Al-Nahda: A Renaissance for Political Islam in the Middle East?
The significance of rising support for Al-Nahda and moderate Islamic parties stretches much farther than Tunisia
On the Newsstand:Middle East Politics
The Arab world is playing Dominoes
In light of recent developments in Tunisia, Arab dictators in neighboring countries have come to realize that law enforcements, or dictator-existence enforcements for that matter, are of no value in face of a national uproar. The ratio of police officers to citizens in Tunisia was a staggering 1:40. Yet, such police force could not contain the most recent civil disorder ... Read More
Jordan’s Elections: A Case of Undeserving Praise
Despite garnering praise from election monitoring groups, Jordanian elections have a long way to go before attaining complete credibility.
The Great Paradox: Questioning American Support for Israel
Vice-President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel to jump-start peace talks seemed like good news, until he was met with an announcement from Israel’s Interior Ministry that it had authorized the construction of another 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem. In my opinion, this highlights an incredible paradox of American foreign policy: how America’s unquestioning support for the state of ... Read More
Population Control: Gaza v. China
Following Kramer’s comments the other day, an interesting conversation has arisen that compares Kramer’s proposal to end pre-natal subsidies with China’s one child policy. The reason for this debate originates in the UN’s definition of genocide, as found in Article 2 of the Convention on the Preventment and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “In the present Convention, genocide means any ... Read More
Weighing In: A Simple Solution to a Simple Problem
On February 3, Martin Kramer, visiting scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, gave a six-minute speech at the annual Herzliya Conference in Herzliya, Israel (discussed by Jeremy below). In that short amount he time, he provided a clear call for the West to curb Gaza’s exploding population by ending pro-natal subsidies for Gazans: “Aging populations reject radical agendas, and the Middle East ... Read More
Welcome to Israel
On December 23rd, 2009, Harvard Law student Hebah M. Ismail’s ’06 landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport with the intention of joining Clinical Instructor and Global Advocacy Fellow Ahmad Amara, as well as another fellow student, for research on land disputes between the Israeli government and Bedouin communities in the Negev desert. At airport security, Ismail was interrogated for ... Read More
Israel and Americans
I’m not always wild about The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, but I think he has a very perceptive post about Israel’s relationship with the United States. He points out that the ultra-conservative governments that have been in power lately have been doing their best to alienate their potential American supporters, particularly young American Jews. Namely, that actions like Gaza or their ... Read More
Furrin Affairs
When the Secretary of State does things like visit Lebanon to express her not-so-subtly-veiled hope that Hezbollah will not win the elections, I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. One does not have to wish for a Hezbollah victory to have some doubts about the real wisdom of our involving ourselves so heavily in the domestic politics of another ... Read More
