Tell me your metaphor, I’ll tell you what kind of third-rate mind you are. Condoleeza Rice’s new talking point is that the Middle East is going through a “great sharpening” of differences between the voices of extremism and the voices of moderation. Except that her moderates are people like the Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian regimes [...]

Not being satisfied with the fact that Voice of America/Radio Farda broadcasts to Iran are already the most popular in the country, the Bush administration would like to see lies and disinformation inserted just as they do in Iraq:
WASHINGTON – In another indication that some in the Bush administration are pushing for a more confrontational [...]

This has been playing out for a few years already, and is worth keeping an eye on. For Egypt, Sudan’s political future is crucial to this issue and is one reason Cairo is so adamantly opposed to the partition of Sudan and to foreign intervention in Darfur. The thing is, this year had the biggest [...]

There’s a fascinating post over at Global Voices on the Tunisian blogosphere. As many of you know, Tunisia is one of the most information-repressive countries in the Arab world. It has what’s probably the most advanced censorship authorities in the region, and very actively monitors the internet, taps phones, follows dissidents and threatens them. The [...]

Tony Judt on Bush’s useful idiots:
It is particularly ironic that the ‘Clinton generation’ of American liberal intellectuals take special pride in their ‘tough-mindedness’, in their success in casting aside the illusions and myths of the old left, for these same ‘tough’ new liberals reproduce some of that old left’s worst characteristics. They may see themselves [...]

I am seeing a lot of plugs for New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s new book, The Great Story Ever Sold, which makes the argument that Bush went to war against Iraq because Karl Rove needed a “war president” for the midterm elections in 2002. This simple explanation is perhaps the most convincing I have [...]

If you read French, go immediately check out Bakchich, an excellent webzine/blog about sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb and the Middle East (but it’s especially good on the Maghreb and Muslim Africa.) They have a handsomely designed PDF magazine (a kind of Canard Enchainé or Private Eye for the region) as well as a blog, and [...]

My friend Stephen Grey’s long-awaited book on extraordinary renditions is out.

Stephen is one of Britain’s top investigative reporters, who did, in my view, some of the best reporting pieces on the current “War on Terror.” His new book is a must read…
Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program
Related posting: Bush admits to [...]

Ramadan Kareem to all our readers…

One more remark on the NDP’s annual conference: I think it’s the biggest (and maybe only) surprise that Gamal has declared Egypt’s ambitions to start a civil nuclear program.
As posted a few days ago, several states in the region could be pushed to start civil nuclear program as a reaction to Iranian nuclear ambitions.
As far [...]

Blogger Mohamed Gamal, who posts under the name Mr. GEMYHOoOD, has been receiving threats from State Security recently.
During the last Kefaya sit-in, Gamal told me he received phone threats from State Security officers, who asked him to take down a posting, where he drew a caricature of Hosni Mubarak urinating on the map of Egypt.
Gamal [...]

White House press release about Bush’s speech to the UN, which apparently highlighted the bright and positive and fluffy and oh-so-pretty developments in the Middle East. Argues that minute changes in the Gulf’s absolute monarchies are great, that a sham election in Algeria is just super-duper, manages to place blame for “the suffering of the [...]

In the long history of public intellectuals using their pulpits to defend the indefensible (more often than not, for direct personal gain rather than any error in judgement), Arab intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century will occupy a special place. Arab dictators — as well as their foreign supporters — have spent [...]

It’s hard to drum up the enthusiasm to blog about the National Democratic Party’s annual conference, which started today. It’s not exactly like anything earth-shattering is likely to happen, and the interest in Egypt’s ruling party’s attempts to reform itself (which started a few years ago) has dwindled amidst the clear reversal of the dynamic [...]

A man got beaten into a false confession. The internal security agency lied to the government and to the public to cover up their brutality and incompetence. The government lied to the public to cover up their culpability. When the man complained, government officials told lies to the press in an attempt to discredit him.
Sure [...]

Remember the survey at the beginning of the summer that suggested tourists are unhappy with the way they’re treated in Egypt? If memory serves, it blamed overcharging service industry types for many visitors making Egypt a once-in-a-lifetime experience. After a weekend trip across the Sinai, though, I think there may be another culprit, and I [...]

I forgot to post this last week, but readers may be interested in reading a letter by Ayman Nour’s family to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2005 presidential elections, in which he came a distant second from Hosni Mubarak and most probably caused him to be sentenced to jail on 25 December of the [...]

While the stand-off between the US and Iran gets the most attention, I think it is equally important to look at the regional dynamic that has been kicked off by Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
At a Bahrain sponsored GCC security conference that took place September 10 – 11, the Gulf countries discussed what to do about the [...]

EU’s Foreign Ministers continued to reluctantly inch towards accepting Hamas in a Palestinian government of national union during their meeting yesterday.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers agreed on Friday to back a Palestinian national unity government being formed by President Mahmoud Abbas with the Hamas Islamist movement, despite U.S. misgivings.
“We agreed that we have [...]

People who read this blog will know I am no great fan of Saudis and their morbid culture, or lack thereof.(Yes, not all of them, I know, allow me some artistic license here…)
Do you really need more explanation that their recent attempt to ban women from entering the great mosque at Mecca (cutting with all [...]

I have no idea whether it’ll be good or not, but I’ve been alerting to an upcoming BBC Radio 4 (generally speaking an excellent station) three part documentary on Iran that will air starting Sunday. Check it out here.

I have been reading and talking with (British) friends about this Observer piece by Martin Amis for almost a week now. Amis is one of the rather predictable enfant terrible of British letters. His books tend to be well-written, comedic send-ups of barely disguised celebrities and public intellectuals very much from his own London circles. [...]

It looks very much as if Hosni Mubarak has started to prepare himself for his new life, after handing over presidency to whomever.
Out of his many options, he picked driving around DHL cars. No surprise actually, as he told the media in spring 2005 how much he has to sacrifice for serving his country, such [...]

I missed the much-debated debut of the ABC mini-series “The Path to 9/11,” but I did go down to Ground Zero this morning to see what was going on there today.
It was a beautiful, crisp, sunny New York morning (unfortunately I didn’t have my camera). There were a lot of people walking around the [...]

September 11, 2006
It was a graveyard. That was the only way to describe it. The place where old war machines came to die. Row upon row of massive sand-colored metal tanks, their huge guns each raised to a different height, sat there like a frozen image of a clumsy chorus line.
There weren’t just tanks either, [...]

Researcher Rashad Mahmood has written a well-researched article on the Arabization of software for the current issue of Business Monthly. It gives an informative overview on the history of attempts to bring software to the Middle East, and explains the main obstacles. Excerpts:
Despite the huge potential for Arabization, companies face several hurdles in adapting western [...]

Last week, Al Masry Al Youm summarized a report issued by the South Cairo Company for the distribution of electricity, that put the outstanding electricity bill’s by the NDP as well as ten government-owned newspapers at LE22 millions.
The NDP economic reformers in cabinet can talk about attracting foreign investment forever, it will never take off [...]

Rather amusing story from Fustat:
The former member of parliament for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mukhtar Nouh was planning on releasing his first CD with political songs, when reaching a dead end, in form of the entertainment cencorship committee.
The committee, refused to comment on why they decided not to give Nouh´s CD the license and the go [...]

The recent beheading of a newspaper editor in Sudan is horrible news — but really what do you expect from a regime that has perpetuated one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest civil war and continues to engage in ethnic cleansing in Darfur?
Masked gunmen bundled Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the private daily Al-Wifaq, into [...]

Weirdest story from Baghdad yet:
BAGHDAD — Death squads move with impunity after curfew. Abductions are rampant, but kidnappers are rarely caught. Corruption has poisoned every layer of government, yet few have faced criminal charges.
Double-park a car on a Baghdad street, however, and you can be sure of this: The law will hunt you down.
Abdel Nasser, [...]

Mohammed Habib, the deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brothers, has accused retired General Fouad Allam, formerly of State Security, of planning the first political assassination of the Mubarak regime.
Allam is recurrent media figure in Egypt, but also often used as a pundit on security issues by foreign newspapers. He also has something of [...]

I am delighted to discover that arabist.net has Jamaican readers. One of them, Jamzen, sent in this YouTube video about the recent war in Lebanon:

Very catchy tune.

Wael Abbas has put up a fantastic clip from the Orbit TV show “Al Qahira Al Youm” with Kifaya leader and Nasserist Karama newspaper editor (formerly Al Arabi editor) Abdel Halim Qandil engaged in a shouting match with Rose Al Youssef (a pro-Gamal Mubarak newspaper) editor Karam Gabr. Qandil calls the latter a state security [...]

Cairene columnist and bon vivant Nabil Shawkat has bowed to the pressures of commercialism and made his volume of collected wisdom, Breakfast with the Infidels, available on Amazon.
Order now for Christmas delivery.

The Center for Socialist Studies has announced its September schedule of events:
Tuesday, 12 September, 8pm to 10pm
How can we read the new constitutional amendments?
Judge Hisham Bastaweessi
Dr. Gamal Zahran, Member of Parliament
Sameh Naguib, researcher with the Center for Socialist Studies
Sunday, 17 September, 7pm to 9pm
In the aftermath of resistance in Lebanon, where is the Middle East [...]

Al-Jazeera has just reported that: “Israel says it will lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon on Thursday evening.”

I’m currently uploading Gigabytes of miscellaneous photos (demos, funerals, conferences, street clashes, scenes from the aftermath of terror strikes in Sinai, etc…) I’ve been taking since 2004, so that they would be available for websurfers. It’ll take me few days to get it all done hopefully. Meanwhile, keep your eye on my flickr account.

(Up on [...]

My friend Ryan O’Kane sent me this interesting piece from Debka Files, a security website with close ties to Israeli intelligence circles.
“Lebanese Security” Is the Pretext for the Naval Babel around Lebanon’s Shores

As part of an ongoing effort by Issandr and the Arabist posse to re-organize the website, an Arabist twin blog was launched yesterday.
3arabawy

There will be more changes coming up. Wait for the Arabist in its new shape, soooon.

First they went after the holy language, now they’re going for the chosen people:
Some fellow passengers are questioning why an Orthodox Jewish man was removed from an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal last week for praying.
The man was a passenger on a Sept. 1 flight from Montreal to New York City when the incident [...]