And so to the latest tented village. That the Rafik Hariri-inspired downtown area should be the field of battle between what must be seen – wittingly or unwittingly – as those who want prosperity and those who wish to obstruct it, is sadly fitting. Say what you want about the late prime minister, he was …
With no sign of Iran retreating on its nuclear program and growing acknowledgment of the risks and limitations of military options, the Bush administration appears to be gearing up for a less than optimal policy that it long rejected: Iran’s containment. Its strategy relies on international diplomacy and the threat of sanctions, as well as …
With the Middle East in turmoil, the State Department convened a two-day meeting for Arab-American leadership recently. Over 100 community leaders from across the United States responded, some traveling great distances at their own expense to participate in the sessions. Eleven State Department officials participated and topics ranged from Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, to US …
“Blog Me If You Can is a working title of a book I am writing. The idea was born during a moment of clarity as I pondered about the troubled world we endure everyday. My frustration may have been inspired by the usual news bulletins featuring images of dead civilians and soldiers caught between the …
CAMBRIDGE, UK: The rise of extremism in the Muslim world has led to the widespread view of Islam as a religion of violence, retribution and war. This is in complete opposition to the truth of our religion and, on behalf of the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Muslims who are ordinary, peace-loving, decent people, …
The Istanbul professor who is a leading character in “Bliss, a lyrical novel by Zulfu Livaneli, imagines the Turkish intellectual as an acrobat swinging through the air. He lets go of his trapeze, sure in the belief that his European partner and inspiration waits on the other side, ready to catch him. Too late, he …
A Sydney-based Muslim cleric, Sheikh Hilaly, recently made headlines in Australia when he publicly reflected that immodest women invite rape because they are like “uncovered meat. More unfortunate still was his implication that this was the cause of a series of gang rapes in Sydney in 2000, in which the attackers’ legal defense was that …
“This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all, President George W. Bush said Thursday after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. And that’s probably the right headline as the administration reviews its options for Iraq: No graceful exit. That doesn’t mean there won’t be significant changes ahead in …
The political and security situation in the vast region between the Indus Valley and the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean is a cause for grave concern. When the US intervened militarily in Iraq in 1991, the intention was to effect fundamental change in the region. Today it is clear that hardly any aspect of this …
There is something at once both historic and frightening about the open-ended mass street protest that was launched in Beirut Friday by Hezbollah and its allies, aiming to topple the government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora. The historic element is that this is a rare instance of mass political action that is declared to …
Palestinian politics is approaching the point of no return. The power struggle between the Islamist Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his secular-nationalist Fatah movement is intensifying, with tensions having manifested themselves in outright combat. Since Hamas was founded in the early 1980s, it has refused to come under the leadership of the Palestinian …
I have been observing discussions in Ramallah for some time now, trying to understand what people think about the political situation in general and the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in particular. I have noticed that the majority discusses social and personal issues with minimal reference to political events. On the same day an elderly woman …
Medical prescriptions sometimes come with an instruction to take medicine on a full stomach. Doctors often counsel patients to pay attention to their diet as they recover from illness. It’s common sense. Yet until recently, donor countries have poured billions of dollars into antiretrovirals and other medication to counter the growing impact of AIDS in …
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s set of proposals to break the seemingly interminable impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems doomed to failure – but not because there is anything in them that is wholly unreasonable. First, it would appear to be the wrong moment for any real progress to be made, with Israeli …
UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was perceived as an opportunity for progress in the immediate and mid-term future. It opened the way for the Seniora government to demonstrate its capacity to take the steps needed to regain sovereignty over South Lebanon, consolidate national security and achieve economic recovery and repair of all the damages caused …
When the leaders of Israel and Hamas in the same weekend offer each other long-term peace deals, you just know in your bones that we are passing through a potentially historic moment. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel was prepared to leave much of the Occupied Territories, release many Palestinian prisoners, remove …
In the TV news business, if a story breaks, you better be ready to turn on a dime, pack your bags and head to the nearest airport. I was calmly preparing a trip to Dubai to host the December edition of Inside the Middle East, when the assassination of a Lebanese cabinet minister forced a …
Iran’s theocratic regime appears more confident than ever. Its standoff with the West over its nuclear program, together with its ties to Syria and its growing influence in Lebanon and Iraq, suggest the emergence of a strong regional power. But, while Western analysts and Iran’s neighbors raise the alarm, the regime’s authority is in fact …
I’ve just spent seven weeks in the United States and encountered hundreds of students, professors and other ordinary citizens all around the country who share a set of powerful ideas–personal liberty, pluralism, and equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the rule of law. Yet America also runs into great difficulties when it takes its ideals …
Talk to one of the newly-arrived United Nations peacekeepers in South Lebanon and one will quickly learn that their principle force protection concern has little to do with Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli aerial provocations or indeed potential ill-feeling from the local population. Rather, it’s Al-Qaeda’s possibly taking advantage of nearly 10,000 foreign, mainly Western, troops …
Since 2002, the United States’ diplomacy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been constrained by Israel’s doctrine that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. According to this concept – accepted by Washington – until Palestinians halt violence toward Israel and reform their internal politics, there can be no peace talks. The rationale of the no-partner …
A disease is eating away at the Middle East. It afflicts the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Lebanese, even the Israelis. It is the idea that the only political determinant in the Arab world is raw force – the power of physical intimidation. It is politics as assassination. This week saw another sickening instance of this …
Barely had the Lebanese started to recover from the July-August war between Hezbollah and Israel when instability came knocking again, in what seems like the beginning of a campaign to intimidate Lebanon and prevent its government from taking serious political decisions. The assassination of Christian minister and parliamentarian Pierre Gemayel came on the day that …
When NATO leaders meet for their summit in Riga at the end of this month. There will be a ghost at the feast: Afghanistan’s opium. Afghanistan is in danger of falling back into the hands of terrorists, insurgents, and criminals, and the multi-billion-dollar opium trade is at the heart of the country’s malaise. Indeed, Nato’s …
While the United States debates what to do about the disaster in Iraq, I have been pondering a disaster that hasn’t happened – in Saudi Arabia. There are some lessons in the Saudi story that may help clarify the Bush administration’s choices as it nears crunch time in the region. First, some background: 10 years …
On Jan. 1, 2007, Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea’s former foreign minister, will become United Nations secretary general, following Kofi Annan’s 10-year tenure. Annan inspired the world with his diplomacy and leadership on poverty reduction and human rights, but the war in Iraq divided the world and drew attention and financial resources away from crisis regions …
Washington may soon replace its failed regional policy of isolation and confrontation with a renewed policy of engagement. Correspondingly, Israel’s policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians is about to change as well. Here, Israel is faced with two dilemmas. First, whether to await an initiative designed by others or to preempt with its own ideas. And second, …
More than two decades ago I had the honor to speak about Palestinian-Israeli peace on a panel with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Although much has changed in the region since then, I could give nearly the same talk today. The requirements for peace and the benefits to be gained remain the same. The …
The Democrats in the United States declared the recent congressional elections a “referendum on the Republican President George W. Bush’s stewardship of the Iraq war. On the campaign trail, they savaged Bush and the Republican-majority Congress for the disastrous war and demanded its speedy end. Now that they have wrested control of both houses of …
Perhaps ministers shouldn’t speak publicly on private matters? The minister of culture’s had a busy week. He set off a firestorm and also managed to drag to the surface matters that lie uneasily beneath this society’s surface. Last week, Dr Farouk Hosni criticized the hijab or veil and those who wear it. Hey, presto. Public …
