Geography Archives: Syria

Like the star gazers who last week watched the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, diplomatic observers had a field day watching the penumbra of big power politics involving the United States, Russia and China, which constitutes one of the crucial phenomena of 21st-century world politics. It all began with United States Vice […]

There are many problems with the Campaign for Peace and Democracy’s “Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis,” issued by the CPD on July 7, and widely circulated since then.1 The CPD adopted this format, it tells us, because “some on the left, and others as well, have questioned the legitimacy of and the need […]

There is a difference between the outlook of a secular generation of Iranian youth, yearning for a life in which religion (in the form of a clergy directing a theological state) refrains from meddling in their personal lives and individual fates as citizens, and the foreign and domestic policy considerations of the reformist trend.  A […]

Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation.  Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has […]

  Dietrich Eichholtz.  Krieg um Öl: Ein Erdölimperium als deutsches Kriegsziel 1938-1943.  Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2006.  141 pp.  ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4; EUR 19.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4. Dietrich Eichholtz does not mince words.  From the first page of this powerfully argued book, his underlying argument is clear: “The imperialist interest in oil played a role in the […]

June 4, 2009 Chomsky, whose recent books include Interventions and The Essential Chomsky, sent the following to the Institute for Public Accuracy this morning: “A CNN headline, reporting Obama’s plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads ‘Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.’   Perhaps that captures his intent, but more […]

  “Fetishism: the Key to Sensuality”; “Is Cannibalism a New Religion?”; “Syrian Lingerie”; “I Am Gay, Therefore I Do Not Exist.” . . .  With such a table of contents, Jasad (“body” in Arabic), a Lebanese, Arabic-language, cultural quarterly “specializing in the art, literature, and science of the body,” might be mistaken for an unidentified […]

The Citizenship and Entry in Israel Law (Temporary Order), enacted in 2003, is a racist law that bans family unification between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as any citizen from the following states defined by Israel as “enemy” states: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Adalah […]

  General Statistics — 2008-2009 Data is presented below regarding detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons, as collected from various sources. As of January 2009, approximately 22,500 individuals were imprisoned or detained in Israeli prisons; around 70% of those individuals are Arabs.1 Palestinian prisoners and detainees holding Israeli citizenship (January 2009) Security classification Criminal classification […]

Rights and labor groups say almost all the estimated 300,000 Syrians working in Lebanon have no official status, often endure dangerous conditions, and earn about US$300 a month doing jobs shunned by most Lebanese. In 2006, the Labor Ministry issued just 471 work permits to Syrian nationals, meaning the remainder worked unregistered.  According to 2008 […]

Jamal Dajani: A war of words between the Egyptian government and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has escalated after Egypt’s public prosecutor recently ordered 49 people held for plotting attacks on behalf of Hezbollah be kept in custody for an additional 15 days. The 49 suspects include Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese.  They were reportedly arrested […]

The home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees for over half a century, Syria has since 2003 taken in over 1 million Iraqi refugees.  The International Crisis Group estimates that 57% of Iraqis in Syria are affected by chronic medical conditions and a late 2007 survey conducted by IPSOS found depression and anxiety highly […]

During his speech, the Venezuelan head of state insisted that “the agreements not remain on paper” as in previous years.  He condemned the arrest warrant on the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, issued by the International Criminal Court “by order of the United States” and stressed the need to create a currency to confront the […]

A legal battle being waged by Palestinian families to stop the takeover of their neighborhood in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers has received a major fillip from the recent souring of relations between Israel and Turkey. After the Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip in January, lawyers for the families were given access to […]

Peter Wien.   Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian, and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941.   SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East Series.  London: Routledge, 2006.  x + 162 pp.  $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-36858-2; $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-46182-5. Sometimes — when read against the backdrop of a particular time and place — a book resonates beyond the immediate […]

In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and […]

The election of Barrak Obama to the office of president of the United States has generated tremendous elation and enthusiasm in the U.S. and around the world.  The rise of Obama has been accompanied by the rise of hope and anticipation that a new and better world is about to begin.  Some Obama enthusiasts have […]

Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, published a “strategic analysis” of the Gaza massacre shortly after it ended.  He reaches the remarkable conclusion that “Israel did not violate the laws of war.”  The report is based on “briefings in Israeli [sic] during and immediately after the […]

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government.  Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year.  Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without […]

  “Supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination is a duty of Israeli communists.” The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and its front Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) were the only political forces in Israel that confronted the massacre perpetrated by the Tzahal (IDF), the Israeli armed forces, in Gaza last January.  Regrettably, […]