Middle East

By Lina Fadel, Heriot-Watt University | – This summer I performed my own one-woman show at the 75th Edinburgh Fringe – a sentence I never thought I would write in my 17 years of living in the UK. But there I was, a Syrian academic on stage in Edinburgh in front of a microphone, high […]

Saudi Arabia

Djinns and Glass Palaces: Is New Saudi Desert City Utopia or Horror Story?

Middle East Monitor

By Omar Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Saudi Arabia’s The Line has been lauded as the world’s most futuristic city plan, and for good reason. The vertical, walled smart city will run entirely on renewable energy and aims to revolutionise urban planning, putting humans first. Catering for some nine million residents, the […]

Featured

Despite Israeli Whitewash, Its Killing of US Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was a War Crime

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli military issued a brazen whitewash of its killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and its shooting of her colleague Al Jazeera producer Ali al-Samoudi, on May 11 of this year. Using weasel words, the report admitted that it was “likely” that an Israeli sniper shot her dead. […]

Tunisia

President Saied Derides the Economic and Social Rights of Tunisian Women

Human Rights Watch

By Kenza Ben Azouz, Middle East and North Africa Division | – Published in: Nawaat ( Human Rights Watch) – President Kais Said marked National Women’s Day in Tunisia on August 13 by sending his wife to make a celebratory speech in which she sang her husband’s praises. That didn’t sit well with many Tunisians […]

Featured

Now Israel is Occupying the Hearts of Lovers in the Palestinian West Bank

Juan Cole

Update: Once the proposed policy got some publicity, Israeli authorities canceled the requirement that anyone who falls in love with a Palestinian in the West Bank has to report it within 30 days to the Israeli Occupation military. They kept all the other Draconian measures, though Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a creepy policy […]

Islam

In Turkey, Arrest of Pop Singer for Offending Clerics Prompts Fears of Turn to Fundamentalist Government

Global Voices

By Arzu Geybullayeva | – Police in Turkey have arrested pop singer Gülşen (full name Gülşen Colakoglu), 46, pending trial, over a comment she made about religious schools, months ago during one of her concerts. Last April, Gülşen, joked about one of her colleagues’ Imam Hatip past during a concert in Istanbul. Imam Hatip high […]

Arab World

Does Mideast Panopticon — Urban Surveillance and Digital Identities — foretell our Dystopian Future?

Middle East Monitor

By Muhammad Hussein | – ( Middle East Monitor) – It has forever been the dream of almost every state, intelligence agency, empire and totalitarian regime to oversee the doings of all of their subjects, to detect any hint of dissent, to control their movements, to influence their thinking and even to peer into their […]

Israel/ Palestine

Should Palestine be accepted as a Member State at the UN? Conundrums of the 2-State Compromise

Ramona Wadi

( Middle East Monitor ) – The Palestinian Authority is once again seeking full membership of the UN, and the US has already expressed its opposition. The two-state compromise continues to form the premise for the arguments both for and against UN membership, as presented by the PA and the US respectively. However, the PA’s […]