March 24th

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Conflict In Print by Hussein Ibish - Foreign Policy (Opinion) - March 23, 2011 - 12:00am The spread of conflict and violence across the Middle East is dampening widespread hopes of an "Arab Spring" that followed the peaceful ousters of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. Anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain have taken on an increasingly bitter sectarian character, especially with the military intervention of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the uprising in Libya has degenerated into an all-out civil war compounded by an international no-fly zone intervention. » Read more

March 11th

The Myth of the Arab Street In Print by Hussein Ibish - Bookforum.com - March 11, 2011 - 1:00am With the recent wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East, Western observers have had the chance to face up to an important realization: that the oldest of clichés about Middle Eastern politics, "the Arab street," is both a pernicious myth and a dynamic reality. For decades, Orientalist stereotypes about Arab culture and attitudes imbued this so-called street—a crude and monolithic metaphor for Arab public opinion and popular political sentiment—with almost uniformly negative connotations, which would then segue into dire warnings about the consequences of its eruption. » Read more

March 4th

Washington must not be a global policeman or dictators' patron In Print by Ziad Asali - The Daily Star - March 4, 2011 - 1:00am The current uprisings in the Arab world demand a reassessment of current policy by all countries, especially the United States. One expects heightened demands for democracy, human rights, freedom of expression and regular elections, as well as a commitment to the people of the Middle East that their rights and aspirations will be properly reflected. It would not be surprising if all these demands were packaged as part of an initiative to address the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the establishment of a state of Palestine. » Read more