Dear FPA Blogs followers, Azeri APA News Agency recently conducted an interview with me regarding the French National Assembly’s decision to criminalize the refusal to refer to the events of 1909-15 as a genocide and how this affects Turkey’s Caucasus policy. This is the transcript of that interview: ————————- http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=163076 New York. Isabel […]
The following story (part 2, the 1st instalment as it were, was published at https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/11/16/a-window-into-womens-world-in-yemen/) is that of Amal Hassan, a young Yemeni woman who from the time she drew her first breath has had to fight for what many in the West take for granted: freedom, education, pursuit of happiness. Raised in a conservative […]
Just weeks after Israel declared Independence in May of 1948, and the ensuing war broke out, the IDF sunk a ship armed with fighters and weapons making its way to Israel. The ship was the Altalena and the fighters and weapons were working their way into Jewish hands, not Arab. The situation was complicated and […]
Israel has recently been awash in controversy over nothing new in the country’s history — the intersection of policy, society, and religion. The most recent tussle has centered around whether segregating buses based on gender should be permissible. Some in the ultra orthodox community argue that separate seating spaces for men and women would be […]
2011 has been a year filled with change, reform, progress and challenges across the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco included. As we anticipate what 2012 holds for the region, here’s a recap of key moments in 2011 for Morocco: February 20 – Thousands demonstrated across Morocco in solidarity with protesters in Egypt and Tunisia, […]
The past year in Israel has been anything but boring. The Palestinians were rejected for full-membership in the United Nations, Israeli Corporal Gilad Schalit was returned alive to Israel, Turkey downgraded its diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, the Israeli population took to the streets for social change, and Israel continued its covert operations against […]
I have recently read an opinion piece by Fehim Tastekin, a Turkish Caucasus expert, who regularly writes for the Turkish daily Radikal. I found the article very important, so I translated it to the attention of FPA Blogs followers: ————————————————————————– http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalYazar&ArticleID=1073865&Yazar=FEHIM-TASTEKIN&Date=30.12.2011&CategoryID=100 Amidst its growing engagement in the Middle East and the Arab Spring, as well […]
Irrespective of one’s ideological affiliations, 2011 was an inconvenient year for the Middle East, to put it mildly. The speed at which Arab Spring brought about change has been baffling to most of us and inevitably prepared us for more drastic changes to come. Now let’s take a look at the most significant changes that […]
Morocco is often left out of the Arab Spring discussion by policymakers and the media, largely because the demonstrations in Morocco took place peacefully, there was no regime change and the reform process proceeded relatively swiftly and transparently. It is also due to the fact that Morocco wasn’t caught blind-sided by the push for change; […]
The year 2011 for Southern Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general, will probably be remembered for what did not happen in the light of the people-powered uprising and protests that swept across the globe. In the Arab world, in particular North Africa, what is being now referred to as the Arab Spring made 2011 a […]
Dear followers of the FPA blog, I recently participated in a panel discussion on Turkey’s ‘new’ foreign policy in the Middle East and the Arab Spring, for ‘The Agenda with Steve Paikin’. Also featuring Henri Barkey, Janice Stein, Atif Kuburski and Howard Eissenstat, the full video (55 minutes) of the program can be accessed via […]
Guest Contributor: The following piece was written by Jubeen Sharbaf. Based in Toronto, Canada, Mr. Sharbaf is an organizational development advisor in the non-profit sector. Mr. Sharbaf is involved in grassroots organization work focusing on leardership issues in civil society. He is a native of Tehran, Iran. 1. Negotiate: Richard Holbrook once said: “You don’t […]
2011 began with yet another governmental crisis for Lebanon, as the ministers affiliated to the March 8 coalition walked out of Premier Saad Hariri’s cabinet, forcing its collapse. With impeccable (and, no doubt, carefully calculated) timing, the representatives of Hizballah, its Shiite frenemy AMAL, and the Free Patriotic Movement, led by the revenchard General Michel […]
As the 2012 election nears, Democrats and Republicans are both courting the American Jewish community, although the process is inherently an antithesis to one of their key talking points. Earlier this week, six GOP presidential candidates attended a forum by the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemning President Obama for what they say is a lackluster response […]
Today, in Washington, DC there was a really interesting roundtable, “What’s Next for Morocco? Assessing opportunities and challenges after the elections.” The experts on the panel were academics, think tank leaders and former US diplomats. (Click here for a full description of the event, the participants and the video.) I say “interesting” because the panel […]