Middle East
Middle East
Fair Observer provides inclusive, insightful and contextual analysis of the Middle East with its manifold cultures and civilizations.
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360° Analysis / Blockade / Border Crossing / Catherine Thick / Children / Egypt / gaza strip / Gaza War 2009 / Hamas / Health Clinic / IDF / Israel / Palestine / Peter Smith / Politics / UN Report / Global Change / Middle EastOver the past five years, humanitarian health workers Peter Smith and Catherine Thick have visited the Gaza Strip and the West Bank numerous times, providing health clinics and witnessing the everyday lives of the local population. The suffering they have seen in Gaza has prompted them to share their experiences, and call for a just and equitable peace between Israel and Palestine. This is the last of a two part series. Read part 1 here. Medical Inadequacies and the Lost Generation In 2010, we visited Al-Shifa Hospital. It had holes in the walls, no windows, old and broken-down equipment and few sufficiently trained surgeons. An exhausted doctor there remarked: “Additional...
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360° Analysis / April 6th / Arab Spring / Cairo Art / Egyptian Revolution / Egyptian Uprising / Essam Hanafi / Hosni Mubarak / Makhlouf / Marie-Jeanne Berger / Arts & Culture / Middle East / AfricaMarie-Jeanne Berger looks at the (post)revolutionary art scene rising from the streets of downtown Cairo. I’ll Die Anyways “I feel lucky that I as an artist haven’t been persecuted during the time of Mubarak,” says Egyptian cartoonist Makhlouf. “Not like [assassinated Palestinian cartoonist] Naji al-Ali, or [imprisoned and released illustrator] Essam Hanafi. But I also think that if it happened, it means you are stronger than them. I’ll die anyways. If I die and am influential in society, that’s okay.” Makhlouf, who uses only his first name, is the co-founder of Tok Tok, an illustrated magazine. The publication is one of many local initiatives...
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360° Analysis / Ahmed Shaheed / Diplomacy / EU / Iran / Iran Review / Mahmoudreza Golshanpazhooh / Nuclear Program / Politics / Sanctions / United Nations Security Council / United States / Universal Declaration of Human Rights / Middle EastSanctions against Iran have negatively impacted the lives of the Iranian people, and they continue to do so despite lacking a legal foundation. If we recognize the inhumanity and illegality of sanctions, we can better understand the Iranian government’s response to them. During the past three decades, sanctions have been the main hallmark of the United States’ policy toward Iran. However, the imposition of European Union (EU) sanctions and the involvement of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the issue of sanctions are relatively new developments, beginning only in 2006. These developments have had a significantly negative impact on Iranian society and its citizens....
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360° Analysis / al-Sweady Inquiry / Basra / British Army / Colleen Boland / Hamid al-Sweady / Iraq / Iraq War / Lord Chilcot's Iraq War Inquiry / Politics / Europe / Middle EastAs an inquiry into allegations of torture and killing of civilians by the British Army in Iraq begins to hear witness testimony, Colleen Boland looks at the pluses and minuses in the practice of public inquiry. Recently, several public inquiries in the UK have peaked interest with broad and provocative subject matter that trump the more routine investigations. Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry purported to consider the decision-making before, during and after the Iraq War, and the Leveson Inquiry was a self-described investigation into the “Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press”. Most recently, the al-Sweady Inquiry hit the headlines as witnesses testify to unlawful...
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360° Analysis / Alawite / Assad / Carl Anthony Wege / Civil War / Hezbollah / Iran / Iraq / Politics / Popular Committees / Resistance Axis / Revolutionary Guard / Sectarianism / Shia / Sunni / Syria / Middle East / Global SecurityCarl Anthony Wege, a renowned expert on the Levant region, decodes the complex sectarian dynamics behind the conflict in Syria and argues that the Syrian linchpin in the Shia crescent has vanished. The modern borders of Near Eastern states stretching across the Levant reflect little more than arbitrary remnants of 19th Century Western politics. Sometimes with intentionality, European colonial powers drew borders that ignored ethnic groups and natural boundaries, creating a politically unstable sectarian and geographic admixture. Syria’s Complex Sectarian Identities That unstable admixture exploded with the boiling ambition of both secular revolutionaries and Sunni Islamists into...
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1991 Gulf War / 360° Analysis / AIPAC / al-Qaeda / Congress / Ehud Barak / George W. Bush / Iraq / Iraq War / Israel Lobby / Neoconservatives / Politics / Saddam Hussein / Stephen Zunes / terrorism / United States / US Imperialism / WMD / Middle East / Global SecurityStephen Zunes argues that the blame for the Iraq war should not be put on the Israel lobby, but the Bush administration and US imperialism. This is the first of a two part series. Given the enormous tragedy of the US invasion of Iraq, the war's tenth anniversary has inevitably raised the question of “why?” As many of us predicted in the lead-up to the war, the official rationales for the US invasion of Iraq — namely, that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” and had operational ties to al-Qaeda — were false. And the corrupt, inept, and repressive sectarian government the United States helped establish in Baghdad has undermined any...
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360° Analysis / Asian Football Development Project / Assad / IMF / Jordan / King Abdullah / Politics / Qatar / Refugees / Saudi Arabia / Soccer / Syria / UN / Water Crisis / Zatari Refugee Camp / Middle East / Global SecurityA groundswell of Syrian refugees pouring into Jordan threatens to increase social and political tension as a result of greater claims to limited resources and differing perceptions of refugees’ rights and obligations. The risk for Jordan is heightened by the fact that it could upset King Abdullah’s cautious reform policy aimed at preventing widespread discontent from morphing into a popular revolt. The unending flow of Syrian refugees into Jordan has placed acute pressure on the kingdom’s ability to cope with the crisis. It threatens to increase social and political tension as a result of increased claims to limited resources and differing perceptions of refugees’...
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360° Analysis / Barack Obama / Chuck Hagel / Congress / Holocaust / Israel / Israel Lobby / Jewish Vote / John Mearsheimer / Palestine / PLO / Politics / Ronald Reagan / Stephen Walt / United States / United States / Middle EastJerome Slater analyzes the power of the Israel lobby and argues that US support for Israel is the result of the convergence of a wide range of factors, not solely determined by the Israel lobby. In light of Israeli rigidity and continuing expansion into the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it is clear that there is no chance for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement in the absence of serious and sustained US pressures on Israel. Mere verbal admonitions and even diplomatic pressures would almost certainly be insufficient, for nothing would be likely to bring about a radical change in Israeli policies short of a simple and blunt message from the Obama...
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360° Analysis / Blockade / Border Crossing / Catherine Thick / Children / Egypt / gaza strip / Gaza War 2009 / Hamas / Health Clinic / IDF / Israel / Palestine / Peter Smith / Politics / UN Report / Global Change / Middle EastOver the past five years, humanitarian health workers Peter Smith and Catherine Thick have visited the Gaza Strip and the West Bank numerous times, providing health clinics and witnessing the everyday lives of the local population. The suffering they have seen in Gaza has prompted them to share their experiences, and call for a just and equitable peace between Israel and Palestine. This is the first of a two part series. After passing through the Israeli crossing into the Gaza Strip at Erez, and having walked in a long cage through no man's land, we were waiting for a car to take us to the Hamas border control when a bomb exploded uncomfortably close. An old man sitting on the ground...