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…
Rajan Menon. Posted on TomDispatch and CounterPunch September 20, 2018. It’s the war from hell, the savage one that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with…
Translated by Sinan Antoon Posted by Jadaliyya Dream I dreamt of a field of butterflies Where a child is jumping in a meadow of flowers A butterfly embroidered…
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker Sept 13, 2108. The forces of Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Iran and Russia, are poised to strike deep into Syria’s Idlib…
Fazel Hawramy. Posted on Al-Monitor Sept 14, 2018. The patience of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) with Iranian Kurdish groups operating from northern Iraq was wearing thin. Spiraling…
Wladimir van Wilgenburg. Posted on Kurdistan24, September 12 2018. ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers on Wednesday began Rojhilat-wide (Iranian Kurdistan) strike against the executions of Kurdish…
Lindsey Hilsum. Broadcast on Channel 4 news, UK, September 10, 2018. A Look Inside MEK’s Secretive Camp In Albania Published on the Iranian
John Bellamy Foster. Published by Monthly Review in 2011, re-posted by Middle East 4 Change as a memorial to Semir Amin who died on August 12, 2018. Samir…
Adam Shatz. Posted on London Review of Books vol 40 no 16, August 30 2018. Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu by Anshel Pfeffer, Hurst, 423 pp,…
By Vassilis K. Fouskas and Bülent Gökay. Posted on ZCommunications September 5, 2018. Source: Links.org Turkey was thrust into a full-blown currency crisis when United States President Donald Trump…
Robert Fisk. Posted on Zcommunications and the Independent September 4, 2018. Facing possible invasion from both Britain and Germany in 1940 and determined to remain neutral, the Irish government in Dublin asked one of…
Interview with Ardeshir Mehrdad. Mehdi Kia: The last few weeks has seen an escalation of US pressures on an Iran already reeling under economic and political crisis and…
Conn Hallinan. Posted on ZNet August 30, 2018. “Boxing the compass” is an old nautical term for locating the points on a magnetic compass in order to set…
Nicholas Lalaguna. Posted on ZNet August 28, 2018. DURING the decades leading up to World War II, fascists around the world were very publicly supported by highly influential…
Stanley L Cohn. Posted on Counterpunch August 24, 2018. As old as war itself, collective punishment has long been the most damning and destructive weapon of all. Not…
Vijay Prashad. Posted on Counterpunch August 27, 2018. Standing on the campus of Birzeit University in Ramallah (Palestine) one gets a full flavour of the beauty of Palestine…
Posted on MR Online August 21, 2018. Originally published: Venezuelanalysis by Angel Prado & Ricardo Vaz (August 16, 2018). El Maizal commune is located in the middle of…
Alfred W. McCoy. Posted on TomDispatch August 21 2018. As the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency and sixth of Xi Jinping’s draws to a close, the world…
Alan Macleod. Posted on FAIR August 22, 2018. On August 6, a number of giant online media companies, including Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Spotify and Pinterest, took the seemingly…
Esen Eslu. Posted on Weekly Worker August 16, 2018. The downward spiral of the lira has meant that suddenly Turkey is headline news in the international media, as…
Jonathan Owen Published by BMJ August 10, 2018. New types of complex injuries in the Palestinian territory are leading to lifelong disabilities as prompt comprehensive care is beyond…
Dennis Ross. Posted on Washington Institute August 15, 2108. Defiant warnings aside, Tehran will eventually negotiate with President Trump—as long as Vladimir Putin mediates. Even in its afterlife,…
Mark N Katz. Posted on Lobelog August 15, 2018. Ever since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the five states bordering the Caspian Sea (Russia, Kazakhstan,…
Andrew Levine. Posted on Counterpunch August 11, 2018. Donald Trump is in enough trouble, legally and politically, to need a war – or so one would think. Sanctions…
Elijah J Magnier. Posted on American Herald Tribune August 13, 2018. Tension is silently mounting between Israel and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, where frenetic preparations are taking…
Darya Najim and Krekar Mustafa. Posted on Alliance of Middle East Socialists August 2, 2018 Editor’s Note: Below we print an opinion article submitted by two Iraqi Kurdish…
Michael Roberts. Posted on August 11, 2017. The Turkish lira is in total meltdown. It has lost 40% of its value against the dollar in the last six…
Chris Wright. Posted on Counterpunch August 7, 2018. Being run by business, American culture suffers from an overwhelming preponderance of stupidity. When a set of institutions as reactionary…
Derek Davidson. Posted on lobe log August 7, 2018. Consistent with his decision in May to breach the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or…
Dan Glazebrook. Posted on Counterpunch August 3, 2018. Since the earliest days on the campaign trail, it has never been in doubt who Trump and his team have…
Tariq Ali. Posted on New Left Review 111, May-June 2018. Some general characteristics of the imperialist recolonization of the Arab world, which began with that brutal dress-rehearsal, the…
Michael Roberts. Blog posted on July 30, 2018. There is a new dataset on world trade that looks at changes in exports and imports globally going back to…
Tanushka Marah. Posted Middle East Eye July 24, 2018. Performed by 14 Syrian women who have fled their homeland, Queens of Syria is a theatrical adaptation of Euripides…
Pepe Escobar Posted on Asia Times July 24, 2018. President Trump’s late-night, all-caps Tweet of Mass Destruction threatening Iran is bound to be enshrined in the Art of Diplomacy…
Marjorie Cohn. Posted on Truthout July 24, 2018. On July 19, 2018, the Israeli Knesset enacted a law that illegally enshrines a system of apartheid. The legislation, which has the…
Jake Johnson. Posted on Common Dreams July 12, 2018. n writings and speeches over just the past several months, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton and…
Amjad Iraqi. Posted on London Review of Books Vol. 40 No. 14 · 19 July 2018. Late last month, the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee approved…
Joel Beinin. Published by MERIP July 12, 2018 The Palestinian Great March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018 and continued into June, was a popular mobilization…
Marianna Belenkay. Posted on Al-Monitor On July 11, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his third visit to Russia this year to meet with President Vladimir Putin. The talks were…
Patrick Cockburn. Posted on London Review of Books Vol 40, July 19, 2018. The road to Raqqa, once the de facto Syrian capital of Islamic State, looks surprisingly…
Helena Norberg-Hodge. Posted on TNI Longreads. For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the…
Joel Beinin. Posted on MERIP July 12, 2018. The Palestinian Great March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018 and continued into June, was a popular mobilization…
Garry Leupp. Posted on Counterpunch July 11, 2018. There are growing indications that the Trump administration plans to use the Mojahedin-e Khalq (People’s Mojahedin of Iran, or MEK)…
Posted on One Question, May 7 2018. One Question is a monthly series in which we ask leading thinkers to give a brief answer to a single question….
Jonathan Cook. Posted on Middle East Eye July 5, 2018. Israel and the US are in a race against time with Gaza. The conundrum is stark: how to…
Leila Al Shami. Posted on Leila’s Blog July 5, 2108. This was originally published at Chatham House. Here is a longer, un-edited version. In May, SMART News Agency,…
Posted on State of Nature June 28, 2018. One Question is a monthly series in which we ask leading thinkers to give a brief answer to a single…
Tom Stevenson. Posted on LA Review of Books, June 27, 2018. ON JANUARY 31, 2017, four lawyers arrived at the steps of Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court on the…
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