On Nov. 29, an Egyptian court cleared charges against the country’s former president Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt from 1981 to 2011, when he stepped down in the face of massive protests and the loss of his security services’ confidence.
With Western leaders occupied by rising tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East, it appears that the emergence of uprisings on the African continent has largely been overlooked. The recent protests in Burkina Faso and the subsequent overthrow of Blaise Compaoré on Oct. 31 from his 27-year reign, illustrates the far-reaching social and political changes taking place in Africa.
On Nov. 15, ISIS beheaded a fifth western captive, aid worker Peter Kassig, who may have fought his killers and disrupted their filming of the event. The inevitable video features a familiar British-accented voice, of an ISIS member British media refer to as “Jihadi John.”
In the wake of five Israeli citizens being murdered in a brutal terror attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, the Palestinian Authority leadership and media continue to call for violence against Israeli civilians.
Abu Mazen’s Adviser on Religious and Islamic Affairs stressed that it is not only against Hamas ideology but also that of the Palestinian Authority to sign any peace agreement with Israel.
Tensions are currently high in Israel, even by Israeli standards.
Eight Egyptian men were sentenced to three years in prison plus three years on probation for allegedly attending Egypt’s first same-sex wedding. The harsh sentence was condoned by Egyptian TV host Tamer Amin and the Egyptian Minister for Religious Endowment. Despite the high hopes that existed in the wake of the Arab Spring, the plight of homosexuals in Egypt and the Arab world has deteriorated.
Some describe it as the result of a disengaged American foreign policy; some look at it as a byproduct of an aggressive post-Saddam Iranian foreign policy in the region; then there are those who regard it as a creation of Sunni Arab states to undermine Assad and Iranian interests and contain Iran’s ambitious foreign policy in the region.
This year, the centenary of the start of World War I, has seen reexaminations of its immediate causes. Reexamination of the historic peace attempted at its conclusion, however, is even more relevant to the current crises in foreign policy.
It is that cyclical season of winner takes all. It is that all too familiar gladiatorial executive combat all over again. Yes, the Villa Somalia has once again turned into a roaring amphitheater.
The disputed status of Jerusalem will ostensibly be under review by the U.S. Supreme Court today. Zivotofsky v. Kerry asks whether the president’s so-called “foreign affairs power” — based on his textual duty to “receive ambassadors and other public ministers” — ousts Congress from directing foreign policy.
Even if war is not always good for business, it is at least a business. Whether dealing in arms, antiquities, oil, grain, taxes or international aid, the Islamic State is building the basis for the sort of exploitative economy whose inequities and corruption (ironically) helped its star rise among the poor and discontented.
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