While some world leaders and foreign policy experts expected IS to increase its attacks during COVID-19’s early days, travel bans and curfews helped slow violence.
The original cover art of Edward Said’s book was this Orientalist painting by Jean Leon Gerome: Le charmeur de serpents.
Wikimedia
Edward Said’s seminal 1978 book, Orientalism, explores how often racist or romanticised stereotypes create a worldview that justifies Western colonialism and imperialism.
A saltier Red Sea could threaten its marine life.
Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock
Two religiously observant groups of Jews in Israel, the ultra-Orthodox and Religious Zionists, are increasingly acting as political allies. The consequences could be profound.
President Xi Jinping with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in December.
Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo
The region is well placed to satisfy China’s huge oil needs.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi is honored with a cloak prior to receiving the World Cup trophy at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, on Dec. 18, 2022.
AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis
Morality police first appeared in Iran soon after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But similar forces were present in parts of the Middle East even prior to the date.
Fans watch the World Cup opening match between Qatar and Ecuador on Nov. 20, 2022, in Doha.
Clive Brunskili/Getty Images
Migrant workers’ rights are indeed an ongoing issue in Qatar – but the country has passed reforms to improve workers’ rights, and it isn’t the only issue to define Qatar.
Dan Stoenescu, head of the EU delegation for Syria, during a visit to the territories controlled by the Damascus regime on 8 August 2022.
Dan Stoenescu/Facebook
Pictures of women in war play a pivotal role in the battlefield of political ideas, argues a feminist historian who examines how images and attire are used and seen in war zones and occupied lands.
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Kyiv residential building destroyed by a drone that local authorities consider to be Iranian-made.
Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Iran has a growing role in the Ukraine war, helping Russia augment its dwindling weapons supplies. That may help Russia, but it also serves Iran’s national interests.
Girls chant religious slogans while celebrating Mawlid al-Nabi in Karachi, Pakistan in 2021.
AP Photo/Fareed Khan
The Wahhabi school of Islam has spread throughout the world, along with its disapproval of the holiday.
Hajja Nuzha Al-Najjar in her cave-home in Masafer Yatta. In an oral history interview, she describes being shot in the leg by an Israeli settler in 2005.
Mahmoud Makhamra
The caves now serve as important safe spaces in an area designated ‘Firing Zone 918’ by Israel, as residents describe a growing wave of forced evictions and building demolitions.
The Tadamon neighbourhood pictured in 2018.
Louai Beshara/AFP
Two academics have identified the perpetrators of a massacre committed in 2013 by Syrian loyalist forces. An episode that says a lot about the reality of Syria in the last 10 years.
As the most water-scarce region on the planet, the Middle East is particularly reliant on desalination technology.
Maxim Petrichuk/Shutterstock
Drinkable water resources are becoming increasingly scarce. Are technologies such as desalination capable of averting such a crisis?
In July 2022, Iran provided the Russian military with training for using Iranian-produced weapons, including the Shahed-129 drone, displayed here at a 2019 military show in Tehran.
Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestinian militants has already come at a huge cost for the people of Gaza – and reveals the extent of their ongoing suffering.
Mahdi Shaban, a Palestinian living in Gaza, paid for his master’s degree with earnings from digging graves.
Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Political and economic forces across the Middle East and North Africa combine to mean well-educated young people spend years looking for work, which delays their independence and adulthood.
Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at RUSI; Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations; Deputy Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL