Monumental balls:
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 — The U.N. Security Council voted 14 to 0 Friday to immediately shut down the U.N. weapons-inspection unit for Iraq, drawing to a close 16 years of international scrutiny of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.
The action ended more than four years of political deadlock between the United States [...]

Ashraf Marwan, maybe the most colorful person of London’s Arab community, has died under unclear circumstances. Some believe him to be ‘The Source’ which tipped off Mossad prior to the 1973 war - others say he acted as a double agent misleading the Israelis.
From The Times:

Mr Marwan’s death will send shockwaves across the Middle East [...]

A little over a month ago, With/Without: Spatial products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East, a collection of essays about contemporary Arab urban issues, was released at the Dubai International Design Forum. Published by Middle Eastern cultural magazine Bidoun and the Forum’s organizer, Moutamarat, it has contributions from writers across the Arab world, including [...]

Bush Plans Envoy To Islamic Nations:
President Bush announced plans yesterday to appoint an envoy to an organization of Islamic nations with the intention of improving the battered image of the United States in the Muslim world.
Speaking at the rededication of the half-century-old Islamic Center in Washington, Bush said the new U.S. representative to the 57-nation [...]

If any reader would have the time and kindness to scan and send me (issandr -AT - arabist.net) Christopher Hitchens’ essay on Tunisia in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, I would be eternally grateful. The column was discussed briefly here:
Hitchens makes a case for the Tunisian dictatorship. The country is, after all, a relatively [...]

It’s nearly confirmed:
Tony Blair has landed a major diplomatic job as the international Middle East peace envoy, responsible for preparing the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. His role, to be announced today, will be largely to work with the Palestinians over security, economy and governance.
Working from an office in Jerusalem, and possibly another in the [...]

How dare they?
Amine Azaoui outrages Egypt
on Monday, June 25 @ 13:40:53 CDT
The head of the National library , M Amine Zaoui sparked a wave of controversy after his statement to one the Egyptian daily newspapers “Al Watani al yaoum” in which he reconsidered the idea of “Egypt, mother of the world” and the wagon of [...]

Two essential pieces on Lebanon appeared in the last few weeks. The first, a review piece by Max Rodenbeck in the NYRB, looks at the last two-three years and draws a convincing portrait of what happened. Considering how confusing Lebanon’s politics are, that’s quite a feat. Plus Max gets the way I react to Lebanese [...]

Negar Azimi has a long piece on US democracy promotion efforts in Iran called Hard Realities of Soft Power. It includes reference to US policymaking, the misguided attacks on VOA Persian (widely considered to be an excellent service, both as a radio station and a program that increases esteem for the US in Iranian eyes) [...]

Some interesting discussions of the “Fatah never thought” theory, in preparation for a later post:
Conflict Blotter:
Fatah never fought. Gaza was essentially handed over to Hamas. Soldier after soldier said they felt betrayed and abandoned by their leadership. There was a seemingly willful lack of decision making by the senior most political leadership. Up and down [...]

I haven’t had time lately to look into the arrests of several members of a “Quranist” group — people who reject the hadith and present a reformist practice of Islam based entirely on the Quran — but as well as being a blatant violation of freedom of belief, there seems to be several other overlapping [...]

Persian Ghosts: Chris Toensing reviews books about the “Shia revival” and finds some wishful thinking.

The Zionist Organization of America did not get the memo:
ZOA says Abbas is not a moderate, and wants his Fatah Party to reform its charter to remove what ZOA says are articles calling for Israel’s destruction. The Palestine Liberation Organization, where Fatah predominates, has already had such articles removed from its charter.
Earlier this week, a [...]

The Sinai peninsula–sight of Egypt’s booming Red sea tourism, of presidential palaces and international conferences, of disenfranchised Bedouin tribes, arms and drugs smuggling, and several terrorist bombings–is a weird place. (Scott Anderson pointed this out in an excellent article in Vanity Fair a while back.)
Driving to a beach in Sinai last weekend, I ran [...]

The WaPo reports:
The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency’s worst illegal abuses — the so-called “family jewels” documenting a quarter-century of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.
The documents, [...]

Egypt Passes National Anti-Smoking Law:
Smoking will now be prohibited in health and educational organizations, youth centers, legislative associations and all governmental authorities and clubs. A fine between 1,000 EGP ($175 USD) and 50,000 EGP ($9,000 USD) was also added to the new law for violations of the new tobacco law.
According to a report by the [...]

Great — a Bush lapdog with a long track record of anti-Palestinian policy-making sent to negotiate peace: Blair May Become Special Mideast Envoy - washingtonpost.com

The rabidly Zionist, MEMRI outlet, New York Sun has an interesting piece by Eli Lake, a reporter formerly based in Cairo who knows the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, about how the State Dept. and other US agencies are considering engaging with the MB. Robert Leiken, who recently wrote a Foreign Affairs piece advocating engagement (see posts [...]

Al Hayat’s Muhammad Salah on Congress’ threat to withhold military funding from Egypt:
Strikingly, there are many objections raised by Egyptian opposition forces against the use of aid as a pressure card on the Egyptian government. Moreover, Egyptian political parties and opposition forces vied for opposing the US president’s statements and then the decision of the [...]

This is a nicely written story about the role of public bakeries in traditional Moroccan life — it made my mouth water at the thought of the tasty bread I grew up with. But it was slightly ruined for me towards the end with the author’s dinner at Mohammed Benaissa, the hapless and reportedly quite [...]