Geography Archives: Lebanon

  Frances Hasso.  Resistance, Repression, and Gender Politics in Occupied Palestine and Jordan.  Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East Series. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005.  ix + 231 pp.  Bibliography, index.  $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8156-3087-6. Frances Hasso makes abundantly clear what her book, Resistance, Repression, and Gender Politics in Occupied Palestine and Jordan, […]

This month the Bush administration finally blinked. After years of bluster about “staying the course” and “not rewarding evildoers by talking to them,” a shift in White House declarations indicated that failure is forcing even this President to adjust. First, about Iraq: Three months ago Bush was promising an imminent “Status of Forces Agreement” that […]

Responding to the Israeli voices and actions noisily advocating a preemptive strike against Iran, Ha-Aretz columnist Uzi Benziman (July 21, 2008) writes, “Before bombing Iran, it would be best [for Israel] to solve the conflict with the Palestinians.  By the way, there does appear to be a link between the two threats.”  While Benziman doesn’t […]

Adam Hanieh, “Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power: Part 1,” MRZine, 19 July 2008. Neoliberalism, the “New Middle East” and Palestine In the late 1960s, with the definitive collapse of British and French colonialism in the Middle East, the US rose to become the dominant imperial power within the region.  Because […]

In 2006, things seemed to be going badly for the U.S. military efforts in Iraq.  The Iraq war became a top issue in the 2006 Congressional elections in the United States.  It is generally agreed that the Republicans did poorly in those elections, largely because the U.S. electorate had become disillusioned with the viability and […]

He receives us at the door, at the entrance to a one-story house located on the hills of Damascus. No protocol, no security measure: we are not searched, nor are our recording devices inspected. “Here is the house where I read, where I work. There are only this room, a conference room, and a kitchen. And, of course, the Internet and television. My wife Asma often comes here, too. Here I am productive; at the presidential palace, that is not the case.” For nearly two hours, he covers all topics, without evading any question. He takes obvious pleasure in discussion and uses his hands to emphasize his arguments.

President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy.  In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the “Axis of Evil” — composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — […]

In his book entitled Silence of the Poor, French writer Henri Guillemin said that those who were the foundation of the victory of the Revolution of 1789, the urban and rural poor, including women, were excluded from politics by an electoral law giving the right to elect and be elected only to citizens who could […]

Across the Middle East, the Bush-Neocon post-9/11 project faces failure. In the last month alone, Washington has had to endure one humiliation after another: In Lebanon, the pro-U.S. government (prodded by Israel and/or Washington) announced a set of steps aimed at Hezbollah.  Hezbollah and the broader Lebanese opposition movement — which together represent the majority […]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s May 21 announcement that Israel and Syria will soon begin indirect negotiations in Istanbul, mediated by the Turkish government, should not have surprised anyone.  As Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha-Aretz (May 22, 2008), “exchanges [with Syria] have been ongoing for a long time.”  What seems to have changed is […]

Hezbollah is the big winner in the accord on Lebanon signed in Doha, Qatar. But everyone — including Washington — is welcoming this asymmetrical compromise. Why? Hard bargaining is underway. . . .

In the Middle East, neither the worst nor the best is ever certain. But what happened in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Wednesday, at 3 o’clock in the morning, is a historic event. The accord putting an end — for now — to the political crisis that tore Lebanon for the past eighteen months (and many more in fact) contains a tough lesson for the West: its weakened friends in Beirut had to bend themselves to the force of Hezbollah and its allies Amal, another Shi’i party, and the Christians led by Michel Aoun. The Party of God will enter the government without laying down its arms, as a minority with veto power.

The relative decline in violence in Iraq that Bush, McCain, and other supporters of the war have attributed to the “surge” appears to have reversed.  Al Qaeda and others in the Sunni resistance began stepping up their attacks at the beginning of the year and Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army has been battling US and […]

It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties.  Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country’s forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue. […]

“Even after fifty years of living the Palestinian exile I still find myself astonished at the lengths to which official Israel and its supporters will go to suppress the fact that a half century has gone by without Israeli restitution, recognition, or acknowledgment of Palestinian human rights and without, as the facts undoubtedly show, connecting […]

  A few hours after yesterday’s press conference of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, opposition fighters occupied the offices of the pro-government Future Movement of Hariri in Beirut, and battles focused on the Koraytem palace (Saad Hariri residence), which was hit by rockets, the Sérail (seat of the Siniora government), and the home of […]

The Student Muqtada al-Sadr has decided to take time out of his rebellion for studies.  The increasingly popular Iraqi nationalist and Shi’i religious leader, it was reported late last year, is seeking the title of Ayatollah (“Sign of God”).  Muqtada’s Iraqi supporters presently confer on him the title of Hujjat al-Islam (“Proof of Islam”), although […]

IF I AM NOT FOR MYSELF: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew by Mike MarquseeBUY THIS BOOK Your book is subtitled “Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew.”  Were you always an Anti-Zionist? No. I grew up, in the 1960s, in a left-wing household in a largely Jewish New York suburb — where Israel was seen as a […]

Unfortunately, influential American and Israeli opponents of Iran have been successful: using negative propaganda of the sort that claims that Iran has an intention to cause a nuclear holocaust and that a Third World War and “Islamic fascism” must be prevented, and tying the disaster of Iraq to Iran’s interference, they have turned Iran into […]

March is a cruel month in the recent history of the Middle East.  This year is the fifth anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by an Israeli soldier driving an armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on March 16, 2003 as she attempted to stop the gigantic vehicle from destroying the […]

  The recent beefing up of the US Navy in the Mediterranean has caused concern in Russia and some Mediterranean countries.  Experts believe the appearance of US warships off the coast of Syria and Lebanon presages a US military operation in the region. The recent deployment of the US Navy guided missile destroyer DDG 67 […]