Geography Archives: Middle East

The fact that the corrupt Ma’mun Al-Humsi is a member of the council reveals a lot about its corruption and about its control by the House of Saud and Hariri Inc.   Ma’mun Humsi once said that the Hariri family does not buy people.  Enough said. As’ad AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California […]

  “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s my fault.  Israel’s PR failure is on my account.  But after you forbid us from protesting, after you pass the law, everything will be different here.  The entire world would know that Israel is a magnificent democracy.  Tourism and trade will flourish.  Anywhere Israelis go, everybody will know that […]

But revolts, to become revolutionary advances, will have to overcome many obstacles: on the one hand they will have to overcome the weaknesses of the movement, construct a positive convergence of its components, formulate and implement effective strategies; on the other they will have to defeat the interventions (including military interventions) of the imperialist triad. […]

No one knows the precise plans of the Palestinian Authority vis-a-vis September: will Mahmoud Abbas declare a Palestinian state within recognized borders and ask that it be admitted as a full member of the UN — or not?  Perhaps Abbas himself does not know.  Now political leaders often make decisions alone or in consultation with […]

The anti-colonial struggle in the third world countries had brought together workers, peasants, agricultural labourers, artisans, middle class intellectuals, and even the national bourgeoisie into one camp, demanding decolonisation.  This was a reflection of the fact that colonialism, or imperialism (if one uses the term in an inclusive sense to refer to all stages of […]

  Executive Summary: According to witnesses who work at Classic Fashion, scores of young Sri Lankan women sewing clothing for Wal-Mart and Hanes have suffered routine sexual abuse and repeated rapes, and in some cases even torture.  One young rape victim at the Classic factory in Jordan told us her assailant, a manager, bit her, […]

Provocative suggestion: Obama’s increasingly desperate efforts to abrogate Bush’s Dec 31 withdrawal deadline and continue the military occupation may reflect, among other considerations, the need to protect the US drilling companies’ business. . . . American drilling companies stand to make tens of billions of dollars from the new petroleum activity in Iraq long before […]

  Much of the commentary in the Arabic media in recent days has focused on the realignments taking place across the Middle East as a result of the various Arab uprisings. Ammar Nehmeh, an occasional columnist at the Beirut-based leftist daily As-Safir, wrote that forces that traditionally resist U.S. policy in the region, and that […]

  Most of the time, as soon as I mention that I am a feminist activist, I am immediately hit with a question: “Why?  What’s wrong with the situation of women in Lebanon?  What could a woman want?  She has all her rights and more, she is treated with respect, with dignity.  She controls her […]

Ragia Omran, Lawyer for “No to Military Trials”: They (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) consider the country as under “martial law.”  They haven’t announced it officially, but this is the justification they use for the use of military trials for civilians. Mona Seif, Activist for “No to Military Trials”: The first demand is […]

Seldom it is that the Russian Foreign Ministry chooses a Sunday to issue a formal statement.  Evidently, something of extreme gravity arose for Moscow to speak out urgently.  The provocation was the appearance of a United States guided missile cruiser in the Black Sea for naval exercises with Ukraine.  The USS Monterrey cruiser equipped with […]

Friday, 17 June 2011, 5:30 PM, in front of the Saudi Embassy in Beirut Women Driving in KSA If you’re not in Lebanon, organize similar events in your country. For more information, go to .  Cf. “Saudi Women: ‘I Will Drive Myself Starting June 17′” (Jadaliyya, 12 May 2011). | Print

An advertisement for America’s nuclear industry from the 1970s Seymour Hersh, the acclaimed journalist who, in 1970, won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and has subsequently broken many other important stories dealing with America’s foreign and national security policies (e.g., prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib), has published his most […]

  Jean Bricmont: There’s no limit to how crazy they can be.  They haven’t finished the war with Libya, which was supposed to last days, not weeks, not months.  Now it’s been months, they say another three months.  So they haven’t even finished Libya yet, and they are maybe going to go to another war […]

  Today, with the declaration of “Day of the Clans,” it becomes obligatory for one to distance oneself from the dominant reactionary forces within the Syrian opposition.  It is clear that the same reactionary forces that have been at the heart of the Iraqi opposition under occupation are there in the Syrian opposition.  What about […]

On June 1, a week past her 31st birthday, civil rights activist Catrina Wallace was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.  This was a first arrest for Wallace, a single mother who became politically active when her brother was arrested in the case that later became known as the “Jena Six.”  Wallace was part of […]

  RIA Novosti Russia is against any UN resolution on Syria as the situation in the country is not threatening to global security, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday. Britain and France submitted a new draft resolution on Syria on Wednesday.  The UN Security Council will vote on the document in the next […]

  Statement by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Society Palestinian queer activists from Al Qaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, Aswat — Palestinian Gay Women, and PQBDS (Palestinian Queers for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) have issued a joint statement on June 1st 2011 calling on organizations, groups and […]

According to the New York Times, a quarter of the passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza are Jewish. What does it mean that the U.S. Boat to Gaza is a quarter Jewish?  According to the noted American Jewish commentator Adam Sandler, a quarter Jewish is “not too shabby!”  Maybe the U.S. Boat to Gaza […]

An old story from Istanbul in the Ottoman era mentions a Turkish imam who killed a Christian and confessed the crime, whereupon he was advised by the judge to talk things over with the mufti who told him privately that a good Muslim never admitted felony against infidels and he should simply recant his confession.  […]