The Arab popular awakening is provoking serious concern among state and security elites across the west. But Israel’s stance is the most self-defeating of all.
A series of legislative measures in Israel will further constrain Israel’s beleaguered human-rights groups. A proposed commission to monitor their work highlights the real motive behind these efforts, say Lisa Magarrell & Iain Levine.
Iraqi protesters recently denounced the Islamisation of Iraqi society, demanded better working conditions, and protested the torture of prisoners. But ‘regime change’ has a different meaning in Iraq, and unlike Egypt and Tunisia, these protesters are asking for more support from the current govern
A hurricane of change is blowing through the Arab world. Even now, many Arab regimes are still in denial. But it also challenges the west to grasp a new political reality, says Nadim Shehadi.
All Arab regimes, regardless of regime type, have essentially behaved like dynasties. This is why the essentially secular, expansive, inclusive, internationally-aware neo-nationalism of the young Arabs in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region offers a revolutionary break from an unending past
A filmed interview of Professor Eugene Rogan; the conversation ranges from the echoes of nineteenth century constitutionalism in the Tunisian and Egyptian movements today, to other moments of Egyptian empowerment – 1919, the years after 1952 – through the challenges ahead for Egypt and the credibi
The democratic wave sweeping the Arab world, and shared by Iran, opens a new agenda for the civic activists who helped make it possible, says Ramin Jahanbegloo.
The popular revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the middle east are driven by a profound democratic impulse. This represents both learning and test for international democracy actors, says Vidar Helgesen.
Mubarak's totalitarian control of opposition parties and civil society organisations largely delegitimised them. 6 months is a short time to build-up of the essential fabric of democratic organisations that will allow the promise of the revolution to be realised
A “palm revolution” in the Gulf? Political upheaval in the desert state of Bahrain: there have been calls for a Day of Rage in Bahrain to replace the celebration of 10 years of constitutional monarchy on February 14th which is set to split the country in two
The uprisings sweeping across the Middle East portend a political transformation as significant as those of 1989. The economic stagnation of the region, the failures of corrupt and repressive autocratic regimes, conjoined with a disenchanted youthful population wired together as never before, have
