It’s been a bad month. Rather than put money into the central bank in Cairo, why not help subsidise staple foods for Egypt’s poorest, or support relief aid in North Africa?
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, What Algeria 1992 can, and cannot, teach us about Egypt 2013
Should Egypt collapse into violence and disarray, supporting the Army might well make the UAE look similar to how Iran and Qatar appear in Syria - one sided backers in a conflict that pulls the country apart rather than unifying it.
Today the Gulf States have reached a political stalemate. Political Islam, playing right into the hands of the governments, has caused damage to the cause of secular reformists throughout the region.
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, Israel: on music, the Academy and the cultural boycotts.
Perhaps being a little less interesting from now on in would help ensure the country a more stable and prosperous future.
Let’s be clear here, Qatar lost in Qusair. It is embarrassing and undermines two years and $3bn of financial support to the rebel movement. And it is time that Qatar began to take some responsibility for things Qaradawi has said, and is saying with regards to Syria.
The outcome of the Syrian crisis, no matter what that might be, will delimit the new Middle East in a way that will affect the entire world—not just Syria and the region
The differences concerning Israel, the occasionally troublesome Al Jazeera network, and Qatar’s hosting and funding of hard-line Islamists have been papered over in favour of larger strategic visions which ensure the interests of both parties.
Tension with its Gulf neighbours began to rise from 2006 when Qatar and Al Jazeera stood with Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizbullah during its war with Israel, while western allied states clearly hoped to see the Iranian-backed militia wiped out.
From this side of the political divide the Egyptians appear ungrateful, rude and disrespectful.
A plethora of rumours, some of which originated from very reputable media sources, are circling around Qatari mega-purchases of the Pyramids and the Suez Canal.
