Middle East

Was it sectarian hatred or a policeman’s random meltdown? The answer is not clear, though many press accounts are rushing to judgment. One thing that seems clear is that people who have firearms should be checked for mental stability! A stray Egyptian policeman on a train in Upper Egypt opened fire at a party of […]

Afghanistan

Death Penalty for Blasphemy Rare in Muslim World

Juan Cole

Pakistani campaigners against the country’s blasphemy laws are pointing out that out of 54 Muslim-majority countries in the world, at most 5 permit capital punishment for blasphemy. They are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly Afghanistan (the new Afghan constitution incorporates human rights norms that could affect statutes treating blasphemy as […]

Egypt

Egyptian Muslims Throng in Thousands to Protect Christians

Juan Cole

Thousands of Muslims honored a promise made by their leaders and showed up at Christmas Mass or at candlelight vigils outside Egyptian churches on Friday, offering their bodies as human shields against any acts of terrorists. The observances were tense, in view of the New Year’s Day bombing of a cathedral in Alexandria, which killed […]

Israel/ Palestine

Today in Apartheid

Juan Cole

Israeli troops made an incursion into the Palestinian city of al-Khalil (which the Israelis call Hebron) and killed the wrong man, invading his apartment and riddling him with bullets. They then went on to their actual target, and just left. Most MSM lead the story with an Israeli acknowledgment of error (irrelevant) rather than with […]

Iraq

Sadr Returns Triumphantly to Najaf

Juan Cole

Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad) writes in Arabic that Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr Movement, returned on Wednesday to Najaf after 4 years in Iran. An aide issued a communique saying, “Muqtada al-Sadr arrived in Najaf in the company of a number of his major aides, among them Mustafa al-Ya`qubi, Muhammad al-Sa’idi, and […]

Israel/ Palestine

Wikileaks: Israelis ‘Intend to Keep the Gazan Economy on the Brink of Collapse’

Juan Cole

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenpost has released a March, 2008, US embassy cable describing the Israeli blockade and siege of Occupied Gaza as an attempt to reduce the society to the lowest possible level of functioning without provoking a “humanitarian crisis” (presumably mass starvation). “Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they […]

Egypt

Calls for Peace, Tolerance in Cairo

Juan Cole

Hundreds of Christians peacefully marched on Tuesday evening to a cathedral in Cairo, protesting the New Year’s Day bombing of the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria. Pope Shenouda III , head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, called on Christian youth to cease protesting and to adopt non-violent means of achieving their goals. He noted […]

Israel/ Palestine

Women enlist as Fighters in Gaza

Juan Cole

CNN reports on a handful of militant women in Gaza who have joined the radical al-Nasir Salahuddin Brigades and gained training as guerrillas. The women explicitly mentioned the model of women in the Israeli military as among their sources of inspiration. These groups are more militant than Hamas, which is the most important party-militia in […]

Iraq

Glaspie Memo Vindicates Her, Shows Saddam’s Thinking

Juan Cole

Wikileaks has released the July 25, 1990 cable by US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie in which she reported her meeting with Saddam Hussein over the Kuwait crisis. Saddam had summoned her. The cable’s text supports Glaspie’s accounts of the meeting and exonerates her from the charges by her political enemies in the US Congress […]