(By Tom Engelhardt) The headline — “Bride and Boom!” — was spectacular, if you think killing people in distant lands is a blast and a half. Of course, you have to imagine that smirk line in giant black letters with a monstrous exclamation point covering most of the bottom third of the front page of […]
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Arab World
Sufi Center in Hama, Syria, c. 1900 (Photo of the Day)
(From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908) Hama is a small, mainly Sunni Arab city in the center-west of Syria famed for its water wheels. For Syrian Sufi orders see this link
Four Syrian Bedouin Women, c. 1890 (Photo of the Day)
Photo of the Day: Four Syrian Bedouin women in the late 19th century. Mirrored from Al-Mashriq Syria in 1900 had a population of a little less than 3 million (not counting what is today Lebanon). My guess is that some 10-20% of the population was at that time pastoral nomads or transhumants, i.e. livestock raisers […]
Saudi Internet Activists face Crackdown
(By Human Rights Watch) (Beirut) – Activists in Saudi Arabia face a repressive and intolerant government as they advocate popular political participation, judicial reform, and an end to discrimination against women and minorities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Authorities have responded by arresting, prosecuting, and attempting to silence rights defenders and […]
842,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon (pop.: 4.4 mn) as UN Calls for $6 bn Aid
(By Agence France Presse) One in five Lebanon residents Syria refugees: UN (via AFP) One of five people living in Lebanon are refugees who have fled the conflict in neighbouring Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Monday. The UNHCR says there are more than 842,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon but the actual […]
Syrian Christians Menaced by Extremist Sunnis, Slam Lack of Lebanese Support
Layal Abu Rahhal reported in Arabic from Beirut for al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] on the dilemmas of Syrian Christians and their Lebanese neighbors, Dec. 13, 2013. This is my paraphrase, influenced by the translation done by BBC Monitoring: Considering what the Christians of Syria are facing, Christians in Lebanon are raising alarums about the […]
Photo of the Day: Pyramids in Giza at Sunset
h/t Ahl Misr Zaman
How Peter O’Toole Saved the Arabs (According to David Lean)
(By Juan Cole) The late Peter O’Toole played T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s 1963 “Lawrence of Arabia” with genius and abandon. All of us in my generation who went into Middle East studies were influenced by that film one way or another. Only later did it gradually become apparent to many of us how flawed […]
Dozens Killed by Regime Barrel Bombs in Aleppo, half of them Children
The Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar reports that the Syrian air force bombed Aleppo on Sunday with makeshift barrel bombs, killed at least 36 persons, including 15 children. They targeted neighborhoods controlled by rebels in the country’s largest city, in the north of the country. The Aleppo Information Center made up of activist citizen journalists said that […]