Current Analysis

Countering Christian Zionism in the Age of Trump

Behind President Trump's fervent embrace of Israel are millions of Christian Zionists who believe that the establishment of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfillment of end-times prophecies. But a growing movement of Christians is challenging this controversial theology.

Mimi Kirk • 12 min read

Current Analysis

Background to Ongoing Protests in Sudan

Anti-government protests have rocked Sudan since the beginning of 2019, with police crackdowns leaving dozens of dead and many wounded. Large crowds have taken to the streets across the country to denounce a government decision in December to triple the price of bread and to demand the end of Presid

E 4 Xek 1 Z 1549331118 • 1 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt’s Arrested Digital Spaces

Egypt's President Sisi has acquired sophisticated technological capabilities to block internet activity, passed restrictive internet legislation and now surveils users and censors content on a scale never seen before. Much of this has been facilitated by Western allies who have been more than happy

Samuel Woodhams • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Disavowing Israeli Apartheid

The decision by the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy’s (IARPP) to hold their annual conference in Tel Aviv, Israel cannot be written off as simply a misunderstanding, ignorance of global issues or unconscious enactment: it's a disavowal of current reality.

Lara Sheehi • 9 min read

Current Analysis

How One Palestinian University is Remaking ‘Israel Studies’

At Birzeit University in the Israeli occupied West Bank, students and faculty are fundamentally remaking the dominant paradigm of Israel Studies as it has been configured in the United States with its proud “advocacy” mandate on behalf of the Israeli state. Birzeit’s program turns this paradigm insi

Rebecca L. Stein • 12 min read

Current Analysis

Precarious Teachers Strike for Public Education in Morocco

Over the past three years, striking and demonstrating teachers have mobilized against their new precarious status as contract-labor under government privatization reforms implemented in 2016. The teachers’ struggle is bound up in the broader fight by Moroccan unions against the government’s neoliber

Zakia Salime • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Israel and the Antisemitism Playbook in Great Britain and the Grassroots

The ongoing attacks on Congressional critics of Israeli policies like Rep.'s Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for their alleged antisemitic remarks appear culled from the same playbook that Israel’s supporters in Great Britain used to tarnish Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn: continuously vilify the me

Neve Gordon, Lynne Segal, Kristian Davis Bailey, Olivia Katbi Smith • 29 min read

Current Analysis

Turkish Voters Upset Erdoǧan’s Competitive Authoritarianism

Turkish voters sent a strong message to its long-standing ruling party and its leader on March 31, 2019 that the government’s authoritarian turn has not fully succeeded. In nationwide municipal elections, for the first time in a quarter century, the political movement largely associated with Turkey’

Steve Niva • 13 min read

Current Analysis

Protesting Politics in Algeria

Since February 22, 2019, Algerians have mounted massive protests in cities across Algeria. While calling for President Bouteflika’s resignation has been a focal point of demonstrations, the protests are more broadly a political contestation against a byzantine, status-quo politics upheld by an elite

Amir Mohamed Aziz • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Making the Economy Political in Jordan’s Tax Revolts

The Jordanian citizenry remain unwilling to pay more taxes. The old system no longer works, but the way forward demands that Jordan’s leaders address the need for substantive reforms in both the economic and political systems that currently govern Jordanian lives. Any new social contract between the

Laith Fakhri Al-Ajlouni, Allison Spencer Hartnett • 9 min read

Current Analysis

The Manufactured Controversy About Ilhan Omar and the Israel Lobby

The firestorm that greeted newly elected Congresswoman (D-MN) Ilhan Omar’s tweets about the Israel lobby’s clout in Congress reveals as much about her critics as it does about the rising tide of progressive politicians who no longer show deference to establishment prohibitions on criticizing Israel.

Joel Beinin, Noura Erakat, Omar Baddar, Mouin Rabbani • 21 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt’s Arrested Battlegrounds

While mass arrests and arbitrary detentions are nothing new to Egypt, the escalation and widening pattern of arrests over the past year indicate that the authoritarian mindset of the Egyptian regime has significantly changed. Egypt under President Sisi has succeeded in reestablishing authoritarianis

Wael Eskandar • 12 min read