Links August 2014

Clearing the holiday backlog...

• Fathers of ISIS | P U L S E
• Blamed for Rise of ISIS, Syrian Leader Is Pushed to Escalate Fight - NYT
  Assad's ISIS blowback.
• Egypt's Wasat party withdraws from pro-Morsi bloc | Middle East Eye
  Wonder if leaders to be released...
• Saudi princes visit Qatar as Gulf states try to end rift | Reuters
  I wonder how much of this is over Libya
• Libya: Is civil war likely? | The Economist
• Libya's New Power Brokers?
  Excellent overview of power networks by M. Fitzgerald.
• Libya: Anarchy 
  On the recent UAE-Egyptian raids, and how they haven't tipped the balance
• Art Beyond Politics, by Robyn Creswell
  On an exhibition of Arab art at the New Museum
• Hundreds bid farewell to iconic human rights lawyer Ahmed Seif El Islam
  Meanwhile two of his children are in jail
• Arab Nations Strike in Libya, Surprising U.S. - NYT
• The Case of the Arabic Noirs, Jonathan Guyer
  Cairo is the perfect setting for noir -- sleaze, glitz, inequality, corruption, lawlessness. It's got it all.
• Sisi’s Security Dilemma
  Tarek Radwan.
• U.N. Raises Estimate of Dead in Syrian Conflict to 191,000
• Sisi Victorious
  Elliott Colla with depressing if accurate read on Egypt
• Egypt’s Judiciary, Coopted
• Francis Fukuyama | The Sources of American Political Dysfunction | Foreign Affairs
  Very interesting piece on American decay.
• Morocco: the cannabis question. Call to legalise "therapeutic" cultivation
• Strangled in debt
  Incredible: women in Egypt get 10-year sentences for debts of a few thousand dollars (incurred to help their husbands)
• Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic
  91-year-old whose family were Nazi resisters loses relatives in Gaza bombing. Amazing story.
• On the Three Types of Arabs: The Evil, the Good, and the Harmless
  Hamzawy
• How Egypt Prolonged the Gaza War
  Dunne.
• Groundswell of social media support for ISIS coming from…. Saudi Arabia
• Federal court refuses to enforce $123M judgment from a Moroccan court - The Washington Post
• The Massacre One Year Later | MERIP
  Ahmad Shokr.
• Morocco's 'King of the Poor' | Middle East Eye
  Ali Anouzla
• Baheyya: Egypt Analysis and Whimsy بهيّة: A Grand Entente
  On Egypt, Israel and Saudi's counter-revolution.
• The Sisi Doctrine
  Michael Hanna on Egypt's emerging FP.
• To Fix Iraq, Don’t Lose Sight of Syria « LobeLog.com
• French secret service killed Gaddafi on Sarkozy’s orders: reports | Middle East Eye
• The Salafi Dawa of Alexandria: The Politics of A Religious Movement - Hudson Institute
• Iraq and Syria’s Poetic Borders - The New Yorker
  Great piece by Elias Muhanna.
• Egypt operates secret prisons for suspected militants
• Fareed Zakaria: The fantasy of Middle Eastern moderates - WaPo
  Pro-Syria intervention folks not going to like this.
• Saving the Middle East's Past
  Ursula for the Chronicle of Higher Ed: Scholars scramble with online tools and volunteer efforts to save the region's heritage from obliteration
• Yasmin El-Rifae: The Air Was Hot with Hysterical Nationalism
  On the terrible anniversary of the Rabaa massacre
• The Women in a Morgue in Baghdad - The New Yorker
  Just what the title says. Well worth reading.
• U.S. Pulls Back on Plans for a Mountain Rescue - NYT
  Situation improved for Yazidis thru Pershmerga rescue
• Egypt’s Fondness for Foreigners - NYT
  Alaa Aswany, being schizophrenic. Good historical anecdotes tho.
• As war with Israel shatters lives, more Gazans question Hamas decisions - The Washington Post
• In Syria's starving Yarmuk camp, a pianist conjures hope
  "the 26-year-old plays the piano in streets littered with debris, his face growing thinner with each passing month."
• ▶ Senator David Norris" Israel bombs first and weeps later". - YouTube
  Irish pol shows backbone
• Jerusalem Mixed and Unmixed | MERIP
  On Sayed Kashua leaving Israel.
• Saudis have lost the right to take Sunni leadership - FT
  They never had "the right"
• Obama, With Reluctance, Returns to Action in Iraq - NYT
• In Morocco, Crackdowns on Press Freedom | World Policy Institute
  It's been a decade...
• Egypt’s National Plan to Fight Atheism - The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy
• Law to hush up NGOs | Mada Masr
  In Egypt.
• Israel and the Palestinians: Gaza abacus | The Economist
  Revealing statistics
• The consequences of reporting Egypt's coup | Middle East Eye
  Nadia Aboul Magd
• Who Is Behind Gaza's Mass Execution? - The Daily Beast
• Nathan Thrall · Hamas’s Chances · LRB 21 August 2014
  Must read.