Midden-Oosten

Analysis

How Iraq ended up with ISIS and angry Sunnis

17 March 2015 -

Twelve years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the curfew in Baghdad has been lifted. However, there is little reason to rejoice. In 2013, Barack Obama announced the end of a decade of American intervention in Iraq. Today, his nation is involved in yet another war in the area. As the International Coalition has resorted to targetting the Islamic Sta ...

Interview

'Beware of entrepreneurs in sectarian identity'

12 December 2014 -

Toby Matthiesen, an internationally renowned British academic at Cambridge University and expert on the Gulf countries, warns in an interview with MO* for what he calls ‘entrepreneurs in sectarian identity’: elites that are abusing and manipulating sectarian differences for political and economical purposes. He also sheds his light on t ...

Interview

Montasser AlDe'emeh: 'Palestinian violence is legitimate but counterproductive'

25 October 2014 -

Three wars in six years and every time Hamas claims victory. 'But what kind of victory is this, when houses, schools and hospitals are reduced to rubble? When there are more than two thousand casualties', Montasser Alde'emeh asks. According to him, the Palestinians should opt for a radically different approach: non violent and designed to embarrass ...

News

Archaeology as a pretext for annexation in East Jerusalem

7 October 2014 -

Silwan, annexed East Jerusalem, Thursday October 2th. Majd Gaith, 23 years old, cannot yet believe what happened two days ago. He shakes his head while attempting to explain the situation on the ground using a map.

Blog Post

What Next For Gaza?

17 July 2014 -

As I sit here in my office cum bedroom in Gaza City, listening to the airstrikes and rocket fire, there is talk of how to bring the violence to an end. This is to be eminently desired, particularly for the civilian population in Gaza who have suffered the brunt of this escalation. But when I think of the 17,000 displaced people sheltered ...

News

Putin the drag queen and Obama the sex doll

7 July 2014 -

She has a Bachelor's in Visual Arts and Design, describes herself as being liberal, speaks Arabic and English fluently, and has received death threats on numerous occasions. Saint Hoax talks to us anonymously; unfortunately she has to take the threats seriously.

News

The heart of Hezbollah's people's army

9 January 2014 -

While part of Western opinion is lobbying for a military intervention in Syria, everyone seems to be distracted from the real targets: the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran. MO* reporter Pieter Stockmans penetrated the fog of war and travelled for a month through the source of mobilization of the Syrian regime and Iran: the three "Hezbollah states&q ...

News

Oil rich but poor

8 July 2013 -

Disarray in Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah, the third richest king in the world, will have to bring more to the table than the reforms he promised to appease the poor and unemployed in his country.

Analysis

‘A revolution takes time’

5 September 2012 -

Marwan Bishara, political analist of Al-Jazeera English, and producer and host of Empire, a programme that discusses world leaders and their agendas, was one of the prominent guests at the Friends of Europe congress on the Arab Spring. For Bishara, the Arab Spring is first and foremost a political revolution of consciousness. “The revolutionary see ...

Opinion

Syria: to intervene or not to intervene?

12 March 2012 -

To intervene or not to intervene. Among Syria’s neighbors, the question looms ever larger. Turkish talk of humanitarian corridors and the Red Cross’s pleas for access to Homs and other flashpoint cities is reminiscent of timid Western attempts at stemming the Bosnian civil war. In addition, the example of military intervention in Libya, as well ...

Opinion

The Days of Anger’: Humiliation, Fear and Dignity in the Middle East

6 April 2011 -

Some will claim that the true, structural causes for these Arab revolts reside in the rising food prizes or other objective economic factors. Others will claim it is the new social media. Others again will hail the rise multitude foretold in the West, happening in the Middle East. Who can prove them wrong? But that is not what the street interviewe ...

Opinion

Swarm Intelligence: How to begin to understand the squared circle of Tahrir Square?

22 February 2011 -

The ongoing Revolutions in the Middle East change everything. Or at least: a lot. We have to reconsider the entire picture. It is a geopolitical paradigm shift. But I cannot even start to tackle all this.