Holidays far, far from the Middle East in a remote and thankfully disconnected location mean the site will not be updated for the next two weeks. Have a good July!

Links from my del.icio.us account for July 16th through July 17th:

The New Arab Diplomacy: Not With the U.S. and Not Against the U.S. - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Carnegie paper says Arab states are breaking from US diplomatic priorities, Gulf stronger, Egypt weak
Hezbollah gives coffins to Israel in prisoner swap - Yahoo! News [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for July 9th through July 13th:

IkhwanWeb: Brotherhood MP Calls on Gov’t to Fight Sexual Harassment of Tourists - Good idea, but how about fighting sexual harassment period?
Ex-Diplomat Sentenced for Anti-Arab Threats - US diplomat has sent "only good Arab is a dead Arab" theat to James Zogby
Khalil Ibrahim, le Darfouri [...]

AUC / Stanford Professor Joel Beinin, a leading expert on the Egyptian labor movement, has an article about the wave of strikes in Egypt over the past two years in the wonderfully designed magazine Waghett Nazar, a kind of Egyptian New York of Review of Books (only better looking). PDF link below.
WN 2008-07 Beinin.pdf

Links from my del.icio.us account for July 7th through July 8th:

FT.com / World - Gulf states urged to rethink dollar pegs - Sooner or later it will happen
Egypt summons Iranian diplomat over Sadat film - Reuters.com - Note that this happens as the Egyptian press is full of anti-Shia conspiracy theories
Family history | Mount Lebanon’s [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 23rd through July 4th:

Almasry Alyoum: Opinion Poll: Gov’t Unfair; People’s Assembly Hypocrite; Local Administration Loose - Is your local councilman a slut? Joking aside, figures show self-perception of Egyptians as helpless and downtrodden
Almasry Alyoum - Ministry Of Interior Calls Scholars To Train State Security Investigation Officers On Combating [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 19th:

Daily News Egypt - POLICE IN SEARCH OF AMERICAN TOURIST WITH FOOTAGE “MARRING EGYPT’S IMAGE” - The hunt for red khawaga
LRB · Norman Dombey: At Al Kibar - If someone has access to this article about the attack on Syria's nuclear reactor please send/post in comments
Dissent Magazine [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 18th:

Al Hayat | The Ambassador’s Dog - US Amb. Scobey's dog's death poisons Egypt-US relations?
Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza truce
Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza truce
| Top News
| Reuters
- Egypt brokers ceasefire
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt conscripts on murder charge [...]

Egyptian health officials have been gearing up for anti-smoking campaign for a few months, and a few weeks ago new warning labels appeared on the humble Masri pack of Cleopatras and other local and international brands. It’s a big marketing shift in a country of permanent smokers where the state-owned monopoly cigarette manufacturer, Oriental Tobacco, [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 14th through June 16th:

Egypt’s celebrated film director Chahine in coma - Yahoo! News - In treatment in Paris
The New US Ambassador to Egypt (and her Dog) - The Scobey's dog story is out!
Amusing TIME article about their Middle East correspondents in the 1950s - Includes coverage of Mossadegh [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 12th through June 14th:

Knesset Hawks Move To Strip Arabic of Official Status in Israel - Forward.com” - Bill seeks to make Hebrew only official language of Zionistan
Bashar Will Always Have Paris: Obama has AIPAC - Landis on Assad and Sarko's reconciliation
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt bans [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 12th:

Welsh speaker boycotts Israeli ambassador
(AFP) - Not a lot of Jews in Wales, I guess
Barak: Labor will back dissolving Israel Knesset
(AP) - Yet another political crisis in Israel
The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب - Angry Arab has interesting [...]

Gotta love it:
CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered an extension to exam time at a school south of Cairo after his convoy brought traffic to a standstill causing students to show up late, according to Thursday’s press.
“A humanitarian gesture by Father Mubarak to high school students of Six October,” read a headline in [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for June 8th through June 10th:

New boss is determined to keep the faith at Al-Jazeera | Media | The Observer - New MD at Al-J English faces distribution discrimination
Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Can Qatar do it again? - Is Qatar trying to do for the Palestinians what it did [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for May 31st through June 4th:

The Daily Star - Politics - Cairo bars rights group from UN AIDS talks - Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which fights for AIDS rights, blacklisted by own govt
ei: Haaretz.com promotes website advocating genocide and terrorism - Rather nasty
Al-Qaeda chief dies in missile air strike [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for May 27th through May 29th:

The Magnes Zionist: Haaretz Rumored to Have Fired Amira Hass and Meron Rapoport - Rumors that two of the best Israeli journalists covering the OTs are fired (TBC)
MotherJones Blog: American Jewish Committee Won’t Touch Hagee on Holocaust; Silence from AIPAC, ADL - Supposed anti-Semitism watchdogs [...]

When I first saw that Harvard had launched a blog that allowed Middle East experts to debate the issues of the day, I thought, good for them. But after reading it for several months, I am finding that most of the time it’s full of the most right-wing drivel and venomous attacks on mainstream Middle [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for May 25th through May 26th:

US mathematician to give Israel prize money to Palestinians
(AFP) - "US mathematician David Mumford said on Monday he would donate his share of Israel's Wolf Prize to a Palestinian university and an Israeli human rights group"
The Daily Star - Opinion Articles [...]

Links from my del.icio.us account for May 21st through May 24th:

Jihadi Suicide Bombers: The New Wave - The New York Review of Books - Ahmed Rashid reviews books on Jihad
A Reporter at Large: The Rebellion Within: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker - Lawrence Wright on Dr. Fadl
Middle East Online: Egypt’s Nur cut off from [...]