Arab World

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security called me and started asking questions about a childhood acquaintance being investigated for extremism. I put him off. My feelings about this were, to say the least, complex. As a military spouse of 10 years and someone who has long written about […]

Immigration

Is the Controversy over Qatar’s World Cup just More Orientalism and Islamophobia?

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Informed Comment) – The entire Arab world is excited as one of the world biggest sports events, the FIFA World Cup is held in an Arab Muslim country for the first time. This excitement is because of decades of collective feeling of frustration with being portrayed by Western media as backward, uncivilized and savage. […]

Arms Sales

Ukraine war ignites the Arms Race in the Middle East

Middle East Monitor

By Ibrahim Nawar | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Ukraine war has cast a shadow over the arms race in the Middle East and ignited it. The Iranian weapons supplies to Russia, the Turkish and Israeli weapons to Ukraine, and Germany’s request from Israel to provide it with a system of Arrow-3 […]

Featured

Biden Administration Tells U.S. Court Saudi’s Bin Salman can’t be sued for Role in Murder because he is Head of State

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Stephanie Kirchgaessner at the Guardian reports that the Biden administration has made a filing with the U.S. court that was considering a civil suit against Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, by the widow of slain Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seeking damages for his involvement in […]

Campaign Finance

Emirates has Spent $154 mn on Lobbying US since 2016, and has Illegally Influenced US Politics: Intel Report

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UAE has spent more than $154 million on lobbyists since 2016, according to Justice Department records. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on donations to American universities and think tanks, many that produce policy papers with findings favorable to UAE interests. The intrepid John Hudson at […]

Houthi

Yemen: ‘What Have we Left Behind’ by Bushra Al-Maqtari – “Only victims are real in this war”

Marc Martorell Junyent

Barcelona (Special to Informed Comment) – Review of Bushra Al-Maqtari, What Have You Left Behind? (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2022.) “Only victims are real in this war, victims crushed by violence.”[1] The writer behind this sentence is Bushra Al-Maqtari, a human rights activist, journalist, and novelist. The war she refers to is the ongoing conflict in […]

Arab Spring

Egypt has 60,000 prisoners like jailed dying Arab Spring Dissident Alaa Abdelfattah

Middle East Monitor

By Osama Gaweesh | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdelfattah wrote a book with the title You have not been defeated yet. He is being held in prison by the Egyptian regime for sharing a post on Facebook documenting the death of another political detainee in Egypt. As […]

Climate Crisis

Egypt’s Systemic Greenwashing is sabotaging COP27 before it Begins

Global Voices

By Sydney Allen | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – The largest international environmental conference, COP27, is set to kick off on November 6 in Sharm El Shiekh, Egypt. Thousands of environmentalists, politicians, scientists, and stakeholders from all over the world will converge on Egypt to attend the summit, though, notably, few Egyptians will be in […]

Syria

Syria: Parties to the Conflict Aggravate Cholera Epidemic (HRW)

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Turkish authorities are exacerbating an acute water crisis that is believed to have given rise to the deadly cholera outbreak spreading across Syria and into nearby countries, Human Rights Watch said today. All parties to the conflict need to ensure the right to clean water and health for everyone […]