comes to the infrastructure of genocide, you could illustrate it using almost any photo of a school, house, shop or village in the West…
Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East. David Kirkpatrick, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. From 2011 to 2015, David Kirkpatrick was the…
Amnesty International. Several Saudi Arabian activists, including a number of women, who have been arbitrarily detained without charge since May 2018 in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahban Prison, have reportedly…
Neta Crawford, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Nearly half a million people have died from violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since George W. Bush declared a “war…
Bijan Khajehpour. The reimposition of US secondary sanctions has compelled Tehran to look for ways to reduce their negative impact. According to Iranian officials, one of the strategies is…
Michael D Yates. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!” These are the final three…
ENGAGING BOOKS SERIES Pluto Press Selections On Radical Politics Engaging Books is a new series that features books by various publishers on a given theme, along with an…
Vali Nasr. The Trump administration is not ready to admit it, but its Middle East strategy is in deep trouble, now compounded by the murder of the dissident…
Ramzy Baroud. Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is escalating his war on the Palestinian people, although for reasons almost entirely related to Israeli politics. He has just…
Michael Roberts. This year’s Historical Materialism conference in London seemed well attended and with younger participants. HM covers all aspects of radical thought: philosophical, political, cultural, psychological and…
Yassamine Mather. More than six weeks after the death of Jamal Khashoggi we know a lot more about his tragic plight after he entered the Saudi consulate in…
Ayla Jean Yackley. ISTANBUL — Five months ago, Selahattin Demirtas, a popular Kurdish politician jailed for his fiery speeches targeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, staged an unlikely challenge…
Robert Fisk. Rarely can history have dictated that the blood of three beheaded daughters should be injected into a vein of hope. The operation, I suppose, was self-administered…
“Ahmad Shamlou, also known under his pen name, Alef Bamdad, is among the most influential Iranian literary voices of the twentieth century and widely known as the father…
Omid Shams. Iran witnessed a nationwide strike by teachers on October 14-15. Iranian social media exploded with photos and videos of the teachers’ sit-ins at elementary and high…
Cyril Widdershoven. The U.S. sanctions on Iran are not biting yet, as global oil markets are well supplied. In the coming weeks, Iranian crude volumes should show a…
Ramzy Baroud. When Israeli troops stormed the house of Palestinian parliamentarian and lawyer, Khalida Jarrar, on April 2, 2015, she was engrossed in her research. For months, Jarrar…
Michael Roberts. The mid-term Congressional elections saw a swing to the opposition Democrats in the Lower House and the Republicans were ousted as the majority party. This is…
Robert Kuttner. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, by Adam Tooze, Viking. The historian G.M. Trevelyan said that the democratic revolutions of 1848, all…
Marjorie Cohn. The alleged torture, murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, widely believed to have been carried out on orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, may…
Todd Miller. Research confirms that massive migration, into the millions, will be an inevitable consequence of global warming. Before 2005, when Oxford ecologist Norman Myers announced that there…
Asa Winstanley. Google’s dedication to Israel’s occupation can be seen in its maps and its refusal to recognise the reality of Israel’s apartheid system for Palestinians . Like…
Patrick Cockburn. One reason Saudi Arabia and its allies are able to avoid a public outcry over their intervention in the war in Yemen, is that the number…
Esen Uslu. Almost two years ago, when the military challenged his rule by attempting a coup and were beaten back, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan famously said: “It was…
Zhiming Long, Rémy Herrera and Tony Andréani. Posted on Monthly Review October 1, 2018. China’s ruling class admits that the capitalist private sector plays a very important role…
Domunique Vidal. As the extreme right continues its rise across Europe, Israel’s prime minister has decided to get closer. This decision, in the name of the fight against…
David Pratt. A remarkable story is unfolding that defies the usual narrative about Syria. In contrast to the misogyny and anti-democratic values of the jihadists of the Islamic…
Oren Ziv. Over the last four months I have spent most of my time in Khan al-Ahmar, watching young Palestinians resist, day after day, the Israeli authorities’ attempts to demolish…
Fehim Tasteki. As repercussions from Turkey’s move to set up a military base in Qatar continue to resonate, Ankara is going ahead with adding a military dimension to relations…
Adam Parsons. When the global financial crisis resurfaces, we the people will have to fill the vacuum in political leadership. It will call for a monumental mobilisation of…
Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi. Sectarian conflict has been on the rise in the Middle East in recent years. From the catastrophic wars in Syria and Yemen to…
Patrick Cockburn. Changes of government in Iraq are often fiercely disputed and frequently violent. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, the young King Faisal II was machine gunned in…
Ramzy Baroud. The US government’s decision to slash funds provided to the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is…
Robin Yassin-Kassab. ‘A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution’ by novelist Samar Yazbek is part journalism, part personal memoir, and all literature. It’s literature of…
Maysam Behravesh. The messages from Tehran are stark. On October 1, Iranian forces fired six missiles at Daesh positions in eastern Syria. The weapons landed within three miles…
Nadia Murad. The slave market opened at night. We could hear the commotion downstairs where militants were registering and organising, and when the first man entered the room,…
Romy Roynard. The young Yazidi woman, the victim of horrific crimes, has spoken out worldwide in her campaign to end sexual assault as a weapon of war. Nadia…
John Bellamy Foster. A short fuse is burning. At the present rate of global emissions, the world is projected to reach the trillionth metric ton of cumulative carbon…
Tsvetana Paraskova. Oil truck drivers in Iran have started a new strike demanding improved working conditions, and the industrial action has resulted in large lines forming at gasoline…
Jonathan Cook. Posted on ZCommunications October 2, 2018. The moment long feared is fast approaching in Gaza, according to a new report by the World Bank. After a…
The Poet, Poetry and Paper Poetry is an umbilical cord Connecting the poet with Mother-God-Nature. He comes into existence with The birth of every chicken, pup or baby…
Esen Uslu. The Turkish army of the modern republican era has never withdrawn from any piece of land it has occupied on whatever pretext. A former British army…
Patrick Cockburn. Posted on ZCommunications September 25, 2018. An Iraqi joke says that their country must have the most environmental government in the world since the same political leaders are…
Interview with Ardeshir Mehrdad. Mehdi Kia: In the first part of the interview[1]http://www.middleast4change.org/squeezing-iran-part-1-trumps-project-in-the-middle-east/we talked of the evolving line-ups in the Middle East in the backdrop of recent massive…
Benjamin Dangle. Book Review: The Zapatistas’ Dignified Rage: Final Public Speeches of Subcommander Marcos. By Subcommander Marcos. Introduction by Nick Henck. Translation by Henry Gales. (AK Press, 2018)….
Marcel van der Linden. Traditional labour movements are in trouble almost everywhere. They have been severely enfeebled by the political and economic changes of the last 40 years….
Joost Hiltermann, Ali Vaez, Elizabeth Dickinson, and Daniel Scheiderman. Posted on Lobelog Sept 24, 2018. An attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on…
Jonathan Cook. Posted on Counterpunch Sept 21, 2018. Washington’s decision to intensify swingeing aid cuts to the Palestinians – the latest targets include cancer patients and peace groups…
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