THE ISRAELI REGIME IS RARELY described for what it is: a settler, colonial state that practices apartheid against Palestinians. Palestinians have been saying this for decades. Human rights organisations, such as Al Haq, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and...
Middle East
The theory of democratic modernity as a guide for building a new internationalism
The way out of global crisis requires global action. Under the hegemony of the global financial monopolies, the capitalist system is experiencing a general crisis internationally. This is happening at the same time as specific crises, such as the social and...
Syrian regime: Friend of the Palestinians? | by Miriyam Aouragh
Syria lies at a very sensitive nexus in the Middle East. It borders Israel, a state that poses a very real threat to it. The country lacks it own natural resources, and is dependent on other states economically. US president George Bush described Syria as a "state...
Revolt and Revolution – Syrian Illusions and Syrian Realities | by Reuven Kaminer
If one tries to read most of the more serious material dealing with the Syrian crisis, one cannot but notice that the discussion has polarized around two major approaches. And after the polarization, it seems that the participants in this debate are merely scouring...
The failed emergence of Egypt, Turkey and Iran | by Samir Amin
These three Middle Eastern states should normally have been found in lists of today’s ‘emerging’ states. They have each attempted, in the past, to modernise as a response to the challenge from Europe. Egypt attempted this under Pacha Mohamed Ali of the nineteenth...
Between imperialism and repression | by Samuel Grove
Sami Ramadani speaks to Samuel Grove about the dynamics of the conflict in Syria, arguing that democratic resistance to Assad's brutal regime has been eclipsed by reactionary forces, backed by Western and Gulf states The upheaval in Syria is an enormously difficult...
Egyptian workers’ movement and the 25 January Revolution | by Anne Alexander
“It is midnight in Cairo”, intoned the BBC reporter on the Ten O’ Clock News bulletin, “and still tens of thousands are in Tahrir Square. One chant echoes again and again: ‘Go, go, go’. But this time it is not Mubarak they want to quit, but Egypt’s military ruler...
Libya’s Restive Revolutionaries | by Nicolas Pelham
Beneath a golden canopy lined with frilly red tassels and vaulted with chandeliers, hundreds of militiamen from across Libya gathered at a security base in Benghazi, the launch pad of their anti-Qaddafi revolution, at the end of April and called for another uprising....
Bahrain and the Arab Spring | by Zach Zill and Ahmed Mohammed
The small island nation of Bahrain sits in the Persian Gulf, between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. When the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings toppled US-backed dictators last year, all of the region’s dictatorships trembled, including that in Bahrain. The winds of change...