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Tag: Middle East

Not only a tool to justify U.S. and Israeli intervention, the label is increasingly dividing Iranian society from within.

Alex Shams

The new government’s greatest challenge may be rebuilding a just society in the aftermath of barbaric state violence.

Joelle M. Abi-Rached

While the U.S.–Israel alliance has become isolated, new ones are emerging.

Helena Cobban

How Zionism’s dreams of liberation became entangled with colonialism.

Barnett R. Rubin

Any peace will depend on a sober assessment of Hamas.

Helena Cobban

Amid ongoing reporting and ethical outrage, we need context for the fight between Hamas and Israel—and how it shapes possibilities for peace.

Rajan Menon

In Palestine and Kurdistan, promising experiments in self-determination draw on the region’s pluralist history.

Omar Dajani, Aslı U. Bâli

From street demonstrations to song, dance, film, and poetry, women are advancing a long legacy of struggle against authoritarianism in Iran.

Nojang Khatami

Noam Chomsky on lies, crimes, and savage capitalism.

Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian

Far from a metaphysical battle between fanaticism and tolerance, the Rushdie affair exemplifies the marketization of hurt sentiments.

Faisal Devji

Accounts still get the history of Palestinian diplomacy wrong.

Helena Cobban
On Ashura, Shi’a Muslims grieve the Prophet’s grandson. But with Iran crippled by COVID-19 and U.S. sanctions, it was also an occasion this year to mourn the country’s deaths from disease and despair.
Nargol Aran

The explosion was only the latest tragedy in the city’s long decline.

Helena Cobban

In the wake of the devastating port explosion, civil society has shown the way forward—filling the void of a nonexistent and incapacitated state.

Joelle M. Abi-Rached

In a world imperiled by global pandemic, it is long past time to put an end to sanctions—including new ones against Iran—and to reconstruct U.S. foreign policy around international solidarity.

Aslı U. Bâli, Aziz Rana

In linking the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Trump invokes a fantasy of poetic justice—positioning himself as Rambo, the avenger of American humiliation abroad.

Bonnie Honig
Donald Trump's “maximum pressure” strategy is doomed to fail, especially as tensions rise between Iran and the United States.
Masoud Movahed

Under the guise of fighting hate speech, the ADL has a long history of wielding its moral authority to attack Arabs, blacks, and queers.

Emmaia Gelman

For a two-state solution to succeed, Israeli Jews must first forswear their righteous narrative of moral superiority.

Jeremy Pressman

With Assad preparing a major offensive on the last rebel stronghold, the United States must offer a path forward. 

Aslı U. Bâli, Aziz Rana

In a bid to consolidate power, Erdoğan is reshaping Turkish politics in the image of the Ottoman past.

M. Hakan Yavuz

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