Egypt’s decision to officially re-open its border to the Gaza Strip may be officially tut-tutted over by Israel, which in Hosni Mubarak had a willing partner for besieging the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas. But as a practical matter, the siege effectively ended a year ago Tuesday when Israeli commandos killed nine civilians on …
Egypt
Why the G-8 Should Never Meet Again
The G-8 wraps up its 37th conclave May 27 at the French seaside resort of Deauville. By now, you may have seen some of the gathering’s glitzy snaps. Two seem to define the occasion: one of President Obama and Europe’s top potentates taking a chummy stroll along the Normandy coast, the other of pregnant French first lady Carla …
Egypt Pulls the Plug on a Failed U.S.-Israeli Gaza Strategy
It might have been easy, amid the raucous cheering at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Capitol Hill pep rally on Tuesday, for Israelis to ignore President Obama’s earlier warning of a gathering storm on Israel’s horizon. But Wednesday’s announcement that Egypt plans, on Saturday, to effectively end the siege of Gaza by permanently …
Bahrain’s Voiceless: How al-Jazeera’s Coverage of the Arab Spring Is Uneven
A couple of weeks ago, the Qatari English language daily the Peninsula ran the provocative headline, “Why Are We So Timid?” in its Saturday special issue. “Freedom eludes the Qatari media even as the country’s top leadership is keen to promote free expression and has lifted all kinds of restrictions on the local press,” opined …
Bin Laden’s Posthumous Tape: The Sad Nothings of a Dead Man
Through an Islamist website, al-Qaeda apparently released a 12-minute audio tape recorded by Osama bin Laden shortly before his May 2 death at the hands of Navy SEALs. In it, the deceased terrorist mastermind lavishes praise upon the protest movements of the Arab Spring, insisting that “the winds of change will envelope the entire Muslim …
Why Obama’s Mideast Speech is For Domestic, Not Arab Consumption
The question among Middle East watchers over Thursday’s planned speech on the Arab Spring by President Obama has been this: Why would he address the Arab world at a moment when his policies have little hope of reversing diminished U.S. standing? After all, the Arab consensus views Obama has having failed miserably to deliver on the …
Mideast Peace Envoy Mitchell to Resign: Who Knew He Was Still on the Job?
Senator George Mitchell is no fool, so it should come as no surprise that he’s no longer prepared to undertake the fool’s-errand assignment of being President Barack Obama’s Special Envoy on Middle East peace. News that the 77-year-old retired senator who brokered the Northern Ireland peace agreement will on Friday resign the position …
A Game of Two Halves: Can Soccer’s Governing Body FIFA Finally Clean Up Its Act?
Where were we when we last discussed the soap opera that is soccer’s governing body (and veritable global behemoth), FIFA? Ah yes, President Sepp Blatter — who, given the power of his position and the popularity of the sport, is arguably as influential as the Pope — claimed he was going to clean up the sport for good if re-elected on …
Signs of Fatigue and Unease as Europe Struggles with Libyan and Syrian Crises
Despite intensified NATO bombings and important gains made by the rebels who are fighting loyalists of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday, it seems increasingly clear that the clock is ticking on the international community’s involvement in Libya’s civil war — and that doubts about the outcomes of other Arab Spring uprisings …
Al-Qaeda After Bin-Laden: Can the ‘Brand’ Survive?
While most of the U.S. media this week rolled out “box set”-type compilations of the best of ten years of reporting on Osama bin-Laden, the magazine most al-Qaeda watches are waiting for is the next edition of Inspire. Dubbed by the LA Times as the “Vanity Fair of jihadi publications,” the next edition of the glossy produced by al-Qaeda …
Talking Past Each Other: Hamas Broaches Peace While Israel Sees Only Terror
Almost unnoticed on Wednesday, as two rival Palestinian factions agreed to bury the hatchet, was the head of Hamas announcing that his group, which exists for armed struggle against Israel, was willing to give peace with the Jewish state a chance, too. The statement from Khaled Mashal was grudging and hardly optimistic, but cut enough …
Fatah-Hamas Agreement Starts Palestinians on a Rocky Road to Independence
Ignoring the objections of Israel and the United States, the rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas have agreed to bury their differences – well, not exactly bury them, but at least to pursue them through democratic competition, rather than via a civil war. Hamas won the last elections, in January 2006, but Fatah — spurred on by …
In a Zero-Sum Relationship, Obama’s bin Laden Bump is Bibi’s Loss
Few if any nations follow American domestic politics more avidly than Israel, so reaction here to the death of Osama bin Laden arrived laced with worried warnings to Bibi, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is universally known. So strained are relations between his government and Barack Obama that the American President’s political …
