Islam

Egypt After Mubarak: More Israel-Friendly Than Expected

The aftermath of the Egyptian revolution continues to offer Israel more comfort than many expected – but also, over the weekend, a warning.

The latest good news is a poll. Despite fears that the demise of President Hosni Mubarak would also spell the end of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, nearly two-thirds of Egyptians in a …

The Murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, an Artist Caught Between Two Worlds

As cosmopolitan as his name, Juliano Mer-Khamis was the son of a Jewish mother who had fought with the elite Palmach force during the 1948 war that created Israel, and a Christian Arab prominent in the Israeli Communist Party. When he was shot and killed by masked men on Monday, he was sitting in his car outside the theater he had …

Should France’s Moderate Conservatives Dump Sarkozy Before It’s Too Late?

The U.S. Republican party isn’t the only big conservative force in Western politics experiencing divisions between its traditionally moderate majority and a defiantly rightward-leaning wing. France’s ruling Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) is similarly witnessing public clashes between internal factions generated by efforts to …

Using Google to Understand the Middle East’s Revolutions

Given the rapid pace of change in the Middle East these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a bead on what, exactly, the people behind the revolutions are thinking. We can look at new reports and interviews by journalists on the ground, but such endeavors are by default individualistic. Even if I interview 100 Egyptians …

More Polling, More Bad News For Sarkozy

French pundits who had feared an historically high score by the extreme-right National Front (FN) in Sunday’s second round of local polling breathed a sigh of relief when the party’s tally didn’t meet expectations. But while the FN’s 11% performance was well below its 15% first-round take—and nearly half of the 20% result some …

Stability at What Price? Why Bahrain Needs Reforms Too

It’s the question that always makes me cringe. “Where are you from?” asks the taxi driver/shopkeeper/doorman/interviewee. I don’t lie, but in Pakistan or the Middle East I know that answering “American” can sometimes be met with a fusillade of angry observations about the evils of America’s foreign policy. Until recently, …

What Lies Beneath: Bahrain’s “New Citizens” Fuel Unrest

If you want to know more about one of the fundamental issues at the center of Bahrain’s protest movement, it might be worth taking a look at some of the Pakistani newspapers. Today’s Tribune is running a story about a recruitment drive in Pakistan for Bahrain’s security forces. To be sure, there is nothing new about how the Gulf …

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