Geography Archives: Middle East

  • From Palestine to Pelican Bay

    On October 7th, 2011, 10 days into hunger strikes across California State and Israeli occupation prisons, Palestinian, formerly incarcerated, Jewish Anti-Zionist, and other activists demonstrated in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City. Solidarity with Prisoners, from California to Palestine For more information about the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, visit <www.ijsn.net/home/>, and about the US […]

  • What Happens If the Call for “International Protection” of Protesters in Syria Gets Answered?

    (1) “We Call for Foreign Intervention” (2) But if the call gets answered. . . . Ibrahim Jaza is a Syrian cartoonist.  Cf. “US State Department tool Radwan Ziadeh today called for a war on Syria.  Speaking on Aljazeera’s prime-time, evening newscast ‘daily harvest’, Washington’s favorite Syrian ‘human rights activist’ did not actually utter the […]

  • Egypt: Mobs and Army Attack Coptic Protesters

    “A march of 10,000 Copts began today from Shubra to the State TV building in Maspero turned violent when protesters were attacked by stone throwing mobs from on top of the surrounding walls while they were trying to cross the Shubra tunnel.  A 15-minute battle ensued as the Coptic protesters fought back and hurled stones […]

  • Michel Kilo: A Voice of Courage in Syria

    Michel Kilo has spent decades in the opposition, dedicated to politics despite his prison experiences.  Naturally he raised his voice for the Syrian intifada, and yet he has remained independent, distancing himself from many opposition parties and especially from the external opposition fronts formed abroad. Michel Kilo stands out in Syrian politics for his unfailing […]

  • Before October: The Unbearable Romanticism of Western Marxism

    Most Western Marxists suffer from a deep resentment: they have never experienced a successful communist revolution.  For some unaccountable reason, all of those successful revolutions have happened in the ‘East’: Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, Vietnam and so on.  And none of the few revolutions in the ‘West’, from Finland to Germany, […]

  • On the Tenth Anniversary of NATO’s War and Occupation of Afghanistan

      Hi everyone, I would like to thank all supporters and anti-war movements around the world who are marking the dark day of occupation of the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan. Respected friends — ten years ago the U.S. and NATO invaded my country under the fake banners of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy. […]

  • Libya: NATO Provides the Bombs; The French “Left” Provides the Ideology

      Last April, former Le Monde diplomatique director Ignacio Ramonet published (in Mémoire des Luttes) a text entitled “Libya, the Just and the Unjust.”  The war had been started a few weeks earlier, inaugurated by French aircraft which had the honor of dropping the first bombs on Tripoli.  On March 19, “a wave of pride […]

  • Zainab al-Hosni, the “Flower of Syria,” Alive and on TV: Will Human Rights Organizations and Mass Media Issue Corrections?

    Zainab al-Hosni, dubbed the “Flower of Syria,” who the Syrian opposition claimed was tortured and murdered, burned and decapitated, by the Syrian government, has just appeared on Syrian TV, very much alive.  Here is the video of the TV interview with Zainab, who says she fled from her family home because her brothers were beating […]

  • The Terrorist Attack in Syria

    Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun On October 2, near the University of Ebla in Idlib province, gunmen shot dead the son of the Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun — Saria Hassoun, a student of the university.  A victim of the attack also was Professor Mohammad al Omar. […]

  • Yet Another Syrian Exile Opposition Council

    So, yesterday, it was announced in Istanbul that yet another exile opposition group was formed.  It has no head.  There were conflicts among the various constituent groups. But I will tell you this lesson from Arab contemporary history: there has never been a case in which leftists or secularists were aligned with fundamentalists (Sunni or […]

  • Egypt: Political Parties in Service to SCAF

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, “The Arab Counterrevolution” (New York Review of Books, 29 September 2011); Hatem Maher, “Egypt’s Revolution Youth on the Backfoot as Parties Steal Limelight” (Ahram Online, 2 October 2011); “Political parties and movements across the spectrum are deeply divided over the meeting on Saturday […]

  • Syria’s Path to Reforms: An Obstacle Course

    Hamid Karout is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published in Tishreen on 8 August 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. . | Print

  • CCR Condemns Targeted Assassination of U.S. Citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki

    CCR Cites a Lack of Adherence to Constitutional and International Laws That Afford Due Process Today, in response to the news that a missile attack by an American drone aircraft had killed U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which had previously brought a challenge in federal court to the legality […]

  • Bahrain’s al-Wefaq, Pressured by Regional Players to Compromise

      Bahrain’s largest opposition group is resisting grassroots demands for renewed full-scale street protests amid regional pressure to strike a compromise solution with the regime. Al-Wefaq and other Bahraini opposition groups boycotted the country’s parliamentary by-elections last Saturday.  But al-Wefaq did not support the latest calls for demonstrations at Pearl Square and may be pushing […]

  • The Military Intervention in Libya and the Growing Threat against Syria

      Address to the 66th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 26 September 2011 Excerpt: As early as the 21st of February, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz had warned that NATO was inexorably preparing a war against Libya.  Since then, Cuba has indefatigably engaged in the defense not of a government […]

  • Call to Action: Support Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike!

      Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons issued a statement on Sunday, September 25, 2011, stating that they plan to begin an open-ended hunger strike on September 27, 2011, demanding an end to the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat, an end to isolation for all Palestinian political prisoners, and an end to the policies of repression […]

  • Elections in Bahrain: The Latest Ruse to Feign Democratic Change and Cover Up Continuing Repression

      Elections held in Bahrain over the weekend are the latest ruse by the regime to feign democratic change.  While the charade of ballot box rituals is taking place, the trial of health workers expected to appear in court this week is a fresh reminder that repression in the kingdom is far from over.  It […]

  • Turkey: Protest against the Missile Shield in Kürecik

    “The ‘Initiative against the Missile Shield in Kürecik’ carried their struggle against the Early Warning Radar System as part of the NATO Missile Shield to the heart of Istanbul.  About 500 people joined the protest march from Taksim to the Galatasaray Square on Sunday (25 September).  The action alliance demonstrated against installing the radar in […]

  • WFTU: ‘Support People, Oppose Imperialist Interference in Arab Countries’

      The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) organised on September 13-14 a two-day international trade union meet in the European Parliament complex in Strasbourg, France, to express solidarity with the fighting people of Arab countries and voice strong protest against the hegemonic interference of US imperialism and its European allies in the internal affairs […]

  • Change at Al Jazeera

      The Western and Arabic press is full of stories about Al Jazeera and the new direction it will inevitably follow with the selection of a new director-general for its operating networks.  The ouster (the official statement did not mention resignation) of Waddah Khanfar has opened doors for speculation.  No one really knows what goes […]