OK, here’s the big-ticket question. Is Lebanon a mere pawn in an Iran-Israel proxy war? Sound off, readers. Ori Nir writes for The Forward, July 14: Israel Seeks To Eliminate Iran’s Hezbollah Option WASHINGTON — In addition to securing the… Read moreHezbollah: Iran’s proxy?
Text of report by Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya TV on 14 July, as translated by BBC Monitoring: At a time when the Jordanian monarch, King Abdallah II, left for Cairo to meet Egyptian President Husni Mubarak in an effort to… Read moreJordanians protest Israeli aggression —but where were the Islamists?
In a decision dated April 7 and released on April 11, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that Southern California Muslim community leader Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan can be removed to Jordan, partially reversing a Feb. 12, 2005 ruling by immigration… Read moreJordan deportation approved —despite torture claim
More protests in Cairo, where last week when 255 people were arrested. Today, thousands of riot police and hundreds of plainclothes officers were deployed in streets leading to the courthouse in downtown Cairo as they attempted to prevent opposition activists… Read moreEgypt: protests continue; White House weighs in
From Ya Libnan, May 15: Beirut & Damascus — Prominent writer and democracy campaigner Michel Kilo was detained after calling for better relations between Syria and Lebanon. Syria detained Kilo days after he signed a petition calling for radical reform… Read moreSyrian dissident detained
From the Egyptian NGO, Civil Monitors for Human Rights, in Cairo, May 11: Egyptian Authorities Continue Crackdown on Opposition Today Continuing in their policy of oppression, the Egyptian authorities are trying to prevent protests which the Egyptian opposition is organizing… Read moreEgypt: opposition crackdown continues
Note that this Reuters report on the Sinai bombings offhandedly mentions more sweeps of the peninsula’s Bedouin inhabitants. The Bedouin, their lands divided by Egypt and Israel, have been kicked around plenty on both sides of the border. The situation… Read moreEgypt: Bedouin face sweeps after Sinai terror
As in recent similar cases in Bangkok and Nazareth, the attacks on religious targets in Alexandria are being dismissed as the work of a “mentally disturbed” loner. Could be (although note that in this case there were three near-simultaneous attacks)…. Read moreSectarian violence in Egypt
From DPA, April 3: ANKARA – Three people were killed and one badly injured when suspected Kurdish assailants threw Molotov cocktails at a bus in Istanbul Sunday night, the NTV television station reported. NTV reported that the suspected Kurdish assailants… Read moreTurkey: re-escalation in Kurdish conflict
How heartwarming to see the new Pontiff lining up with Europe’s current Islamophobic zeitgeist. From the London Times, March 20: Vatican change of heart over ‘barbaric’ Crusades The Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference… Read moreVatican confab “rehabilitates” Crusades
Our contributor Mahmood Ketabchi offers another critique of the US left’s reponse to the “cartoon controversy.” Interestingly, he finds reflexive support for any forces ostensibly opposing the US to be a paradoxical form of nationalism, that places the United States… Read moreUS “left nationalism” and the cartoon crisis
As we recently noted in the case of Iran, the Bush administration seems divided between Pentagon hardliners who seek a military solution and State Department pragmatists who would pursue a peaceful “regime change” scenario in Syria. But these are not… Read moreUS to fund Syria “regime change”
