Selective sympathy raises troubling questions. If you neglect suffering in other places, it is much more difficult to mobilise political actors to take it seriously.
It’s been assumed that most Arab countries are adamantly opposed to Iran’s regional rise and therefore not in favor of a nuclear deal. But is that really the case?
The flows of refugees from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria are yet another driver of demographic changes that are threatening to destabilise other states long regarded as strong and democratic.
Lebanon has always been a complicated jigsaw, but despite years of war, regional conflict, and meddling in its affairs, it has displayed a tremendous ability to absorb tension. But the threads that hold…
The Islamic State’s campaign across Northern Iraq and Syria has entered Lebanese territory for the first time. Long affected by the spillover of refugees fleeing its war torn neighbours, the brief battle…
In the 1982 Lebanon war I served as an Israeli artillery forward observer, my task to pinpoint the PLO’s positions and call in fire from our artillery units. We stayed in the evacuated Al Jamous School…
Mediterranean societies have been described as communities of honour and shame. The fundamental currency of their social order is respect. When the Lebanese civil war drove thousands of its citizens to…
On January 4, Tripoli’s historic Al Sa’eh Library, one of Lebanon’s largest, burnt down. Two-thirds of its 80,000 books and manuscripts were lost in a fire that consumed the building. This is no anomaly…
At a meeting at the Wall Street Journal this week, Martin E Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the United States’ ability to exercise influence in the Middle East had significantly…
The recent sinking of a refugee boat bound for Australia off Java, which had 68 Lebanese on board, highlights the complexity, magnitude and reach of the Syrian civil war. The effect of the ongoing war…
It is about 100 years since the then-imperial powers of Britain and France first demarcated the boundaries between Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Mandate Palestine. Now, it looks like those borders are…
The fighting that has engulfed the Lebanese city of Sidon over the past week, leaving at least 15 soldiers dead and more than 70 injured, has raised tension across the country. The clashes come on the…
The case of Ben Zygier, the Australian who died in a high-security Israeli prison, simply refuses to go away. On Tuesday we learned more from an ABC special on Foreign Correspondent. In a twist that would…