Global Research in International Affairs Center
Please also read my article The Hamas Split and the Palestinian Political Mess “A merchant in Baghdad…sent his servant to market….The servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace…I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me….Lend me your horse, and…I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse…and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. The merchant went down to the marketplace and … [Read more...]
Since we can’t get good coverage of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the Western media, it’s necessary to turn to the Islamists’ intended victims — Arab liberals — to get a better picture. NowLebanon explains it all to you in an article on what it calls the “media blitz” of the Muslim Brotherhood and its politicians in the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP): Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been displaying great skill in handling the media over the past year. Since the revolution … [Read more...]
Here’s a fascinating exchange telling us not only about the contemporary state of Islam, Islamism, and the political issues involving them but also the debates and conflicts shaping Western civilization today. It also taught me about the common theme between revolutionary Islamism and the revolutionary leftism that today masquerades as liberalism. The interviewee is Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a leading Islamist presidential candidate in Egypt and the Salafists’ favorite. I’ll annotate his … [Read more...]
Dear readers, I’d like to share with you a secret. Every day I read and hear things by people who claim to be experts on the Middle East. I have read them on the land; I have read them on the sea; I have read them in the air. And they will never surrender to reality. Here are the two main causes of error: --They think the Middle East is just like the West so they can extrapolate from their own experience. When someone would say, “If I were Yasir Arafat, I’d….” My response … [Read more...]
It is amazing how mass media coverage of the Middle East switches gears and implicitly admits to having been wrong while continuing with the same themes. Or sometimes, buried deep inside an article, there’s a flash of truth that conflicts with everything else that’s been said, even by the same reporter. But then the light goes out; the stygian dark returns; and it was as if that flash had never taken place. In working on a new edition of my book, Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian … [Read more...]
We’re starting to get a good picture of what the lower house of Egypt’s parliament will be like, though it will take another month to be certain. Close to 50 percent of the seats will be held by the Muslim Brotherhood. Another 25 percent will be held by the al-Nour party of Salafists. With 75 percent the two Islamist parties will be able to do as they please. But, they—or at least the Brotherhood—are determined to be cautious. Note that there is a big difference between actually being … [Read more...]
In early January, 2011, Hizballah and its allies took up the reins of government in Lebanon, having ensured the collapse of the coalition led by March 14 leader and then Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. Hizballah needed a coalition which it thought would staunchly oppose the Special Tribunal on Lebanon, investigating the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. But many at the time discerned a more significant meaning in the rise to government of the March 8 coalition. … [Read more...]
Nawal al-Saadawi, now 80 years old, is a unique figure in Egypt. She is a pioneer feminist and a radical Arab nationalist. Al-Saadawi has lived in the United States but hates America and, of course, Israel. You can imagine that she also loathes the Islamists. So how does someone like al-Saadawi react to the Egyptian elections won by the Islamists? She brands it an American conspiracy. "Democracy is not elections and America uses religion to divide Egypt," she said in a recent television … [Read more...]
A 27-year-old American-Israeli law school student decides he’s going to go to Egypt and talk to Egyptians. He gets arrested by the authorities there as a spy, then is released in the prisoner exchange. He then brags that the mere charm of his magical persuasion convinced a hardened Muslim Brotherhood cadre not to be anti-Israel any more. So there’s nothing to worry about! That’s worth a Washington Post op-ed, but the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader calling for an Islamic state and a … [Read more...]
The two parties with the largest number of votes in Egypt have been the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party along with the Salafist al-Nour Party. Both are Islamist parties. Yet Western observers—including the Obama Administration—claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “moderate Islamist” group while the Salifists are radical. There are indeed important differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists but they are really issues of timing and tactics rather … [Read more...]
This article surveys all aspects of U.S. Middle East policy under the Obama administration, critiques this strategy and premises, and suggests what U.S. policy should be. A previous version of this article was published in The Journal of International Security Affairs (Fall/Winter 2011). The Obama administration has comprehensively lost its way on Middle East policy [...]
U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks have given a new insight into American policy in Lebanon, especially efforts to counter Hizballah. Hizballah’s willingness to use a combination of hard power through violence and coercion, combined with a softer touch via extensive patronage networks has given them unmatched control over the Shi’a community since the 2005 [...]
This article discusses the 2006/2007 U.S. troop surge in Iraq. It examines to what extent the shift in strategy was responsible for the dramatic drop in violence as well as the implications for U.S. strategy in future conflicts. This article can be found in PDF version here. INTRODUCTION Adopted at the end of [...]
Israel: An Introduction, a project by the Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA), of the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, and published by Yale University Press will be in stores on February 21st, … [Read More...]