Geography Archives: Middle East

  Rosiland Jordan: In a Mississippi Delta neighborhood known as Baptist Town, the people have needed a miracle here for a long time now.  Good-paying manufacturing jobs that were once here vanished long before the current economic crisis, and with them so did a lifeline. Sylvester Hoover, Greenwood Merchant and Music Historian: Those people who […]

  Paul Jay: So there’s a lot of talk about the growth and expansion in India and China, and especially India these days.  We’re hearing again about the Indian miracle.  Whose miracle is it, anyway?  And is it such? Jayati Ghosh: No, it’s not actually a miracle.  First of all, let me clarify.  India and […]

By now it has been well established that the teabaggers are by and large rich white men who are implacably opposed to pro-working-class economic policy, real or imagined.  It turns out that they are not even libertarians à la Ron Paul, Reason Magazine, or the Cato Institute — they are just a bunch of hawks […]

“April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, is an important commemoration for the Palestinian people.  Over 30% of Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel, and there are more than 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently languishing in Israeli jails.  Israeli abuses of power further include administrative detentions, i.e. those without charges or trial, juvenile incarceration, and torture and […]

National Security Adviser James Jones was the headline speaker at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy‘s 25th-anniversary gala dinner in Washington last night.  Substantively, General Jones’ speech focused on “two defining challenges” confronting the United States and its allies in the region: “preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, […]

Watching the news in August 2009, you may have heard about three U.S. citizens being detained in Iran.  Arrested for allegedly crossing the Iran-Iraq border on July 31, 2009, they remain in detention nine months later in Iran’s Evin prison.  Dubbed “the hikers” due to the fact that they were on a hiking trip in […]

Christianity Fair and Foul The Limits of Liberalism Faith and Reason Culture and Barbarism . . . Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?  Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism or […]

  We asked queers in our city to tell us why they are against Israeli apartheid.  Here’s what they said. Video by Alexis Mitchell * * * Editor’s Note: QuAIA has come under attack by the pro-Israel lobby and Toronto city bureaucrats: “An April 18, 2010 feature story in the Toronto Star revealed that City […]

Thank you.  Thank you for the invitation, and, as we don’t have much time, let me go straight to some of the main points supporting this motion “Europe is failing its Muslims.”   Let me start by saying that we are living in a difficult situation.  If you listen to what is said in the European […]

Palestinians are in Israel today because they managed to survive the depopulation of 1948, the year the Jewish state was founded (Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel’s population).  Ironically, while Benny Morris’ scholarship suggests that the mere existence of these Palestinians in Israel — and millions more in the occupied territories — irks him, Israel’s […]

Another Kind of Volcano: Part 1 “It’s a pity that there is no active volcano in Israel.” “Why?” “To discharge a cloud of ashes in its airspace.” “And then?” “The country would be subjected to a total aerial blockade.” “You mean, like Gaza?” “Not at all.  The blockade of Gaza is comprehensive, by air, by […]

  Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.  […]

Tonight you celebrate the independence day of the state of Israel.  I do not. You probably believe that the Jews deserve a state, that the Holocaust survivors and their children had a right to a safe home of their own, and that the Land of Israel is the natural and legitimate place to fulfill the […]

My first thought upon reading the Chicago Council’s report “Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy” is that the title is misleading.  This report is not about engaging religious communities abroad — one hears little if at all from such communities — nor does it say anything particularly new.  There is, […]

New Orleans’ Black and transgender community members and advocates complain of rampant and systemic harassment and discrimination from the city’s police force, including sexual violence and arrest without cause.  Activists hope that public outrage at recent revelations of widespread police violence and corruption offer an opportunity to make changes in police behavior and practice. On […]

During the military parade on Army Day in Iran, what looks very much like an Iranian variant of the Russian S-300 air defense system was on display. In 2007, Tehran announced that it signed a contract to buy S-300 from Russia, but Moscow, lobbied by Washington and Tel Aviv, has not delivered, citing “technical problems.”  […]

Actions against the inauguration of Ben-Gurion Promenade by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and Israeli President Shimon Peres, Paris, 15 April 2010 Activists successfully disrupted the official ceremony, while the Arc de Triomphe was covered by a giant Palestinian flag.   Among the young activists who organized the actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people were […]

  There is an embarrassing giddiness in the religious studies world today.  With our new mantra in hand — the new “salience” of religion — we, both scholars of religion and other self-appointed spokespersons for religion, feel licensed to instruct the world on the importance of religion.  We are suddenly relevant again.  Or so we […]

I would like to welcome the honorable guests who have gathered here.  It is a pleasure for the Islamic Republic of Iran to be the host of the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament today.  I hope this occasion will be an opportunity to yield enduring and important results from your dialogues and discussions for the […]

Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee calls on the United Nations Security Council and other UN bodies to oppose the US President’s nuclear policy and his threat against an NPT signatory which does not have nuclear weapons.  Below is a letter that Khazaee sent to UN Security Council President Yukio Takasu, UN General Assembly President Ali […]