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On September 24, the Washington Post published an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It deserves considerably more attention than it received.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers on October 12.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 11.
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Arabs and Muslims should think twice before believing that simply owning media outlets in the West would change Western perceptions.
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Memo to the George W. Bush administration: solve the Middle East crisis now before it gets even more complicated - and deadly.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers on October 10.
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Once, while traveling in a taxi, I had an argument with the driver - a profession associated in Israel with extreme right-wing views. I tried in vain to convince him of the desirability of peace with the Arabs.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 9 Prompt decision needed
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Could it be that in waging war against Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush went after the wrong cog in the now infamous "Axis of Evil?
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is back in the Middle East and she is in a "very concerned" state. For someone who has played Israeli ambassador to the Middle East since her tenure began, her on again, off again call for the plight of the Pales
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 5.
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A determined US-Israeli campaign to remove democratically elected Hamas from power is polarizing the best of the Palestinian mainstream anti-occupation activists of Fatah and Hamas into a deadlocked divide that is threatening an historic national u
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 4.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 3.
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Poor old General Musharraf. His PR trip trying to rehabilitate the image of Pakistan around the world appears to have been slightly scuppered by the leak of the now widely-reported UK Defense Academy paper.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers October 2. PLO must reinforce rule of law
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A new day in Washington and a new book about the Bush White House and the mess it left in Iraq, hits the bookstores this week.
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Since the outbreak of the second intifada, which has recently "celebrated" six years of suffering and bereavement, the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip has earned itself a reputation as one of the violent points of friction between Israel and
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Historically speaking, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the source of much international as well as domestic tension. From the 1979 hostage crisis to the development of a suspicious nuclear program (according to the International Atomic Energy
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 28.
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The ongoing war of words between US President George W. Bush and Irans President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, coupled with deluded Western media misconceptions or intentional misrepresentations of the true nature of the escalating conflict, can be utterly
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 27. Saddam trial black comedy
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 26.
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The relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) can best be described as a tragedy of political weakness. On the one hand, there has never been such proximity of opening posi
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The Bush administrations latest version of the "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" represents yet another perversion of reality.
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During World War II, one of Hitlers favorite sayings was, "All generals lie." Today, Washington prefers the word "spin" to lie, although the difference is often difficult to parse.
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I have been spending hours during the past couple of weeks trying to help a friend. Well, hes not really a friend, we hardly know each other.
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Rumors have been circulating of late that senior Israeli officials met with a member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia in an effort to break the Middle East stalemate.
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After a number of failed attempts to calm outrage created by his unwise remarks about Islam, Pope Benedict XVI has now invited ambassadors from Muslim countries to the Vatican for discussions. Such a meeting is needed, since it has become painfully
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According to the gospel of Matthew, it came to pass that Pontius Pilate said to Jesus, "Do you not hear all this evidence that is brought against you?" for even in those days of rudimentary justice a man had the right to hear the charges of his acc
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 25.
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Our global society is fast losing its balance and its moderate center. It is becoming more and more polarized and violent.
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As the saying goes, "those who can do; those who cant, teach. The Bush administration is "teaching" the rest of the world about democracy and freedom, all the while rejecting democratically elected governments in the West Bank/Gaza and Iran and su
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All America, including much of its military, is talking about how to "get out" of Iraq, and the sooner the better, as the daily killings soar and the fighting becomes increasingly vicious. Theres no talk now of the Pentagon reducing its force belo
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An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement September 11 t
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Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar wrote to a leading Sunni cleric in Qatar to express his sadness over the comments made by Pope Benedict XVI last week that sparked a wave of fury among Muslims worldwide.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 21.
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On their route to untangle one of the most complex political webs in modern history and negotiate a lasting peace, the visionaries among the Somali leadership have no choice but to remain steadfast and persevere despite the inevitable obstacles alo
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The problem arising from Pope Benedict XVIs Regensburg speech is deeply serious, perhaps far more than people grasp on the face of what we know through the news.
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The decision to deploy UN forces to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which formed the basis for ending the war in Lebanon, has started a debate about the possibility of doing the same in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
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Israel has come a long way in recent years in adopting a positive attitude toward international involvement on the ground in its troublesome relations with its neighbors.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 20.
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Despite the Popes somewhat apologetic statement, the Muslim world is still protesting against his comments on Islam. While leaders in the region might be mobilizing the public because of the perception of insult, they might also be doing themselve
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When I heard the news last month that a vacationing President George W. Bush had decided to include Albert Camus on his summer reading list, I was dismayed to discover that he was only perusing the novel The Stranger.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 19.
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The story of what happened to Maher Arar is what nightmares are made of. This is the kind of story you see happening to people like US martial artist-actor Wesley Snipes in a fast-paced Hollywood thriller, where Mr.
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US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad may be coming from opposite ends of the social, political and religious spectrum; nevertheless, the two men may have much more in common than either of them would ever care to adm
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People imagine that their opinions are their own, not those of corporate moguls who compete to colonize the public sphere. We are not as free in thought as we think.
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It was George Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe after World War II, who observed that "democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs." Marshalls words ring true today as a lesson for the fledgling democracy of
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Much of the debate in Washington in the aftermath of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has focused on who has "won" and who has "lost" Lebanon War II. Foreign policy pundits have pondered about the final outcome of the bloody cycle of viole
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In a week filled with bad news for religious understanding, there was some good news as well.
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When Iraq was invaded analysts deplored the lack of cohesion in the official Arab system and bemoaned the inefficacy of the Arab League, which is the strategic arm of this system.
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Iran has conducted its recent diplomacy with extraordinary skill and astuteness. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may live in their own bizarre parallel universe in which terror, weapons proliferation, and tyranny are a
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Culminating an emotional day commemorating the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks on America, President George W. Bush went before the nation Monday night to tell the American people "Today we are safer, but we are not yet safe."
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The events of September 11, 2001 altered the Israeli-Palestinian equation both directly and indirectly.
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Sometimes when I am asked how my family - a Muslim family named after "Nusseibeh," a female warrior-companion of the Prophet from Medina - ever came to hold the keys to one of Christianitys holiest sites in Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, I smile i
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 11.
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As has been the case for the past 15 years, here is yet another good news, bad news political development that puts this peace-starved nation on that rollercoaster of hope and despair once again.
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In the aftermath of the Lebanon war fiasco Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert realized that he had gambled his political future - and lost. And in losing his gamble, Olmert has come close to losing his job, a matter still very much on the cards.
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The minibus is starting its ascent to Dahr Al Baidar on the narrow two-lane highway climbing the eastern slope of the Sannine mountains. The driver guns his engine, accelerates into the left lane while shifting up, and overtakes a truck that is doi
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 7.
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Israels summer war with Hezbollah changed the national agenda and altered the regional balance of power, drawing the US closer to confrontation with Iran.
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So much attention has been paid to the Bush Administrations dramatic confrontations with its enemies in the Middle East that there is little consideration of how it treats its Arab allies there. In its rush to dispose of perceived threats to US in
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers September 6.
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The Palestinians have been too grateful and too helpless for too long to be critical of the political agenda of their donors who have practically nailed them down as political hostages to the donors money, which was promised initially to help buil
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Israeli guns had hardly fallen silent over Lebanon as Gen. Michel Aoun began his own frontal assault, taking on Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his government.
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Terrorists target Jordan Jordans Ad Dustour commented on the shooting attack by a gunman at Western tourists in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in which a British man was killed and several other Westerners were injure
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The narratives that inform Palestinians and Israelis are important and dangerous components of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that are rarely touched upon by those who are trying to bring it to an end.
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During the year 2000 and early 2001 - prior to, at, and after Camp David II - Israelis and Palestinians tried for the only time at the official level to negotiate a final status agreement. Since those negotiations failed, relations have deteriorate
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Once again Israel wreaks havoc and destruction and the worlds main response is to seek ways to "guarantee the security of Israel." This is the essence of the present diplomatic flurry, of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and most alarmingly th
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Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. The German Wehrmacht won World War II.
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At least a score of high Bush Administration officials authorized, and hundreds of US military and other government employees committed, crimes involving the torture of prisoners captured in the Middle East, published reports and legal documents in
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The Stockholm conference for immediate aid to Lebanon brought good news for the battered country, as participants pledged $940 million in aid money or almost twice the amount that had been the target expectation of host nation Sweden.
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Its been almost five years since a group of 19 Islamist fanatics hijacked and then slammed their commandeered passenger jets into three buildings and a field, killing about 3,000 Americans. And in the process forever changing the face - and the he
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When US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared his Iraq War critics to the appeasers of Nazism in Europe in the mid-1930s, it would seem he got his "isms" confused. A more appropriate analogy would have been the Soviet Union, communism and the
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The looming crisis over Irans nuclear ambitions may look like an intense duel between Washington and Tehran, to be played out on the international stage at the United Nations Security Council as the administration of George W. Bush tries to rally
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers August 30.
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The violence and chaos, the shattered dreams, and the anger that has come to characterize much of the Middle East should, one might think, cause our leaders to pause and reassess the failure of their current policies.
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In his latest speech, which infuriated so many people, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad uttered a sentence that deserves attention: "Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one."
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Its a rare event when a leader in the Arab world openly admits to having been wrong. And its even rarer when that leader goes on international television to confess his mistakes.
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The emergence of Irans power in the region has trapped most Arab regimes between a rock and a hard place as they seek to avoid choosing between two evils: Israel and Iran.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers August 29.
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The news from the Middle East has been both good and bad this week. First the good news:
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Israeli state thinking at the end of military operations between Israel and Hezbollah must take into account Syria as a stable partner, even if this doesnt suit the US administration. The neoconservative approach presents Syria together with Iran
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I am trying to recall when I last saw Israeli leaders talking with Arab leaders about peace, and finding it hard to remember. In recent years, our compulsive tendency to talk to ourselves about an agreement with the Arabs has been strengthening, as
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One hundred dead Israelis - undoubtedly a horrendous figure - and a flock of local and noisy doves have turned into a flock of angry battle doves. Almost overnight, the calls for peace and moderation have been abandoned, replaced by loud and angry
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A story has it that Oscar Wilde once attended the premiere of a colleagues play and every few minutes raised his hat. When asked about this odd behavior, he replied: "I am a courteous person.
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Yet another menacing terror plot was thwarted August 10, with the arrest of 24 suspects, all British Muslims. It was an ominous conspiracy aimed at committing "mass murder" on an "unimaginable" scale, British authorities quickly concluded.
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There may well be a new Middle East taking shape in the horizon, but it looks nothing like the one envisioned by President Bush. Instead of democracy being the order of the day, there is a real threat of Islamist theocracies, led by Iran, imposing
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The year 2006 has become "the" year of the Middle East for the Russian leadership. First was the controversial visit by a Hamas delegation to Moscow, then President Vladimir Putins trip to Algeria.
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This is where Irans ayatollahs prove Lennon and McCartney wrong. Money CAN buy you love.
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The monthly peace index published by Tel Aviv Universitys Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research found on July 31-August 1 that 68 percent of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel defined Israels war in Lebanon as unjustified; 79 percent clai
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With a few words, a Lebanese army officer destroyed, the day before yesterday, the illusion that Israel had achieved anything in this war.
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"War," the Prussian military theorist Karl Von Clausewitz insisted some 170 years ago, is "a mere continuation of policy by other means." What we witness in the Israel-Hezbollah war is not only a confirmation, but also a flagrant denial of basic hu
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While Hezbollahs missiles were hitting both Jewish and Arab-Israeli communities, it was clear that the war was placing still more strain on relations between Israels Jewish majority and Arab minority.
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The usually timid Syrian president emerged from his customary reserve with an unprecedented speech filled with furor, bravado and threats aimed at his Lebanese opponents, Israel and the United States. As one Syrian blogger put it, "Bashar came out
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"The war isnt over yet," says Tzippi Livni. The Israeli foreign ministers address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations left no doubt that the battle will continue, for the moment, on a diplomatic and political pl
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Thirty-three days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949.
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers on August 17 Lebanon stronger in unity
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A roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers on August 16 Disappointing Assad speech Lebanons As Safir commented that it wished that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad had praise