The French intervention and the African-led multilateral force have saved Mali from a total collapse. At the same time, the country is far from long-term stability.
Kenya’s military had one of its biggest victories this past weekend when two of its helicopter gunships attacked an al Shabaab convoy in Southern Somalia, killing more than 100 militant fighters, according to Kenyan Military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir. This comes after the January 21 announcement that Kenya’s military incursion passed the halfway point in its […]
On Monday, August 22, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, appealed for the safety of refugees in Libya. He appealed for all parties involved in the conflict to ensure that the thousands of refugees currently trapped in Tripoli and other areas are “properly protected from harm,” according to a press release from the […]
I found this letter today. It comes from Words Without Borders. The author, Boualem Sansal, is an Algerian novelist, and Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. The letter is beautiful, and worth a read. Dear Brother: I write these few lines to let you know we’re doing well, on […]
A senior Palestinian official told the Associate Press today that the Palestinian leadership is ready to drop demands for Israel to completely halt all settlement building in the Occupied Territories. So if negotiations are restarted, a full settlement freeze would no longer be part of the Palestinian preconditions. I wonder if they’ll stick to that […]
Tom Friedman has it right in yesterday’s column. He writes: “To the Palestinians I would say: You believe the Israelis are stiffing you because they think they have you in box. If you resort to violence, they will brand you terrorists. And if you don’t resort to violence, the Israelis will just pocket the peace […]
There has been much discussion and grandiose speech-making on the Middle East this week. First Obama gave a “big” address on the Arab Spring, and he even touched on the Israel-Palestinian peace process too. Then Bibi Netanyahu arrived in town for meetings with Obama and to give a speech to a joint session of Congress […]
Twilight on the corniche in Beirut in February The chatter in the news and on Twitter today is about President Obama’s big speech on the Middle East at the State Department tomorrow. What will he say? There is no question this is a serious opportunity to get the Arab Spring back on track. It has veered […]
While my (and much of the world’s) attention focused on the Middle East in recent weeks, the rest of the world has not stood around idly. In Pakistan, as everyone knows of course, Osama bin Laden was killed sixty kilometers north of Islamabad, where he lived in a fairly luxurious mansion, protected by thirteen-foot-high concrete […]
Last week I wrote that inaction in Washington and at the UN does not live up to the brave and hopeful Syrians who have taken to the streets in protest of the Assad government. Many there probably looked at NATO’s intervention in Libya and expected something similar to happen if protests in Syria persisted. They […]
It’s a beautiful April day here in Brooklyn. New York Spring might be only just taking root but in the Middle East, the Arab Spring is in full bloom. I was there two months ago but thinking about it now makes it seem like decades ago. This morning I turned on Al Jazeera and watched […]
Amman is a vast, sprawling metropolis, but not very exciting. A map of the city looks like the cross section of an enormous anthill, with curving roads criss-crossing each other and leading nowhere in particular. It was an epic hassle to get to our hotel – do no Jordanian taxi drivers know how to read […]
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