April 13th

The Peace Process Stuck in a Rut of Malaise Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The National - April 13, 2012 - 12:00am The Quartet of Middle East mediators - the US, the UN, the EU and Russia - met Wednesday on the sidelines of the G8 foreign ministers' meeting in Washington. But the Quartet's first high-level meeting since December passed almost without notice in the US. Neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times had a story about it in yesterday's editions. In part, say observers, the lack of interest is due to other, more pressing issues. The violence in Syria dominates the attention of the foreign-policy circuit in Washington, where Iran's nuclear programme is also a perennial concern. » Read more

February 8th

Who’s Pulling the Strings in the Middle East? Little Qatar, says Syria Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The New York Times - February 7, 2012 - 1:00am LONDON — The Syrian regime is in no doubt about who sits at the center of a web of international conspiracy seeking to undermine it: the rulers of the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar. Like the regime of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and that of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya before it, Syria has singled out Qatar as an éminence grise behind the unrest in its streets. In a dispatch on Tuesday, the Syrian State news agency SANA claimed to have discovered a document showing Qatar was funding writers in Russia to fabricate news about Syria. » Read more

January 30th

Meshaal's cordial visit to Jordan helps open 'new page' in relations Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The National - January 30, 2012 - 1:00am JERUSALEM // The leaders of Hamas have never been known for globetrotting or an appetite for diplomatic fanfare. They were confined to the Gaza Strip, unable to leave because of the Israeli blockade of the coastal enclave. Or, if they were among the clutch of senior Hamas officials based in Damascus, they maintained a low profile to avoid testing the patience and straining the hospitality of their Syrian hosts. Those days are gone. » Read more

January 27th

Attempting to Answer the Arab Question Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The New York Times - January 27, 2012 - 1:00am PARIS — Raised, if respectful voices at a private dinner party in Paris on Thursday. Among the guests — two Syrians, both anti-regime but with diametrically opposite analyses of what is going on in their home country. “We’re in the last quarter of an hour,” said the first guest, a very recent exile from Damascus, predicting the imminent demise of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. » Read more

Attempting to Answer the Arab Question Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In The New York Times - January 27, 2012 - 1:00am PARIS — Raised, if respectful voices at a private dinner party in Paris on Thursday. Among the guests — two Syrians, both anti-regime but with diametrically opposite analyses of what is going on in their home country. “We’re in the last quarter of an hour,” said the first guest, a very recent exile from Damascus, predicting the imminent demise of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. » Read more