Eyad Abu Shakra

Today, the Druze, or the Muwahhidun, find themselves, wherever they live, prisoners of a situation they did not seek but that was imposed upon them by the circumstances of history, the complexities of geography, the baseness of intelligence agencies, and the savagery of advanced technology. The…

The matter is settled. There is absolutely no connection between the ancient Arab poet Di'bil al-Khuza'i, on the one hand, and Elon Musk and Sam Altman, on the other. That is what logic says, and the numbers confirm it. Di'bil was an Arab poet who lived during the Abbasid era in Iraq between 765…

The upcoming US midterm elections in early November promise to be exceptional in every sense of the word. They will amount to a series of major “tests” taking place on a single day—tests that could lead to a different set of calculations for President Donald Trump’s second term and redefine the…

Lebanon marked Army Day on August 1. On this day in 1945, France - the mandatory power over Syria and Lebanon since 1920 - handed the military units under its control in the Levant to the national government of independent Lebanon. Yet, the occasion falls this year under abnormal circumstances. One…

Most Lebanese hope to escape their difficult circumstances, and they can hardly be blamed for that. They have every right to build on any glimmer of hope and to wager on any opportunity, however risky. They have lived through harsh conditions since the October 7, 2023 war in the Gaza Strip,…

The hopes of British Labour Party members and supporters are mixed following the end of outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s era. While realists are holding back from over-optimism regarding the future under new leader Andy Burnham, many everyday citizens prefer to wait and see what he will…

It is a paradox of the highest order that real politics is now far more evident on playing fields and running tracks than in the world of official politics itself. Any form of competition inevitably creates winners, losers, and competing loyalties, which in many cases can give way to conspiracy and…

Leading figures of the Israeli far-right have made striking statements in recent days. I firmly believe that if anyone other than an Israeli had made them, the scales of judgment would have been brought down immediately, and threats of doom and severe consequences would have followed. But it seems…

While a large part of the world is preoccupied with the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Israel continues, through fire and blood, to draw new realities on the ground in the Middle East and impose them as established facts. Forget the saying that "religion is the opium of the people," as Karl Marx claimed…

I remember how we learned of Imruu al-Qais’s response to the news that Banu Asad had killed his father, the king of Kindah at school: “Today, wine; tomorrow, serious matters...” In a sense, there is a parallel, though not identical, saying in the Levant: “The drunken stupor is gone, and now the…