Middle East

Dozens of progressive Egyptian women cut their hair in Tahrir Square on Tuesday to protest the passage of Egypt’s new, fundamentalist constitution. The protesters chanted, “A woman’s crown is her liberation!” Mona Abd al-Radi, the secretary-general of the Union of the Women’s Organization of Cairo, and one of eight who cut her hair, said that […]

Egypt

New Fundamentalist Constitution Approved, Heralds turn to Egyptian Theocracy

Juan Cole

The Egyptian electoral commission on Tuesday signed off on the constitutional referendum, declaring that the country’s guiding legal framework had received a little over 63 percent of the vote. (It only got 56% in the first of two rounds, when the leftist, liberal and centrist opposition thought they had some chance of blocking it, but […]

Egypt

Christmas 2012: The Flowering of Middle Eastern Christianity and the Challenges it Faces

Juan Cole

There are more Middle Eastern Christians than ever before, and they are poised between emergence as a new political force in a democratizing region and the dangers to them of fundamentalism and political repression. The arguments you see for Christian decline in the region are mostly wrong. If we count the Christians in the Arab […]

Syria

200 Dead, Many Children, in Syrian aerial bombing of Halfaya

Juan Cole

Opposition forces said that Syrian fighter jets bombed the town of Halfaya near Hama on Sunday. The bombs struck a crowd standing in line to buy bread, and some 200 victims are said to have been killed, and dozens more injured. The attack on Halfaya likely was the regime’s response to its fighters confronting the […]

Syria

Muslims of Liberated Saraqeb, Syria, put up Christmas Tree for Local Christians

Juan Cole

Muslims of Syrian town of Saraqeb put up Christmas tree for local Christians. The young man who is being interviewed stresses the unity of all Syrians, whether Muslim, Christian, Druze, etc. The Syrian revolutionaries took it at the beginning of November. It was subsequently the site of the execution of captured Syrian army troops. Last […]

Egypt

Egypt’s Controversial Fundamentalist Constitution Meets Low Turnout

Juan Cole

Egyptians went to the polls again Saturday in the second round of the constitutional referendum. The provinces or governorates that voted in this round were disproportionately rural, and early returns suggested a big “yes” vote, perhaps as high as 70% or so. Rural areas are strongholds of the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist forces, though […]

Egypt

Fundamentalist Constitution Provokes Street Clashes in Alexandria, 77 Wounded

Juan Cole

As Egyptians in 17 governorates head to the polls on Saturday in the second round of the controversial referendum on the new constitution, tension still simmers in the country’s second-largest city, Alexandria, where street clashes left 77 wounded on Friday. The clashes again show the unwisdom of the way President Muhammad Morsi, who hails from […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Coming Conflict between the US and Israel (Chernus)

Juan Cole

Ira Chernus writes at Tomdispatch.com Are the U.S. and Israel Heading for a Showdown? No One Thinks So, But It Just Might Happen Here’s the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza: Will 2013 be […]

Israel/ Palestine

UN Security Council Condemns Further Israeli Squatting on Palestinian Land, with Rogue State US Vetoing

Juan Cole

The US acted again as the rogue state at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, with the other 14 members issuing statements condemning Israeli plans for vast further theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank and installing squatters on it, in a step designed to cut the West Bank in two and make […]