Civilisations Find Alliances

Abandoned Egypt Suffers

By Hisham Allam
As supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi prepare for a face-off on Sunday, a mushrooming problem for Egypt arises from the people not there – the tourists.

To Find Peace, And Then Sell It

By Rebecca Murray
As the month of Ramadan nears, shop owners in Sanaa’s old city souk stock up on goods. For men like Ali Al-Fakri, who sells jambiyahs, Yemen’s traditional daggers held in place with richly embroidered belts, the gift-giving holiday marking Ramadan’s end is the busiest time of the year.

Egypt Split ‘Between Egyptians and Islamists’

By Hisham Allam
The Muslim Brotherhood realised a long cherished dream when it came to power last year. The Muslim Brotherhood had faced continuing discrimination since former president Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in 1956 until the end of Hosni Mubarak’s days.

Creating Their Own Spring

By Karlos Zurutuza
The soldiers of former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi had left just a few days before, but a group of about 50 children were already singing in the Amazigh language in the village of Yefren, 110 kilometres south of Tripoli. This month will mark two years since the establishment of the first Amazigh school in Libya.

Egypt Sees a Dam Confrontation

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
Ethiopia's diversion of part of the Blue Nile late last month has both rocked Cairo's relations with Addis Ababa and provided fodder for Egypt's ongoing war of attrition between its Islamist government and secular opposition.

Egypt Marks a Spring for Islamists

By Cam McGrath
Egyptians are deeply divided and the majority are dissatisfied with the performance of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, but also have little confidence in the main opposition figures or their future, a new poll has found.

Border Weakens Between Bombs and Cherries

By Walter García and Pierre Klochendler
It all happened within ten days – Syria’s civil war fought metres away from Israeli orchards abutting the ceasefire line; Austrian peacekeepers hastily evacuating the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates Israel from Syria; fears of a total collapse of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). All while the cherry-picking season is at its peak.

Kurds Advance, Into the Unknown

By Karlos Zurutuza
A ban on political and even social gatherings, a bar on Kurdish language and culture; uprooting people, forced disappearances and a ‘caste’ of hundreds of thousands of local Kurds deprived of citizenship... life for Kurds in pre-war Syria was probably as dire as it is today for their kin in Iran.

Living in Hell, Iraqi Christians Dream of Paradise

By Karlos Zurutuza
Luis Shabi nostalgically recalls his nine years of novitiate in Rome and a "fantastic road trip through Europe" before returning to Iraq in 1969. "Those were the good times," sighs the Chaldean Archbishop of Baghdad from a bunker in the heart of the Iraqi capital.

Cartoons Lead the Way From Humour to Dialogue

By A. D. McKenzie
By now, most movie fans know that American actor Leonardo DiCaprio was in this southern French city for the annual Cannes Film Festival. But fewer people are aware that Willis from Tunis and Kichka of Israel were also here.

Q&A: “To Propel Change, You Have to Be in Their Faces”

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
Eighteen days ago, Diane Wilson, a 65-year-old fisherwoman from Texas, decided to go on a hunger strike.

Pluralities of Israelis, Palestinians Want Stronger U.S. Peace Role

By Jim Lobe
Amidst a new U.S. effort to revive the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, healthy pluralities of both peoples want U.S. President Barack Obama to play a stronger role in resolving their conflict, according to a major new poll released here Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

Hamas ‘Talibanising’ Gaza

By Mel Frykberg
The Islamist resistance group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is being accused by its Palestinian Authority (PA) rivals in the West Bank of Talibanising Gaza and turning the coastal territory into a new Muslim Brotherhood neighbourhood.

As Hunger Strike Spreads, Obama Again Denounces Guantanamo

By Jim Lobe
With at least 100 detainees now participating in a three-month-old hunger strike, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday reiterated his earlier denunciations of the Guantanamo detention facility and blamed Congress for preventing its closure.

Some Hear Death Knell for a Two-State Solution

By Mitchell Plitnick
Despite indications that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is committing a substantial amount of time and effort to revive the long-stalled Israel-Palestinian “peace process", a growing number of experts believe a two-state solution is no longer viable and the lack of a realistic discussion of the issue in the United States is leaving the country without an alternative policy.

OP-ED: How Bin Ladin’s Jihadist Message Continues to Lure the Vulnerable

By Emile Nakhleh
The surviving Boston Marathon bomber reportedly told authorities the U.S. “war on Islam” drove him and his brother to commit their terrorist act. Their linking the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a perceived global war on Islam is at the heart of the Jihadist message Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda issued to the Muslim world almost two decades ago.

Bedouin Resist Israeli Shove

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Dozens of metal and wooden tents cling to the rocky hillside, just outside of Jerusalem along the road leading to the Dead Sea, while the unmistakable red roofs of Israeli settlements peak out from behind opposite hilltops.

Spring Brings Worse for Shias

By Cam McGrath
The mob that surrounded the home of Mohamed Nour, an Egyptian Shia living in Cairo’s Bab El-Shaariya district, claimed it was on a mission to “inoculate” Egypt against Shia religious beliefs. Without intervention, Shia doctrine would spread across Egypt “like a cancer,” they had warned.

BOOKS: A History of the Search for Justice in the Middle East

By Barbara Slavin
It’s no wonder that Egypt has floundered in its efforts to create a more democratic system from the ruins of the Mubarak regime.

Palestinians Fight Unlawful Deportation

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Hind Ibrahim Abeyat has spent most of her life separated from her father. “Every house in Palestine has something – someone in prison, a martyr,” the 19-year-old told IPS from her family home in Abeyat village, near Bethlehem.

Israeli Cloud Hovers Over Green Energy

By Mel Frykberg
A quiet diplomatic war is being waged by several European governments against the Israeli authorities, specifically the Israeli Civil Administration which controls the Israeli occupied West Bank.
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