Eric Cantor Loves the Tel Aviv Disco Scene
Michael Collins Dunn, Andrew Sullivan and Mondoweiss all have posts up about the fact that 19% of the House of Representatives will be taking time off from off from that minor economic crisis facing the US to spend time in Israel during the summer recess period. Interesting. Dunn: Since it’s August and nothing is going … Read more
Can the Salafis Win in Egypt?
A Salafi government in Egypt has been seen as unlikely by many – until, that is, the mass protest last week that brought hundreds of thousands of Islamists to Tahrir Square in a demonstration of strength. My first reaction concerned the separation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which attended the rally, from both the more conservative … Read more
Drunken Liberals Ruining Libya With Their Jets, and Parties and Other Unspeakably Immoral Things
So I am just getting around to the recent divisions within the rebels forces in Libya (more on that later), including the interview that Seif al-Islam al Qaddafi gave to the New York Times, in which the Brother Leader’s son claimed that he had reached an alliance with the Libyan Islamist movement led by Ali Sallabi. … Read more
Egypt’s Identification Crisis: Islamists in Tahrir
The massive protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo yesterday was certainly an eye-opener. The day was marked as a “Day of Unity” (after secular protesters refused to engage in the proposed “Day of Sharia,”) but it became evident after hundreds of thousands of Islamists, notably from the ultra-conservative Salafi groups, descended on the center of … Read more
What Will Ramadan do to the Opposition
Kal, over at the Moor Next Door, published some thoughts on how Ramadan, the Muslim holiday that will start on August 1st and run until August 29th, will change the nature of the Arab uprisings across the region. Kal focuses on the potential rise of Islamists in what has generally been a secular uprising, the … Read more
Killing Off a Dead Oslo
Akiva Eldar recently wrote a piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz, in which Eldar pushes for the end of the Oslo Accords and all of the false hope that comes with them. The Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 (Oslo 2 was signed in 1995) and a permanent final status agreement was to be agreed upon … Read more
Iran’s Position On Syrian Uprising
Since the outbreak of the now termed “Arab Spring” protests across the Arab World Iran has been actively supporting the protestors in their media except in two cases. The first and not as important case is Libya, which seems to stem more from a disdain of Western policy regarding the issue than a liking of … Read more
Book Review “Gaza in Crisis” by Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky
I completed this book yesterday so I figured I would give a review to people who like to read books about the Middle East and Palestine in particular. It takes two prominent authors Ilan Pappe (author of A History of Modern Palestine, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, etc) and Noam Chomsky (Hegemony or Survival, Manufacturing Consent, … Read more
Concern For the Future of Israel
There have been several published pieces lately that have given reason to worry about the future of the state of Israel. As someone who believes the biggest threat to Israel is the decay of democracy caused by an unending and ever-expanding occupation and repression of Palestinians, I find it disturbing that Israel is actively pushing … Read more
Imagine If…
If a 15-year-old African-American minor was abducted by a 28 year white man – after chasing the youth down in an open field in an ATV; if the man had stripped the youth and beat him with the butt of a rifle; if all this happened after the same white man slapped the youth and … Read more
