Tag Archives: Syria

Peter Malcontent, Utrecht University Israeli voters are about to head to the polls for the fourth time in two years. And, once again, the issue of Palestine has been almost completely absent from debate during the campaign. Once upon a time this would have been unimaginable. In 1992, Yizhak Rabin’s Labor Party won because of his willingness to strike a …

The city of Homs has been ravaged by war, leaving millions of people homeless and displaced. Abduljalil Achraf, Author provided Ammar Azzouz, University of Oxford Abduljalil sent me a photo of his ruined home in Homs, Syria. “It is the third floor”, he told me over WhatsApp. The building still stands but it looks like an empty skeleton. Most of …

Saudi King Salman accompanies Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, left, during the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December 2019. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) Edmund Adam, University of Toronto When the Arab Spring protests erupted in 2010, many political pundits predicted the uprisings would ripple through the entire region and ultimately reach the oil-rich …

Yasin Duman, Coventry University A spate of attacks in Turkey on Syrian refugees and Kurdish internal migrants and displaced people in recent months have put both communities on edge. In July, a Syrian teenager working as a market seller in Bursa, northwestern Turkey, died after he was attacked by a group of men. Another Syrian teenager who worked in a …

Rahaf Aldoughli, Lancaster University When I picture Syria, the first thing I see in my mind’s eye are the statues of the late Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, in military attire – there’s one in almost every square. But it’s not just statues in the urban spaces, this muscular image of the nation permeates popular culture – Syria is symbolically depicted …

Samira, originally from Belgium, walks with her son in Camp Roj in northern Syria. Her French husband is imprisoned for links to the Islamic State. She has tried to return to Belgium, where she says she wants to reintegrate into society, but their repatriation has sparked controversy. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) Lydie C. Belporo, Université de Montréal The children live in …

The podcast Caliphate explored the war on terror and ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq. In this March 12, 2020 photo, a man rides a motorcycle in northwestern Syria the current focus of the 10-year civil war. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Peter Klein, University of British Columbia The latest scandal to hit United States news media involves Rukmini Callimachi, …

People look at the remains of an exploded vehicle that the Islamic State used as a suicide bomb, on display in Iran in September 2020. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images Brian Glyn Williams, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth One common claim by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has been that his administration beat IS, or what’s formally known as the Islamic …

GettyImages Sioux McKenna, Rhodes University International rankings of universities are big business and big news. These systems order universities on the basis of a variety of criteria such as student to staff ratio, income from industry, and reputation as captured through public surveys. Universities around the world use their rankings as marketing material and parents and prospective students make life …

Gebhard Fugel, ‘An den Wassern Babylons.’ Gebhard Fugel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons David W. Stowe, Michigan State University At sundown on July 29, Jews around the world will observe Tisha B’av, the most somber of Jewish holidays. It commemorates the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonians and then, almost seven centuries later, in A.D. …