MERIP
OP-EDS
Sects
and the City
New York Times Magazine
May 17, 2010
Moustafa Bayoumi
I
had almost forgotten I’d sent
in an application when the e-mail message
appeared, like Mr. Big, out of nowhere. “Hi,
Moustafa,” it began, as if we
were old friends. “Thank you
for e-mailing us regarding your interest
in working on ‘Sex and the City
2.’ ”
No
way. Last August, I half-jokingly answered
an e-mail message posted on a list-serv
requesting “lots of Middle Eastern
men and women” as extras for
the second “Sex and the City” movie
(opening this week). Although I must
have been one of the very few in the
tri-state area to possess all the talents
requested in the e-mail (legal to work,
Middle Eastern and between 18 and 70
years old), I still never thought I
would be selected. Two months later,
I got the call. Full
Story>>
A
Web Smaller Than a Divide
The New York Times
May 14, 2010
Sinan Antoon
At
first glance, there’s a clear
need for expanding the Web beyond the
Latin alphabet, including in the Arabic-speaking
world. According to the Madar Research
Group, about 56 million Arabs, or 17
percent of the Arab world, use the
Internet, and those numbers are expected
to grow 50 percent over the next three
years. Many think that an Arabic-alphabet
Web will bring millions online, helping
to bridge the socio-economic divides
that pervade the region. But such hopes
are overblown. Full
Story>>
A New Conversation
Peace
The
National (Abu Dhabi)
April
9, 2019
Chris Toensing
Iyad
Allawi, the not terribly popular
interim premier of post-Saddam Iraq,
is in a position to form a government
again because he won over the Sunni
Arabs residing north and west of
Baghdad in the March 7 elections.
The vote, while it did not “shove
political sectarianism in Iraq toward
the grave,” as Allawi would have
it, rekindled the hopes of many that “nationalist” sentiment
has asserted itself over communal
loyalty. Full Story>>
Arming Yemen
Against Al-Qaeda
The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
January 21, 2010
Sheila Carapico
Americans got a crash course on Yemen for Christmas.
That’s
because we’ve wanted to know more about the little-known, dirt-poor
country in southwestern Arabia where the “underwear bomber” who
tried to blow up a plane—bound for Detroit from Nigeria on
Christmas Day—says he was trained. President Barack Obama says,
correctly, that “large chunks” of Yemen “are not
fully under government control.” So it seems to make sense
to strengthen the Yemeni government, to get at “al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula,” as the local gang of Islamist extremists
is known. Full Story>>
Christmas is Bittersweet in Bethlehem
The Milford Daily News (Milford, MA)
December 24, 2009
George Rishmawi
Bethlehem,
Palestine is a special place to celebrate Christmas. It’s
home to the Church of the Nativity and the field where shepherds, tending
their flocks by night, spotted the star heralding Jesus’ birth.
But apart from the historical mystique, here in Bethlehem we celebrate
Christmas much like Christians throughout the world. We hang lights
from the rooftops. We erect a tree in Manger Square. We host a Christmas
market. Our children carol and perform Christmas pageants. Christmas
in Bethlehem, as elsewhere, is a time for family, peace, love and joy. Full
Story>>
More Troops Won't Do It
The Herald (New Britain, CT)
November 13, 2009
Chris Toensing
For
the past two months, President Barack Obama has been weighing Gen.
Stanley McChrystal’s request to send an additional 40,000 troops
to Afghanistan to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda.
That same effort, according to Obama, entails ensuring that the Taliban
can’t regain control of the country. But a military strategy
alone won’t beat al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Achieving lasting
stability in Afghanistan will require national political reconciliation,
the establishment of a functioning, accountable political system,
and a credible government. In this respect, the outcome of Afghanistan’s
presidential election, marred by cheating, was a step in the wrong
direction. Full
story>>
Fort Hood Shootings: Again We Will Be Judged for Acts We Didn't Commit
The Guardian
November 6, 2009
Moustafa Bayoumi
So
much is still unknown about the shooting at Fort Hood Army base and
the motives of the alleged shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, but still
I have that same queasy feeling in my stomach that I've had before:
this will not be good for Muslims. Full
Story>>
Western
Sahara Poser for UN
Reuters (Africa Blog)
April 28, 2009
Jacob Mundy
Morocco
serves as the backdrop for such Hollywood blockbusters as Gladiator,
Black Hawk Down and Body of Lies. The country’s breathtaking
landscapes and gritty urban neighbourhoods are the perfect setting
for Hollywood’s imagination.
Unbeknown
to most filmgoers, however, is that Morocco is embroiled in one of
Africa’s oldest conflicts - the dispute over Western
Sahara. This month the UN Security Council is expected to take up the
dispute once more, providing US President Barack Obama with an opportunity
to assert genuine leadership in resolving this conflict. But there’s
no sign that the new administration is paying adequate attention. Full
Story>>
Letters, He Gets Letters
Bitter Lemons International
March 26, 2009
Chris Toensing
Shortly
before assuming office, President Barack Obama was handed a missive
signed by such Washington luminaries as ex-national security advisers
Zbigniew Brezezinski and Brent Scowcroft, urging him to “explore
the possibility” of direct contact with Hamas. One month after
he entered the White House, Obama received an epistle from Ahmad Yousef,
a Gaza-based spokesman for the Islamist movement, making the same recommendation. “There
can be no peace without Hamas,” Yousef told the New York Times
when asked about the letter's contents. “We congratulated Mr.
Obama on his presidency and reminded him that he should live up to
his promise to bring real change to the region.”
There
is no word, as yet, on how the foreign policy doyens' message was
received, but Yousef's occasioned a huffy US rebuke of the UN Relief
Works Agency, whose top official in Gaza, Karen Abu Zayd, passed the
letter to Sen. John Kerry while he was visiting the devastated territory
in mid-February. Even a single sealed envelope, it seems, creates the
appearance that the Obama administration is breaking with the US vow,
enunciated first under President George W. Bush, not to speak with
Hamas until it agrees to renounce violence, abide by previous Palestinian
agreements with Israel and recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Full
Story>>
Elections
Are Key to Darfur Crisis
The Montreal Gazette
March 7, 2009
Khalid Medani
It
has been quite a week. For the first time, the international community
indicted a sitting president of a sovereign state. Omar al-Bashir
of Sudan stands accused by the International Criminal Court in The
Hague of "crimes against humanity and war crimes" committed
in the course of the Khartoum regime's brutal suppression of the
revolt in the country's far western province of Darfur. Having indicted
two other figures associated with the regime in 2007, ICC prosecutor
Luis Moreno Ocampo began building a case against the man at the top,
and on Wednesday, the court issued a warrant for Bashir's arrest.
Full Story>>
Out of the Rubble
The National
January 23, 2009
Mouin Rabbani
Speaking
to his people on January 18, hours after Hamas responded to Israel’s
unilateral suspension of hostilities with a conditional ceasefire
of its own, the deposed Palestinian Authority prime minister Ismail
Haniyeh devoted several passages of his prepared text to the subject
of Palestinian national reconciliation. For perhaps the first time
since Hamas’s June 2007 seizure of power in the Gaza Strip,
an Islamist leader broached the topic of healing the Palestinian divide
without mentioning Mahmoud Abbas by name.
At
a press conference the following day convened by Abu Ubaida, the
spokesperson of the Martyr Izz al Din al Qassam Brigades, the Hamas
military wing, the movement went one step further. “The Resistance”,
Abu Ubaida intoned, “is the legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people”. Full Story>>
The Horrors of Israel's Peace
Al Ahram Weekly
January 22-28, 2009
Samera Esmeir
Three
weeks after the war on Gaza, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire
but refused to terminate its so-called defensive operations. In response,
Hamas declared a ceasefire for one week, until the withdrawal of
Israeli troops has been completed. For many in the West, the ceasefire
might seem like an occasion to celebrate, for the cessation of military
hostilities on both sides will perhaps renew the peace process. But
there are reasons to be critical of this ceasefire, since it continues
the situation in which Israel acts unilaterally. What we are actually
witnessing is a new phase of the catastrophe in Gaza. While the characteristics
of this phase are not yet known, Israel's violence has become ever
more evident. And perhaps this is why Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
did not mention the word "peace" once in the speech he gave
to announce the ceasefire. The "peace process" might soon
be revealed as the other side of the coin to war -- its continuation
by other means -- that simultaneously feeds it. Full Story>>
A Battleground for the Foreseeable Future
Bitter Lemons International
September 11, 2008
Chris Toensing
Bob
Woodward’s four books chronicling the wars of President
George W. Bush are sensitive barometers of conventional wisdom in Washington.
Whereas the first volume, published in 2002 at the height of the self-righteous
nationalism gripping the capital after the September 11, 2001 attacks,
hailed Bush’s self-confidence in acting to protect the homeland,
the 2008 installment depicts the same man as cocksure and incurious.
This much is not news. More educational are Woodward’s hints
about the worldviews that will outlast this unpopular administration,
embedded in the organs of the national security state. Full
Story>>
Egypt Stifles Debate in the United States
Northwest Arkansas Times
August 27, 2008
Bayann Hamid
The
Egyptian regime has once again succeeded in stifling freedom of speech,
this time not in Egypt, but in the US. Earlier this month, an Egyptian
court convicted a prominent Egyptian-American activist for his outspoken
criticism of the regime’s poor human
rights record in American public fora. The court accused Saad Eddin
Ibrahim, of "tarnishing Egypt's image" abroad. The conviction
referred primarily to writings he published in the foreign press; most
notably among them an August 2007 op-ed in the Washington Post in which
he criticized Egypt's human rights record and questioned the reasons
behind US aid to Egypt. Full
Story>>
Want to Fight
Terrorism? Think Globally, Act Locally
Globe and Mail (Toronto),
August 4, 2008
Khalid Mustafa Medani
Militant
Islam is under global scrutiny for clues to conditions that foster
its rise, and to strategies for reversing that growth. But the key
is not in Islamic doctrine, US foreign policy or formal ties to various
nations, as many analysts have asserted. It lies at the community
level, with clan and local leaders. Full
Story>>
Iraq’s
Kurds Have to Choose
Globe and Mail (Toronto)
July 30, 2008
Joost Hiltermann
Kurdish
parties have become kingmakers in Baghdad , and they know it. As
no federal government can work without them, they are pulling every
available political lever to expand the territory and resources they
control, trying to build the foundation of an independent Kurdish state.
But even more than territory, they need security. If everyone acts
quickly and wisely, that understanding could help resolve one of the
Iraq war’s thorniest issues. Full
Story>>
Exiting
Iraq Is Easier Than They Say
The
Nation (web-only)
July 16, 2008
Chris Toensing
The
debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute
someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters
cry “Havoc!”
True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain
summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always
said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through
a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech
on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable,
adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless
getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he,
like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain
that withdrawal is simply
“cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full
Story>>
