Current Analysis The Syrian Heartbreak There was a distinctive sense of national pride in Syria. It flowed from the confidence of a civilization dating back to the times of the earliest alphabets and visible in the country’s wealth of archaeological sites, including some of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It came f Sarah Birke, Peter Harling • 19 min read
Current Analysis Futile Military Financing One of the more regrettable things that Uncle Sam does with your tax dollars is sending $3.1 billion in military aid to Israel every year. He’ll be doing that until 2018 -- and probably after, unless Americans decide enough is enough. When President Barack Obama traveled to Israel in March, he was Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis North African Commonalities (part two) Bill Lawrence is director of the North Africa Project for the International Crisis Group. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer (Morocco), Fulbright scholar (Tunisia), development consultant (Egypt), State Department official, Arabic translator and filmmaker (Marrakech Inshallah, Moroccans in Boston) David McMurray • 7 min read
Current Analysis North African Commonalities (part one) Bill Lawrence is director of the North Africa Project for the International Crisis Group. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer (Morocco), Fulbright scholar (Tunisia), development consultant (Egypt), State Department official, Arabic translator and filmmaker (Marrakech Inshallah, Moroccans in Boston) David McMurray • 9 min read
Current Analysis Viral Occupation When Israeli security forces arrived in the middle of the night at the Tamimi house in Nabi Salih, the occupied West Bank, the family was already in bed. The raid was not unexpected, as news had traveled around the village on that day in January 2011: Soldiers were coming to houses at night, demandi Rebecca L. Stein • 13 min read
Current Analysis The Syrian Cataclysm For obvious reasons, coverage of the uprising and internal war in Syria has been dominated by the terrible human toll. An estimated 60,000 Syrians (or more) have been killed, with tens of thousands more scarred bodily and emotionally by the violence. As of the end of February, over 3 million Syrians Omar S. Dahi • 6 min read
Current Analysis CAFMENA Letter re: Syria The Committee on Academic Freedom [http://www.mesa.arizona.edu/committees/academic-freedom/index.html] of the Middle East Studies Association of North America has published an open letter [http://www.mesa.arizona.edu/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/letters-syria.html#021913]regarding armed (Author not identified) • 3 min read
Current Analysis Inquiring Into International Commissions of Inquiry A Palestinian political prisoner, Arafat Jaradat, died in Israeli custody on February 22. The Shinbet, Israel’s internal intelligence service, claims that Jaradat, 30, died of natural causes. Palestinian authorities suspect foul play, and the Palestinian prime minister in the West Bank, Salam Fayya Lori Allen • 4 min read
Current Analysis Do We Know Enough? In January 2007, amid the furor over Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, former President Jimmy Carter made his first major public appearance about the book at Brandeis University, which defines itself as “the only non-sectarian Jewish-sponsored college or university” in the United States. He received a Stephen R. Shalom • 20 min read
Current Analysis The Bouazizi Effect in Morocco On December 17, 2010, a young Tunisian itinerant seller named Mohamed Bouazizi had a minor run-in with the cops. It was just another of many, but at this last indignity, the now world-famous produce vendor snapped. Later that day, in protest against his interminable humiliation at the hands of the p David McMurray • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Laryngitic Dog Senate hearings to confirm John Brennan as the Obama administration’s appointment to be director of the CIA brought to light [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/06/cia-using-saudi-base-drone-yemen] a heretofore clandestine American military facility in Saudi Arabia near the kingdom’s border wi Sheila Carapico • 4 min read
Current Analysis Israel’s Rightward Shift Leaves Palestinian Citizens Out in the Cold Shortly before polling day in Israel’s January general election, the Arab League issued a statement urging Israel’s large Palestinian minority, a fifth of the country’s population, to turn out en masse to vote. The League’s unprecedented intervention -- reportedly at the instigation of the League’s Jonathan Cook • 25 min read
