Middle East Watch

475 articles :

• The delusions of Bashar al-Assad

  3 avril 2011, par Lamis Andoni
  Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, insists on believing that his support for the ’resistance against Israel’ distinguishes his regime from others in the region and, therefore, makes it immune to the revolutions that have brought down pro-Western presidents in Tunisia and Egypt. His support for Hamas and Hezbollah may make the Syrian president more popular among Arabs, but he is engaged in dangerous delusions if he thinks this makes the killings of peaceful Syrian protesters less (...)  suite
  

• Moral bankruptcy in Libya war

  1 April 2011, by Hamid Dabashi
  In Gabriel García Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) one of the outlandish (literally) antics of the General of the Universe is the selling of the Caribbean Sea to Americans who have kept the demented monster in power. "Your excellency, the regime was not being sustained by hope or conformity or even by terror, but by the pure inertia of an ancient and irreparable disillusion, go out into the street and look truth in the face, your excellency, we’re on the final curve, either the (...)  continue
  

• Palestine and the Power of Civil Society

  21 March 2011, by Ramzy Baroud
  The global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and other related campaigns were aimed at exposing Israeli transgressions against the Palestinian people and galvanising international solidarity. What is so uplifting is to see how their achievements have far surpassed these initial aims. The campaigns have animated, accentuated and actually legitimised Palestinian civil society — a notion that long stood outside the official paradigm acceptable to Israel, and which (...)  continue
  

• «الشعب يريد تطبيق الدستور!»

  9 آذار (مارس) 2011, بقلم فواز طرابلسي
  كثير من المشاركين في تظاهرات الأسبوعين الأخيرين لا يتذكرون أن النظام الطائفي الذين يدعون إلى إسقاطه «يحتفل» بالذكرى المائة والخمسين لتأسيسه هذا العام. لنتذكر معهم: استولده قناصل الدول الست عام ١٨٦١. وهو يحكمنا منذ ذلك الحين. أي أن النظام الطائفي في لبنان أقدم نظام حكم عربي بامتياز. هو أقدم من الأسرة الهاشمية الأردنية والأسرة السعودية والاحتلال الإسرائيلي لفلسطين وأطول عمراً من ولايات القذافي وقابوس وحسني مبارك وعلي عبد الله صالح مجتمعين. ما يعلمه الشباب الذين خرجوا في تظاهرات الأسبوعين الماضيين أن ما أنزلهم إلى الشارع هو ضيق صدرهم عموماً بنظام اجتماعي (...)  تتمة
  

• Pourquoi la Syrie ne tremble pas ?

  9 mars 2011, par Bachir El -KHOURY
  Outre les facteurs sociopolitiques et les antécédents de répression violente, la gestion de la transition économique, amorcée par le parti Baas syrien en 2005, et l’essor que connaît le pays depuis un certain temps semblent constituer une soupape de sécurité pour le régime de Damas contre le phénomène de renversement, par la rue, de régimes dans le monde arabe. Éclairage. Orchestré ou pas par certaines puissances étrangères, le « printemps arabe » - ce vent de liberté qui souffle pour la première fois (...)  suite
  

• A Middle East without borders?

  5 March 2011, by Mohammed Khan
  The modern geography of the Middle East was carved out by British and French colonialists whose sole interest was in sharing the spoils of war between themselves and in maintaining their supremacy over the region in the early part of the 20th century. The contours of the region, with its immaculately straight lines (see maps of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan) are much the same today as when they were first drawn up, despite decades of cross-border encroachment and conflict. Never has an (...)  continue
  

• Intifada Beyond Palestine

  25 February 2011, by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
  Remember the neoconservatives’ plan of “domino effect” following the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq? It was supposed to be followed by the toppling of other “unfriendly” heads of “rogue states” such as those ruling Iran and Syria who do not cater to the US-Israeli interests in the Middle East. It was not meant to threaten the “friendly” regimes that rule Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and their cohorts that have been firmly aligned with the (...)  continue
  

• The Libyan Labyrinth

  22 February 2011, by Vijay Prashad
  In 1969, Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi (age 27) surprised the aged King Idris, then in Turkey for medical treatment. Inspired by the Free Officers in Egypt, Qaddafi and his fellow Colonels force-marched the fragile Libyan State and even more fragile Libyan society into socialism. Libya’s main product was its oil, and by the time Idris was deposed the country exported three million barrels of oil per day. Scandalously, it received the lowest rent per barrel in the world. Idris feasted on the (...)  continue
  

• US vetoes UN draft on settlements

  19 February 2011,
  The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as "illegal" and called for an immediate halt to all settlement building. All 14 other Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution, which was backed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on Friday. Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador to the UN, speaking on behalf of his country, France and Germany, condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "They are illegal (...)  continue
  

• The US as Israel’s Enabler in the Middle East

  16 February 2011, by Kathleen Christison
  About ten days ago I had a particularly interesting discussion about Israel and its relationship to U.S. policy in the Middle East and to the events swirling there now, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. My interlocutor is one of the most astute commentators, particularly on U.S. policy, in the alternative media, but he made it clear that, to his mind, Israel does not play a role of any notable relevance to what the United States is doing in the region. I would say that he has a bit (...)  continue