Columns/Opinions

By David Hearst – The Middle East Monitor Nothing illustrates the free-wheeling chaos of the Middle East better than what is going on in Yemen. A small Iranian-backed North Yemeni militia, modeled on Hezbollah and from an offshoot of Shia Islam, has walked into the capital Sanaa, taken over Hodeida, Yemen’s main port on the Red Sea, and is now …

by Sheema Khan  As Canada heads to war for six months or more in Iraq (and perhaps Syria), Canadian Muslims will once again feel under the microscope. As with the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and in the years after the 9/11 attacks, this community will bear the burden of suspicion, discrimination and possible recrimination. Acts of violent extremism committed overseas, …

Zehra Mehdi-Barlas Yes, I was fortunate enough to be born in a country and into a family where it was expected for me, a girl, to get educated and have a voice. I was told that praying is good for the soul, but so is music. I was encouraged to read and learn more about the world. I was neither …

By Ramzy Baroud The text of the letter was short and precise, leaving no room for any misinterpretation in the “promise” made by Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour to a powerful representative of the Jewish community in Britain, Lord Rothschild on a fateful day of 2 November 1917. “I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of …

By Garikai Chengu On Monday, America’s government offices, businesses, and banks all grind to a halt in order to commemorate Columbus Day. In schools up and down the country, little children are taught that a heroic Italian explorer discovered America, and various events and parades are held to celebrate the occasion. It has now become common knowledge amongst academics that …

Eric Walberg- The Middle East Eye In recent weeks there has been a spate of articles about western youth flocking to Syria and now Iraq to join the IS “caliphate.” An estimated 11,000 such fighters have already made the leap. Up to 130 Canadians have joined them, including Hamiltonian York University student, Mohamud Mohamed Mohamud, a Somalian Canadian, known to …

By Ramzy Baroud Consider this comical scene described by Peter Van Buren, a former US diplomat, who was deployed to Iraq on a 12-month assignment in 2009-10: Van Buren led two Department of State teams assigned with the abstract mission of the ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq, which was destroyed in the US-led wars and sanctions. He describes the reconstruction of Iraq …

By Natalie Shooter – REORIENT In the midst of a nascent film industry, a handful of female filmmakers have emerged in the Arabian Peninsula, pioneering film in the region and using it as a tool to fight for change. Saudi Arabia and Yemen both present volatile environments for any director; in the former, cinemas are illegal, and in both, authorisation …

C.A. Pinkham – Kitchenette Pittsburgh, PA’s Conflict Kitchen restaurant has come under fire by some members of the city’s Jewish community who are upset that the restaurant has chosen to feature Palestinian food. Those people are assholes. For those of you not familiar with Conflict Kitchen, it’s a restaurant whose cuisine changes regularly on a three-to-five month rotation, but always …

By Philip Weiss- MONDOWEISS Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen says that the Palestinians are to blame for the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 in which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled by or fled Zionist militias and were never allowed to return. In his new book Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? Cohen says that by resisting the Zionist movement …