2017 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 December 2017 The Dilemmas of Organ Donation in Muslim Countries Khadija Mohsen-Finan · December 2017 Islam holds life to be sacred and the human body inviolable. Living or dead, it belongs to God and none may mutilate it or remove any organs in view of any form of commerce. And yet the Koran and the hadiths also stress the importance of the principle of necessity according to which it is (…) Israel Allied With the Gulf Countries Against Iran? Nazeeha Said · December 2017 Despite their condemnation of Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, several Gulf countries, primarily Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have opened channels of dialogue with Israel. It is supposed to face the “Iranian threat”, but are their citizens ready to accept the (…) In Turkey, “Politics Still Wears a Moustache” Hazal Atay · December 2017 On 5 December 1934, Turkish women won the right to vote in national elections, ten years before the women of France. They had already been able to vote and run for office in local elections since 1930, and the first woman to become avillage chief, Gül Esin, was elected at Çine in the province of (…) A Tale of Two Evils: ISIS is Gone, but the Tobacco Industry Remains Faisal Abualhassan · December 2017 Smoking was the first act of many people released from control of the Islamic state. Yet cigarettes remain a major danger in the Arab world, which is subject to the pressures and manoeuvres of the tobacco industry. It’s an emblematic symbol of liberation from ISIS across Iraq and Syria. (…) November 2017 Socialist Revolution in Arabia Helen Lackner · November 2017 A few weeks after the defeat of Arab countries against Israel in June 1967, Southern Yemen gained independence following an insurgent movement against the British presence. The most radical socialist experiment in the recent history of the Middle East was about to begin. Fifty years ago, on (…) “Constructive Chaos” Extends Into the Sahel Abdelkader Abderrahmane · November 2017 In January 2013, France launched Operation Serval, which was to stop terrorist groups. Five years later, nothing has been solved and chaos is spreading in the region, a chaos that only security and arms companies benefit from. On October 21, a meeting was held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in (…) Meral Akşener, a Woman against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Matthieu Eynaudi, Max-Valentin Robert · November 2017 On 25 October 2017, Meral Akşener founded a new group, “The Good Party” (Iyi Parti). The former Minister of Home Affairs is often compared with Marine Le Pen and might be seen as an alternative to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, capable of appealing to voters beyond the nationalist electorate in the 2019 (…) Kurdistan, Sudan, Western Sahara, Yemen: On People’s Right To Self-Determination Orient XXI · November 2017 A people’s right to self-determination has been somewhat neglected over the past few decades, but Catalan demands for independence have brought it back into the international spotlight. However, in the region which extends from Morocco to Iran, deeply perturbed by wars and foreign intervention, (…) Rojava, Utopia in the Heart of Syria’s Chaos Chris den Hond, Mireille Court · November 2017 ROJAVA: A Utopia in the Heart of Syria’s Chaos - YouTube While battling the Islamic state, Kurds and other ethnic groups in Northern Syria are trying to install a political project. They call it the “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.” This project is at opposite to the (…) October 2017 Persistent Stagnation of Arab Economies Jean-Pierre Sereni · October 2017 Last week a faint breath of optimism could be detected at the annual meeting in Washington of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group: nearly all the countries of Europe and North America have in fact recovered from the crisis. Not so our Middle-Eastern neighbours. In (…) Youssef Abdelke: the Naked Against the Dead Emmanuel Daydé · October 2017 The Syrian painter Youssef Abdelke exhibits his latest works —a series of nudes— at the Claude Lemand Gallery in Paris until November 18. “He’s alive, we’re dead !” This cry on a poster showing a martyr of the Syrian revolution could serve as a caption for all the paintings of Youssef (…) A Fatah-Hamas Agreement in the Shadow of Egypt Leïla Seurat, Mohamed Younis · October 2017 Does the rapprochement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, drafted under the watchful eye of Egypt, have a better chance of uniting the Palestinian people than the previous attempts? This time, many factors militate in favor of a compromise, but there are still pitfalls ahead. All (…) Tunisia: Towards the Restoration of Personal Power Thierry Brésillon · October 2017 Beji Caid Essebsi announced last September a forthcoming revision of the Constitution adopted in January 2014, which set in stone the gains of the 2011 Revolution. According to the president, it is responsible for blocking government action. In particular, he denounces the constitutional (…) Tunisian Women in Favour of an Egalitarian Heritage Sophie Bessis · October 2017 On last September 13, exactly one month after his promises made on Women’s Day, Beji Caid Essebsi abrogated the 1973 decree prohibiting marriages between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man. But his other promise of equal inheritance rights between the sexes, is a thornier question and keeping (…) September 2017 Houari Boumediene’s Algeria to the Rescue of Nasser’s Egypt Akram Belkaid · September 2017 Algeria’s participation in the 1967 war on Egypt’s side came just in time to restore Houari Boumediene’s image in a period when he was bitterly contested. The regime was to take advantage of the situation to make it harder to leave the country and to strengthen its military capacities. And yet (…) From Geneva to London: How Bahrain Tries to Game Human Rights Accountability in the International Arena Marc Owen Jones · September 2017 Bahrain will be subject to the Universal Periodic Review this weekend by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to review its achievements in the field of human rights. The government of this country, which practices torture and has carried out numerous executions, (…) Israel’s Triumphant Return to Africa Ezra Nahmad · September 2017 Is the cancellation of the Africa-Israel summit scheduled for October in Lome of political significance? This seems unlikely considering the extent of the relationships built up between them over the last two decades. The time is long past when practically the whole African continent boycotted (…) Turkey. Ahmet Şik’s Statement in Court on 24 July 2017 Ahmet Şik · September 2017 In 2011, Turkish investigative journalist Ahmet Şik wrote a book titled The Imam’s Army, on the infiltration of the Fethullah Gulen movement into the Turkish state. The draft was confiscated by authorities and banned by a court. But the manuscript was leaked online. Şik was jailed for a year as (…) How France Participates in the Yemen Conflict Warda Mohamed, Tony Fortin · September 2017 From 11 to 15 September, Geneva will be hosting the Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty. The world’s third largest purveyor of armaments, France has a privileged relationship in this area with Saudi Arabia and its allies. According to hitherto undisclosed data revealed to (…) De Gaulle : “The Jews, a People Sure of Itself and Domineering” Alain Gresh · September 2017 From the very start of the June 1967 war, French President General Charles de Gaulle condemned Israel for having started it. This position, in contradiction with that of most political leaders, the media and public opinion earned de Gaulle many criticisms, including that of antisemitism. A (…) August 2017 After the Defeat, The Arab Left on the Offensive Nicolas Dot-Pouillard · August 2017 The defeat of the Arab armies in June 1967 did not immediately lead to the rise of the Islamist movements. During a brief period, the left filled the political void. In November, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) came into existence, led by the National Liberation Front (…) Is Cooperation Possible to Develop Joint Oil Fields in the Arabo-Persian Gulf? Pierre Fabiani · August 2017 The crisis between Qatar and its neighbors has highlighted the tensions across the Arabo-Persian Gulf, which are not limited to hostility between Tehran and Riyadh. Cooperation in the exploitation of hydrocarbons could help to ease regional crises. To unitize oil and gas (O&G) fields (…) June 2017 France Under Macron Still Indulges Egypt’s Harsh Repression Joe Stork · June 2017 French President Emmanuel Macron may be a fresh new face, but if the visits to Cairo by former Defense Minister Sylvie Goulard (June 5) and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (June 8) are anything to go by, we seem set for the same indulgence of unabated repression. “Military and security (…) Seen From Algiers: The Other Side of a Colonial War Warda Mohamed · June 2017 In Algiers, what is commemorated on the 8th of May is not the Allied victory over Nazi Germany but the massacres of Algerian separatists by the French in Setif, Guelma and Kherrata and their areas. More than 70 years later and despite a few politicians’ speeches, the “country of human rights” (…) A Macron Tale: The Story of a Perfect Champs Elysees Recipe Jean-Bernard Beauregard · June 2017 Part I: A long, vain introduction Let me start with a vain introduction. I am French. Worse, I belong to the Parisian middle-class. After needing 10 years to realize human life is theoretically possible outside of Paris and 10 more to realize it actually exists, I left Paris, and have (…) How the Israeli Generals Prepared The Conquest Long Before 1967 Sylvain Cypel · June 2017 Not only was Israel under no threat of destruction in 1967, but the high command had long since drawn up its plans to Conquer the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights. And they carried them out with what amounted to a coup against a handful of politicians still reluctant to (…) Fertility and Marriage in the Middle East: Paradoxical Trends Françoise de Bel-Air · June 2017 The demographic transition in most Arab countries seemed irreversible. The levels of childbearing were steadily declining. And yet suddenly they have begun to rise, a rare occurrence in any society. The reasons are many, complex and overturn common beliefs. Arab demography has given rise to (…) The Second Nakba: Displacement of Palestinians in and after the 1967 Occupation Munir Nuseibah · June 2017 Nineteen years after the Nakba (1947-1949), Israel carried out a second wave of expulsions of Palestinians from their homeland during and after the 1967 war. Without hope of return, they were forcibly displaced from the Latroun area, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to Jordan. Followers (…) May 2017 Iran. Economic Challenges for the Re-Elected President Hamzeh Arabzadeh · May 2017 Hassan Rouhani was re-elected president with a score of 57% on 19 May of this year. The perspectives of an economy open to the rest of the world which he propounds seem more convincing than the often very rash promises his conservative opponents made to attract the poor. The fact remains that (…) Debate on Violence Against Women in Tunisia Giulia Bertoluzzi · May 2017 In Tunisia, the draft law “on the elimination of violence to women,” adopted by the Council of Ministers on 13 July 2016 is currently under revision by the Rights and Freedoms Committee of the Tunisian Parliament. After months of waiting, the Tunisian civil society, gathered around the Ligue des (…) Is Saudi Arabia selling off Aramco for peanuts? Pierre Terzian · May 2017 A central measure of the Deputy Crown-Prince’s “Vision 2030” is to partially sell off state-owned Aramco. But discontent is brewing online and in royal circles, writes Pierre Terzian. When it comes to the price of oil, some exporting countries have just one urgent priority: to restore their (…) April 2017 In Palestine, European diplomats and officials all have the blues Sylvain Cypel · April 2017 The Jericho free zone, in the Jordan Valley, was meant to help Palestine’s economic development and is financed by the European Union. But it’s a long way from theory to practise, for Israel creates ever new obstacles to destroy or block any initiative aimed at improving Palestinian lives. (…) U.S. Policies in the Middle East under the Trump Presidency Kristian Coates Ulrichsen · April 2017 Donald Trump has not yet formulated a clear foreign policy doctrine. But state appointments as well as the first decisions taken about Syria or Yemen, or the decision to use the most powerful US non-atomic bomb in Afghanistan, reveal some broad orientations of the future US policy in the Middle (…) The Repeated Failures to Bring About a Settlement in Libya Patrick Haimzadeh · April 2017 The Government of National Accord set up last year under pressure from the West only worsened the country’s fragmentation. Yet the present stand-off should teach the international community to be more in tune with the local political culture and to set in motion a virtuous circle from the bottom (…) Cheap Oil at its Third Anniversary Jean-Pierre Sereni · April 2017 Less than six months after their November 2016 agreement to raise the price of crude oil to 58 dollars a barrel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members realised that supply still exceeded demand. In a single week, at the beginning of March 2017, this bitter truth (…) March 2017 Tunisia: The Running Battle Between the Government and the UGTT Khadija Mohsen-Finan · March 2017 The latest cabinet reshuffle, which put an end to the tenure of Abid Briki, Minister in charge of the Civil Service and Governance, reveals the limits of the Carthage Pact and government cohesion. What role do the parties play today in political and economic decision-taking, caught as they are (…) Turkey Places Too Much Hope in Trump Bayram Balci · March 2017 Donald Trump’s election was favourably greeted in Ankara. Turkish-American relations had seriously deteriorated during the Obama presidency. Yet it is unlikely that Washington will modify its policies on the Syrian issue (and specifically its support for the Kurds), go back to its refusal to (…) Moscow Capital of the Middle East Alain Gresh · March 2017 Russia now occupies a pivotal position in the Middle Eastern political chessboard. Its military presence in Syria, the axis created with Iran and Turkey have made the Russians a required partner for all sides in the ongoing war. But Russia is also caught up in the conflicts between its allies (…) Sahara: Tunisia faced with the Algerian-Moroccan rivalry Akram Belkaid · March 2017 For fear of a quarrel with its Algerian neighbour or a clash with Rabat, Tunisia maintains a “positive neutrality” in the Western Sahara question which has pitted Algeria against Morocco since the mid-seventies and constitutes one of the chief stumbling blocks in the process of regional (…) Algeria Is Losing Ground in Africa Lakhdar Benchiba · March 2017 On January 30, 2017, a majority of African countries voted to allow Morocco back into the African Union despite Algerian (and South African) opposition over the question of Western Sahara. The diplomatic ties which Algeria owed to the prestige of its war of independence are gradually distending (…) February 2017 Libya: Russia Plays a New Card Igor Delanoë · February 2017 The trip to Moscow, planned for this February by Fayez Al-Sarraj, head of the Tripoli government recognised by the UN, as well as the two trips to the Russian capital by General Khalifa Haftar in 2016, illustrate Russia’s increasing involvement in the Libyan situation. The Kremlin’s renewed (…) The United Arab Emirates have it in for the Muslim Brotherhood Marc Cher-Leparrain (1956-2019) · February 2017 Less populated and less hegemonic than Saudi Arabia, more discreet than Qatar, the United Arab Emirates has been not less active, especially since 2011, to fight political Islam in all its forms, with the Muslim Brotherhood as its main target. The federation is therefore in frontal opposition (…) When France Used the Public Debt to Colonise Morocco Adam Barbe · February 2017 It is now widely recognised that the French protectorate over Morocco was acquired thanks to that country’s public debt. Guy de Maupassant in Bel Ami (1885) alludes to this possibility twenty years before the event! Yet still today many historians fantasise about secret financial and diplomatic (…) Syrian Crisis: Back to Square One? Joseph Bahout · February 2017 After the recent fall of Aleppo to the Syrian regime and the inauguration of President Donald Trump in the United States, Syria found itself in a fundamentally new situation. Russia engaged in an enormous show of force in Aleppo, one met with silence by an outgoing Obama administration hesitant (…) Algeria’s Independence: The Forgotten Protests that Forged a Nation Mathieu Rigouste · February 2017 By the end of 1957, France claimed political dissent in Algieria had been eradicated. Yet soon the Algerian people were to take to the streets to reclaim their independence in a chapter that remains largely unknown. On 11 December 1960, three years after the Battle of Algiers, large-scale (…) January 2017 The “Border Burners” in the Algerian Press Farida Souiah · January 2017 Offenders? Victims? Resistants? Who are these clandestine immigrants trying to leave the country by “burning borders”, described in the Algerian dailies? “Powerless to act, the government finally admits the problem is serious. The harraga are exposing the system for what it is.” This was the (…) “Civil Society” in Tunisia: the Ambivalence of a New Seat of Power Hèla Yousfi · January 2017 In 2015 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian national dialogue in recognition of the example set by civil society in that country. But there is no avoiding the fact that being regarded as a model of democracy has not enabled Tunisia to satisfy the social and economic demands of its (…) Turkey Trapped in the Syrian Crisis Samim Akgönül · January 2017 For some ten years now, Turkey’s regonal policies have been characterised by U-turns and changes of heart. Henceforth, Ankara is bogged down in the Syrian crisis, caught between Kurdish demands and the terrorist attacks of ISIS. On December 19, 2016, on the eve of the opening of the summit (…) Saudi Arabia mired in the quicksand of the Middle East Alain Gresh · January 2017 Two years after his accession to the throne, King Salman faces many challenges. The intervention in Yemen is bogged down and Saudi Arabia suffers setbacks in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. While the economic reforms initiated are much criticized, the questions on his succession remain unanswered. (…) The Illusory Reform of the Algerian Economy Jean-Pierre Sereni · January 2017 Visiting Algiers in November, Jean-François Dauphin, chief of the International Monetary Fund’s mission for Algeria, expressed the hope that in future the country’s “development would be led more by the private sector and be less dependent on petroleum.” In other words, the private sector (…)