Middle East has ‘too much democracy’?
Tunisians are aware of their country as the only one in the Arab world trying to make the Islamist–non-Islamist divide work in a genuinely democratic way, notes Thomas Carothers,… Read more »
Category Archives: Gaza
Gaza: Hamas’s social warfare strategy in action
Palestinian protests on the Gaza-Israel border have dropped off over the past two days, with Israel on Wednesday pointing to what it said were Egyptian efforts to restore calm… Read more »
Will Hamas’s ‘Hezbollah model’ scupper Palestinian reconciliation?
Hamas’ supreme leader says his group will not give up its weapons, a vow that is sure to complicate reconciliation talks with the rival Fatah movement, The Washington Post reports:… Read more »
Aid scandals highlight Palestinian ‘institutional decay and corruption’
Israeli prosecutors on Tuesday charged a employee of the United Nations in the Gaza Strip with providing material assistance to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, including helping… Read more »
What is the Arabic for democracy?
The collapse of the post-colonial Arab system is, at its heart, a crisis of legitimacy. The impact of colonialism, often blamed by Arabs for their woes, should not be an… Read more »
Quiet consensus against Palestinian elections
It’s rare these days to find anything that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. and Israel agree on. And yet when it comes to elections there is a choosing their… Read more »
Palestinians’ ‘muzzled democracy’: Hamas-Fatah conflict = hard road ahead
Nearly a year after the Islamist movement Hamas and its secular rivals in Fatah signed a “national reconciliation” agreement, the two are no nearer to bridging their differences or tackling… Read more »
Europe’s media freedom deficit: ditto Levant’s weak states
U.S. President Barack Obama this week insisted that free media is vital to democracy, but press freedom is facing its most serious threat since the Cold War, according to a new… Read more »