Middle East 4 ChangeBreakfast 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…
Is Israel Pushing for a Palestinian Civil War?
Thursday, September 29, 2016
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…
Fight or Flight: The Desperate Plight of Iraq’s “Generation 2000”
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
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…
Leila Khaled on ISIS and Islamism, Syria and the Palestinians
Monday, September 26, 2016
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…
Will Turkey be dragged deeper into Syria?
Saturday, September 24, 2016
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…
Research: No man’s land in Egypt
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
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…
Working class power & feminism: An interview with Alia Amirali
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
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…
On Turkish-American Cooperation in northern Syria
Monday, September 19, 2016
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…
PKK foreign relations head speaks out
Sunday, September 18, 2016
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…
Immigration, racism and class
Sunday, September 18, 2016
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,…
Chaos and Caliphate: the Struggle for the Middle East. Book Review
Friday, September 16, 2016
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….
Five years after the Arab uprisings: An interview with Asef Bayat
Thursday, September 15, 2016
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…
The prison: Book review
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
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…
Palestine: Crackdown on journalists and activists
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
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,…
Challenging Intellectuals Who Justify Iranian Imperialism; Searching for Socialist Solidarity
Sunday, September 11, 2016
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…
ISDS: A court that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will
Friday, September 9, 2016
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…
Book review: does terrorism work? A History
Thursday, September 8, 2016
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…
The Decay of the Syrian Regime is Much Worse Than You Think
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
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…
Bombers Over Hasakah: Assad Clashes With the Kurds
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
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…
Coup and counter-coup in Turkey and Kurdistan
Sunday, September 4, 2016
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…
Truth is always revolutionary
Saturday, September 3, 2016
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…
From revolution to reaction in Egypt
Thursday, September 1, 2016
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…