Israel’s grip on the Palestinian economy amounts to business as usual. Palestinians carry shekels in their pockets, and most of what they buy with the Israeli currency comes from Israel, which is said to account for at least 80% of foreign trade with the occupied territories. That is a dependence that goes unremarked until something …
Middle East
For Old Times’ Sake: Iranians Briefly Sack the Embassy of Their Once and Future Satan—Britain
For 18 nights in 1976, Iran was transported by the miniseries version of “My Uncle Napoleon,” a virtuosic comic novel about a Tehran household dominated by a conspiracy-minded paterfamilias who believes everything bad that happens to him is being arranged by the British.
On Tuesday, a mob overran the red brick compound on Ferdowzi …
Disappearing Dissent: How Bahrain Buried Its Revolution
Every dictator worth his epaulets knows that the best way to nip a revolution in the bud is to have his opponents “disappear.” No body to mourn, no martyrs raised, and of course the ever-useful plausible deniability. But in Bahrain, with its tightly packed population of 230,000 citizens more than 1,200,000 living on a small sandy …
Another Blast in Iran, This Time Followed by Rockets Landing in Israel
Things keep blowing up in Iran. On Monday the big bang was in Isfahan, and the black smoke billowed from the direction of the nuclear plant on the edge of the city. More than 24 hours later, Iran’s official news sites had taken down an initial report and photograph and were offering an array of conflicting accounts instead. But if …
Why Egypt’s Election is a Game-Changer — At the Expense of Tahrir Square
The message of the historic Egyptian election, which began Monday with huge crowds turning out to vote in the protest-scarred cities of Cairo and Alexandra, is a simple one: Egypt’s immediate political future will not be written in Tahrir Square, or by the revolutionaries who last week lost 40 of their comrades to violence by the …
Hamas Edges Closer to the Mainstream: Agreeing to Nonviolence, Opening the Door to Recognizing Israel
The leaders of the two biggest Palestinian parties met in Cairo on Thanksgiving, and just going by the headlines afterward, you’d have thought nothing had happened. “Palestinians talk unity, no sign of progress,” said Reuters. AP: “Palestinian rivals talk, but fail to resolve rifts.” But read the stories, and it becomes clear that a …
Bahrain’s Rights Report: Power Speaks Truth to Itself
Can the truth heal? That’s what the people of Bahrain are about to find out as they embark on an ambitious, and unprecedented, attempt to move beyond the ravages of an aborted revolution that has sundered the social fabric of this cosmopolitan island kingdom in the Persian Gulf. Five months ago Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa …
Cairo in Turmoil: Obama’s Plan B Stumbles, What’s Plan C?
The reason the Obama Administration has been so reluctant to criticize Egypt’s military junta for its violent handling of the latest round of democracy protests is that the generals have, all along, been Washington’s preferred stewards of post-Mubarak political change. The State Department on Tuesday finally condemned the “excessive …
Five Faulty Foreign Policies from the GOP National Security Debate
As all surely expected from a field of candidates with little genuine foreign policy experience, a lot of silly things were said during last night’s GOP national security debate. Rick Santorum called Africa a “country.” Michelle Bachmann, who, as a sitting member of the House Intelligence Committee should know better, claimed …
Yemen’s Saleh Agrees to Transfer Power: Will His Country Find Peace?
Combative to the end, embattled Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement in Riyadh today that will see him transfer power to his vice president, launching a new chapter in a 10-month saga that has seen some 1,300 killed in near daily street clashes and tens of thousands wounded. With hands stiffened and deformed by …
Israel Frets as Cairo Smolders and the Sinai Goes Qaeda
Imagine the tribal areas of Pakistan wedged snug against, say, Belgium instead of against Afghanistan. Next imagine that Belgium, usually so good about these sorts of details, hadn’t bothered to erect a border fence to at least try to keep the jihadis in their own yard. This is approximately the situation Israel suddenly faces with …
On Cairo’s Violent Streets, an Untenable Status Quo Meets an Unwritten Future
With reporting by Abigail Hauslohner / Cairo
“Say it, don’t be afraid: the military council has to leave,” chanted some of the tens of thousands of protesters who thronged Cairo’s Tahrir Square Tuesday night. Their slogan was a combative response to the junta’s plan, announced hours earlier in an unprecedented television address …
Tahrir Square Crisis Forces Egypt’s Military to Change its Plans
Tens of thousands of Egyptians are once again filling Cairo’s Tahrir Square in defiance of an authoritarian regime, and paying for their stand in blood and pain as security forces fire tear-gas, rubber bullets and even in some instances live ammunition. But the crowds are no longer chanting “The Army and the people are one hand!” as …