Posted July 10, 2009 | 04:40 AM (EST) PARIS- It's been almost three weeks since French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, "is not a sign of religion", but...
Posted June 26, 2009 | 11:11 AM (EST) Ever since the Iranian revolution stunned the world in 1979, the Arab world, or at least the Arab regimes and their allies in the West, have been obsessing over Iran's "exporting of the revolution" and the implications it would have on the Arab world. Eventually, this obsession manifested itself into...
Posted June 19, 2009 | 10:15 AM (EST)
The Supreme Leader has spoken using no ifs, ands or buts in his words. I've stayed up all night listening to the Ayatollah deliver his Friday sermon in Farsi on IRINN TV, simultaneously translated into English on Press TV and Arabic on Al Alam.
Posted June 12, 2009 | 10:23 AM (EST)
It is a contradiction to mention Saudi Arabia (an absolute monarchy) and elections in the same sentence; however, no country in the Middle East, as of late, has been more invested in this democratic process than Saudi Arabia. For the record, election is part of the democratic process; Saudi Arabia...
May 29, 2009 | 10:53 AM (EST)
There is no country in the Middle East as fragmented and full of contradictions as Lebanon, yet it is perhaps the most pluralistic society in the Arab world. With a few days left before the parliamentary election due to be held on June 7th, Lebanese emotions have been running high....
Posted May 22, 2009 | 10:57 AM (EST)
The competition in the Iranian presidential election is heating up, or so it seemed until recently on Iranian government-sponsored television. Unlike the previous election, the challengers to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are well-known heavyweights who include former Prime Minister Mir-Mossein Moussavi, former Majlis (Parliament) speaker Mehdi Karroubi, and Secretary of the...
Posted May 15, 2009 | 10:27 AM (EST)
Pope Benedict XVI has completed his eight-day pilgrimage of the Holy Land, preaching peaceful coexistence between the peoples of the region. He urged both Israelis and Palestinians to put aside their grievances and divisions.
"Just and peaceful coexistence among the peoples of the Middle East can only be achieved through...
Posted May 8, 2009 | 09:53 AM (EST)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are heading to Washington for talks on the future of the peace process. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Washington on May 17, and Abbas is heading to the US on May 28 for talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, whom...
Posted May 1, 2009 | 09:52 AM (EST)
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt calls swine flu "more serious than a hydrogen bomb" during a symposium on the health scare. Egypt's parliament votes to "cull pigs immediately and one parliamentarian proposes criminalizing hog farming.
The United Arab Emirates bans the import of pork products as...
Posted April 24, 2009 | 10:08 AM (EST)
Speaking at the National Assembly, Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said that the military could stop the Taliban and that the country's nuclear weapons were safe.
"Does this parliament not have moral courage to stop them?" he asked.
Pakistan is on a precipice. The Swat Valley, once...
Posted April 17, 2009 | 10:25 AM (EST)
It hasn't taken Benjamin Netanyahu long to show his true colors by creating new hoops for the Palestinians to jump through in order to resume peace negotiations with Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister has reportedly told U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, that the Palestinians must recognize...
Posted April 10, 2009 | 10:39 AM (EST)
A war of words between the Egyptian government and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has escalated after Egypt's public prosecutor recently ordered 49 people held for plotting attacks on behalf of Hezbollah be kept in custody for an additional 15 days.
The 49 suspects include Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese. They...
Posted April 3, 2009 | 10:31 AM (EST)
I never thought that watching summits could be nauseating but it was, thanks to the U.S. and British media which focused on the "Obamarama" and frenzied over Michelle touching the Queen of England. Then, there were the tedious analyses about the President sneezing during a press conference, the Queen flirting...
Posted March 26, 2009 | 04:24 PM (EST)
You may have missed it amid the AIG-bonus furor--even President Obama did not mention it during his recent press conference-- but last week marked six years since the start of the Iraq War.
After six years and more than 4,000 U.S. casualties, the Iraq War seems to have disappeared...
Posted March 20, 2009 | 10:04 AM (EST)
Almost a thousand days have passed since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli tank gunner, by three Palestinian militant groups. At the time Shalit was 19. He would have been at home in Mitzpe Hila this week had the negotiations between Israel and Hamas not faltered. His parents...
Posted March 13, 2009 | 10:25 AM (EST)
In a televised interview last week, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said that the U.S. believes Iran has obtained enough nuclear material to make a bomb. Hours later, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Iran was in fact not close to having...
Posted March 6, 2009 | 09:27 AM (EST)
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- the court's first against a sitting head of state. The court's decision grimly spelled out the suffering of the people of Sudan's western...
Posted February 28, 2009 | 10:31 AM (EST)
President Barack Obama has announced his plan to withdraw most US troops from Iraq by August 2010. The move will reduce troop levels from the current 142,000 to some 35,000 to 50,000 by that time. During his campaign for the White House, then candidate Obama had said he would...
Posted February 26, 2009 | 10:35 AM (EST)
It's been more than a month since Israel's devastating war on Gaza left many dead and thousands injured. The war has ended, but life in Gaza has not returned to normal. Thousands of people remain homeless, and many still remain hungry. Their stories have all but disappeared from US media...
Posted February 13, 2009 | 10:29 AM (EST)
This week, crude oil prices fell on the news of sinking petroleum consumption, with oil futures at the New York Mercantile Exchange down more than 5 percent to below $38 a barrel. While this news sounds like music to the average driver worldwide, it has been a nightmare for oil...
Posted February 6, 2009 | 10:28 AM (EST) Israel's major offensive on Gaza has winded down; however, Israel's internal battle is heating up for the February 10th general election. Polls show Livni's Kadima party trailing behind the hawkish Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference on February 2nd, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that...
Posted January 30, 2009 | 09:41 AM (EST) The new hero of the Arab street is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A short while ago, it was U.S. archenemy Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president who recently expelled the Israeli ambassador.
More than 5,000 people, many waving Palestinian and Turkish flags, greeted Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his...
Posted January 21, 2009 | 12:54 PM (EST)
In the Jordanian capital of Amman, demonstrators took to the streets on Tuesday to celebrate Bush's departure from the White House by tossing shoes at a banner with his picture on it. They did not, however, celebrate Obama's inauguration as president of the United States of America. In Beirut, a...
Posted January 16, 2009 | 10:08 AM (EST)
With the Israeli offensive on Gaza dragging into its third week, demonstrators around the globe have been pouring into the streets expressing their outrage against Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of residential neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip. In the Arab world, demonstrators have also turned their anger towards their leaders. They have...
Posted January 12, 2009 | 05:03 PM (EST)
War is traumatizing for anybody, but it's especially devastating to children caught in the crossfire. They are the ones who bear absolutely no responsibility for all the violence, yet they are the ones left with some of the worst physical and psychological scars -- scars they'll carry for life.
Posted January 8, 2009 | 10:21 AM (EST)
Jerusalem-- Almost two weeks have gone by since Israel launched operation "Cast Lead" on Gaza, and dozens of foreign journalists still wait at the Israeli-Gaza border, watching the military operation in Gaza from afar. Israel still refuses to let any media cross into the strip. The restriction has created a...
Posted January 5, 2009 | 04:57 AM (EST)
Israel-Gaza Border- Day 10 and only the numbers have changed; more than 530 dead and 2,500 injured. Heavy fighting is still raging in the Gaza Strip between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters after Israel launched its ground offensive on the territory. Al Shifa' Hospital has run out of beds to...
Posted January 1, 2009 | 07:07 AM (EST)
I wake up with a news hangover. Israeli jets are pounding Gaza for the sixth continuous day, and the IDF continues to build up its forces along the border in preparation for a possible ground invasion. Olmert promises that more is on the way, yet...
Posted December 30, 2008 | 10:33 AM (EST)
Near Nahal Oz, Israel -- The Israeli "all-out war" on Gaza has entered its fourth day leaving more than 363 dead and 1,800 wounded. Israeli troop movements on the Gaza border point to an imminent ground battle in the upcoming few days. On Monday, the Israeli military declared the Gaza...
Posted December 27, 2008 | 08:42 AM (EST)
Jerusalem- News quickly spread to the Old City of Jerusalem just minutes after Israeli F-16 bombers launched a series of air strikes on the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring dozens of people. According to Ramatan News Service operating from Gaza more than 155 people were killed and scores of others...
Posted December 19, 2008 | 10:13 AM (EST)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is in Washington. Why?
According to his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, "The president is working to obtain the end of the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza." But according to an official in Gaza, the visit is yet another photo-op, "nothing less, nothing more."
Posted December 14, 2008 | 09:40 PM (EST)
I don't like to say "I told you so", President Bush, but three weeks ago I blogged about how thousands of Iraqis gathered in Firdous Square, where Saddam Hussein's statue once stood and pelted your effigy with thousands of shoes, then set it afire. This is what I wrote...
Posted December 12, 2008 | 10:06 AM (EST)
The scenario is all too familiar. When things seem to be under control, terrorists manage to strike where unexpected. The latest incident was a suicide attack in Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields. The bombing near the ethnically-mixed city came during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. It...
Posted December 5, 2008 | 10:22 AM (EST)
Palestinians in the West Bank are bracing themselves for more violence by extremist Israeli settlers after their eviction from a Palestinian-owned house in the town of Hebron. The settlers say that they had legally purchased the house, a claim vehemently denied by its Palestinian owner.
Posted November 26, 2008 | 10:35 AM (EST)
There he goes again! Standing in front of thousands of applauding soldiers at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, President Bush staunchly defended the US-led invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. "The consequences of success in Iraq will resonate far beyond that country's borders... will...
Posted November 21, 2008 | 10:54 AM (EST)
On her eighth and possibly final trip to Israel and the West Bank, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared during a press conference in the town of Jenin that both Palestinians and Israelis remain committed to peace negotiations, and the U.S. will continue to support their efforts.
Posted November 19, 2008 | 01:50 PM (EST)
It still amazes me how after seven years, the U.S. media is still suckered by what al- Qaeda leaders have to say or preach. The interesting thing is that hardly anyone in the Middle East these days pays close attention to their speeches. Arab broadcasters such as Al Jazeera,...
Posted November 14, 2008 | 10:34 AM (EST)
There is nothing more exciting to watch on Iranian state-run television than another spectacular missile launch followed by a fiery speech by Ahmadinejad. Yet, the scenario is predictable. On Wednesday, the Iranian armed forces successfully test fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missiles.
Posted November 5, 2008 | 09:57 AM (EST)
As Americans celebrated Obama's victory in Chicago's Grant Park, Arabs, Israelis, and Iranians were sipping their morning coffee, watching live coverage of Barack Obama's victory speech. Some of them were even reading newspapers that carried the headlines, "Obama Victorious." Several newspapers took the gamble and predicted the outcome.
Posted November 3, 2008 | 11:05 AM (EST)
With all the attention there has been on the voting behavior of different religious and ethnic segments of the population, it is plainly clear that the Muslim vote has been overlooked. There are only a few hours left until the outcome of the most important election of our time, when...
Posted October 31, 2008 | 10:38 AM (EST)
Another bizarre incident was added to the string of assassinations and attacks that have plagued Syria for the past year. On October 26th an American commando raid on a farm in Syria near the Iraqi border claimed the lives of eight civilians, including a woman and three children according to...