World News Insights: Opinion Articles

A few days ago, an Israeli website quoted what it called a source "close to Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa" as saying that Syria had demanded that Israel cede control over at least a third of the Golan Heights. One of the two potential scenarios for this "deal" would see “the Lebanese…

It must have been difficult for Hezbollah to watch the public ceremony in which the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters burned their rifles with their own hands. The scenes symbolized the termination of a long armed struggle in the region, quietly introducing a new era that compels…

When future historians study the arc of American foreign policy, they will probably fold all the major events since 2020 — our pell-mell withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran — into a unified narrative of global conflict. If…

The talk of a new Middle Eastern “deal” we have been hearing over the past few days is jarring. The agreement reportedly being cooked up sees Syria cede the Golan Heights to Israel... in return for the Lebanese city of Tripoli. The “official” reactions of Lebanese parties, of course, mixed…

I once asked a man who had worked in Saddam Hussein’s palace whether he had ever heard him swear. “No, he did not have a habit of swearing. He would fall silent when he became angry, but sparks would flash in his eyes; whenever he accused someone of treason, betrayal, or embezzlement of public…

Syria is facing the most severe water crisis in modern history. All of Syria’s provinces have suffered, albeit to varying degrees, and it has had impacts on the majority of Syrians if not all of them. In characterizing the water crisis, it can be said that it is comprehensive. It is a major…

Both are undeniably criminal acts. The former, perpetrated by ISIS, was universally condemned. While there remains some doubt, Hezbollah was probably behind the latter. However, both are grounded in a troubled relationship with the past. ISIS has been overwhelmingly condemned by mainstream Sunni …

In his masterpiece “The Train Passed by” Mahmoud Darwish writes: "I had been waiting on the sidewalk. Travelers were rushing to their daily lives ....and I continued to wait." In Lebanon, we are waiting collectively: Lebanon’s state and its people, its sects and parties, its…

The voice of rejectionism, despite coming to us from beneath the rubble, has not stopped trying to convince us of its victory. The fact is that turning the page on this rejectionism- its regimes, its militias, and all its defeated self-proclaimed victors- is the only shift unfolding in the region…

The recent attack by Israel and the US on parts of Iran’s nuclear project has already been dubbed by some commentators as the 12 Day War. However, that cut-off time was chosen by Tehran to back a claim that Iran managed to fight twice as long as Arab states led by Egypt did in the Six Days War…

Last week’s article discussed what I called the “victim complex,” that is, a person’s persistent feeling of being unlucky - not because of any personal shortcomings, but because other forces, whether visible or hidden, are working to thwart them and sabotage their efforts. One of my colleagues…

Under Netanyahu's leadership, Israel has imposed a new and volatile state of affairs in the region, which I call “open skies.” This shift is among the most dangerous outcomes of the military campaigns, or call them wars, Israel has launched since October 7, 2023. Israeli fighter jets and drones…