Discovering MENA and other thoughts

"This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy [...] is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order," Barack Obama said during a 15-minute intervention broadcast live on major American television networks on September 10th. 

"You have to be careful when choosing your enemies because sooner or later you will end up resembling them," Jorge Luis Borges said once. When your main enemy is your team-mate and is deeply embedded with your very raison d'être, it's no wonder how difficult it may be for you to move forward and fight any external threat whatsoever. This is exactly the case with the Palestinian cause, that does not seem to have enough with crashing time and again against the wall of Israeli intolerance and sees itself continually eroded by brotherly differences and struggles within the Palestinian elite itself. The most significant example of this is the war - not coincidentally called "war between brothers" - between Hamas and Fatah that broke out when the former were proclaimed winners of the elections the January 2006 Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah delivered an unforgettable speech in Beirut last July 25th on the occasion of "Jerusalem Day", in which he pledged "all means of support" for the "Palestinian resistance". It wasn't the first time Nasrallah took the chance to criticise Israel and its actions. It was the first time in months, though, Nasrallah showed signs that links between his organisation and Hamas are thawing. Hezbollah and Hamas had been allies in the region for more than 20 years. The first direct contact between the movements took place on December 17, 1992, when Israel deported 415 Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists from the West Bank and Gaza to Marj Al-Zouhour in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah’s resistance in the early 1980s inspired and motivated the Palestinians to launch the first intifada in December 1987, during which the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Palestine created Hamas. Many experts consider Nasrallah's messag...

Syria officially opened its presidential campaign on Sunday May 11th, and the cities and towns under the regime's control are filled with billboards and posters presenting portraits of President Bashar Al-Assad. Others, such as the ones hung in Thawra Street in the center of the capital, show either his portrait dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt or the Syrian flag overlaid with the word "together" and the President's signature. In Damascu's Sabaa Bahrat neighbourhood, one billboard proclaims: "We won't close our eyes until we have said yes to the ophthalmologist" - Assad is an eye specialist by training - "We vote for you, 2014". Elsewhere, posters read "our Bashar, we will not accept a president other than you. We have chosen you, you have our loyalty". The campaign is also flooding online media with messages of support for Assad - by the first morning, the Facebook account had garnered 65,000 likes and the Twit...

Last July I wrote about the several Tamarrod-style copycat movements that had been created throughout the Arab world inspired by their Egyptian brethren with the aim of protesting against the governments in power and in favour of the granting of further rights. One of the most active ones has surprisingly proven to be the Tamarrod Gaza movement, silently formed in the street against what some consider a status quo controlled by Hamas that is growing authoritarian by the day. Several small scale protests have been taken place in the tiny territory throughout recent weeks, but the demonstration most organisers hoped to represent a real breakthrough was scheduled for November 11, a key date for all inhabitants of the Strip. Indeed, las Monday was the anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, founder of Hamas rival Fatah, a date revered by all Palestinians that in the past has also been an occasion for protests.