Breakfast in the ruins
Friday, September 30, 2016

Ingrid D Rowland, New York Review of Books. In September 2015, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles acquired the first photographs ever taken of Palmyra, the great…
Ingrid D Rowland, New York Review of Books. In September 2015, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles acquired the first photographs ever taken of Palmyra, the great…
Ramzy Baroud, Znet. Division within Palestinian society has reached unprecedented levels, becoming a major hurdle on the path of any unified strategy to end Israel’s violent occupation or…
International Crisis Group, Jadalyya. Beset by political dysfunction, endemic corruption and a jihadist threat, Iraq is squandering its greatest asset: its youth. By failing to provide a vision…
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, Defend Democracy Press. ISIS is a criminal organization which was created, and is used, by the USA. As for Syria, it was not only the intervention…
Kadri Gursel, Al Monitor. The main determinant for Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria, launched Aug. 23 in cooperation with Ankara-sponsored jihadi groups, was not the threat posed…
Aya Nader, Al Monitor. An Egyptian was conducting a study on sewage systems back during the times of Khedivial Cairo (1867-1914). He had to apply for a permit…
Links. Sara Jaffri (SJ): How did you get involved in political work, and with what sort of organizing have you been involved? Alia Amirali (AA): I grew up…
Defend Democracy. On September 7th, the Turkish president Erdogan made an important statement on the results of talks with the US President Barack Obama at the G20 summit…
Mohamed Noureddine Al-Monitor The Kurds have been the most oppressed people of the region for the past 100 years. Although they have a strong, ancient and well-established presence…
Kevin Ovenden, Counterfire. While mainstream ideology repackages its old myths and lies, Kevin Ovenden argues for a radical re-assertion of class-based anti-racism. When people express “concerns” about immigration,…
Sean Ledwith, Counterfire. Recent events in both North America and the Middle East have illustrated how the chilling potency of the Islamic State group is far from exhausted….
Özgür Gökmen, Jadaliyya. Özgür Gökmen (ÖG): In Life as Politics you refer to the dangers of foreign intervention more than once. Expectations were not high but there was…
Robin Yassin-Kassab, Qunfuz. From ‘Prisoner Cell Block H’ to ‘Orange is the New Black’, prison dramas fill the Anglo-Saxon screen. In the Arab world, you’re more likely to…
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch documented five cases – two in the West Bank and three in Gaza – in which security forces arrested or questioned journalists,…
Alliance of Middle East Socialists. Below we print a summary of a longer article by two Iranian socialists who are opposed to Iran’s military intervention in Syria. Their…
Chris Hamby, BuzzFeed. Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue…
Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books. Does Terrorism Work? A History by Richard English, Oxford When I am hit with news of yet another terrorist attack, I often…
Tobias Schneider, War on the Rocks. In a recent interview conducted by Aaron David Miller for Foreign Policy, Robert Malley, one of the president’s most trusted advisors on…
Aron Lund, Carnegie Middle East Center. On Thursday August 18, the Syrian Air Force struck several targets in the provincial capital of Hasakah in eastern Syria. It was…
Sarah Parker and Phil Hearse, Links. The dramatic events of 15/16 July created an international shock wave: this was, contrary to some initial opinions, a very serious coup…
Jurgen Balzan, Malta Today. Lebanese writer Elias Khoury is one of the leading lights of Arab literature and he says that the Israeli occupation is classical colonialism built…
Sameh Naguib, Open Democracy. Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, but the current conditions in Egypt do not match the jubilation that erupted onto the streets…