at least according to the New York Times’ travel section.
who knows? Maybe Ohio and Michigan will start getting remittances from workers in the Gulf as well. … of course that is a joke. Indyk's piece raises some important points about the many levels on which the issues driving Middle East politics need to be addressed.
“Hamas has not started the war to liberate either Jerusalem or the Palestinian lands. This round of the conflict, as others before it, is bigger than Hamas and the goal it so passionately pursues, that of eliminating Israel.” “The battle is part of the intra-regional broader conflict linked with what appears to be a perpetual, […]
Michael Young: Tiptoeing around death in South Lebanon Elie Fawaz: Who and why now? Tony Badran: Assad,Jalili, PFLP-GC, and the Rockets from Lebanon NOW Lebanon: Hamas rejects UNSCR 1860, says it does not suit Palestinians Manuela Paraipan: Is this Leadership? Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: Abbas no longer heads PA NOW Lebanon: Eddé says holding Arab […]
Samuel Huntington, political scientist and author of the influential and controversial book/Foreign Affairs article Clash of Civilizations, died on Christmas Eve 2008. Many thoughtful obituaries in major news outlets recognize his accomplishments and contributions, including the Economist, the Associated Press, the UK's Independent and the UAE's National.
Casualties since the ground offensive are up to 765 Palestinians and 14 Israelis, so the UN has drafted a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, after intense lobbying by Arab states. The Los Angeles Times has two articles, each carefully including one Jewish-sounding name and one Muslim-sounding name in the bylines, on the media coverage […]
Blog readers (this one specifically and readers of blogs more broadly) have probably noticed FP's slew of new weblogs. (There are many – read the full list here). One, Shadow Government, features a group of conservative thinkers, and their collective bios are full of phrases like “the McCain-Palin 2008 campaign” and “the 200something National Security […]
Two articles on religious programming in Arabic on Islam are out this week: The New York Times profiles Saudi moderate host Ahmad al Shugairi and the Los Angeles Times profiles Egyptian moderate Mostafa Hosni. Both pieces are concerned with a. highlighting a trend within the Arab world toward using television as a religious outreach tool, […]
(UNRWA stands for UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees). The donation announcement from DoS came in the midst of, well, this. The press release made sure to include the following: The United States reiterates its deep concern about the escalating violence in Gaza and commends UNRWA's important work meeting the emergency needs of […]
said Ismail Haniya today, after 225 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Israeli military initiative was a response to increased rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel; Defense Minister Ehud Barak is leaving open the possibility of a ground offensive. The United States has taken a strong anti-Hamas stance in the debaucle […]
This week the Egyptian Government selected Bechtel Corporation to advise on the construction of Egypt's first set of nuclear power plants in a 10-year, $180 million contract. This is good news for Egypt and the United States. Egypt has a long standing policy that the Middle East should be WMD-free. In a joint press conference […]
Jimmy Carter visited the Middle East this week, and spoke at the American University of Beirut on the importance of a settlement between Israel and Palestine in the near future. He seemed optimistic regarding the capacity of the President of the United States to nudge the Israelis toward mutually agreeable conditions for settlement: “I found […]
An Egyptian telecommunications company has become the first mobile-phone company to invest in North Korea. The 25-year license agreement includes a $400 million dollar investment and a 75/25 partnership with a state-owned Korean company. Read about it here and here. Naguib Sawiris, owner of Orascom Telecom Holding, is in North Korea to ink the deal. […]
Turns out that Bob Dylan dug Oum Kalthoum. Here's a paragraph from Al’ America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel, excerpted here on alternet.org: Kalsoum, whose last name is often spelled Kalthoum or Khulthum, was Egypt's greatest singer — the equivalent of Barbra Streisand, Billie Holiday, and Maria Callas rolled into […]