The Saban Center for Middle East Policy hosted a debate on October 23, 2006 between Joshua Landis, assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, and Ammar Abdulhamid, a Saban Center Nonresident Fellow, on whether the United States should engage with Syria. Martin S. Indyk, Director of the Saban Center, formerly Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs and twice U.S. Ambassador to Israel, and Tamara Cofman Wittes, Saban Center Research Fellow and Director of the Arab Democracy and Development Program, chaired the event. Continue reading “Should The United States Engage Syria? A Saban Center Policy Forum Debate”
Tag: Islamists
A Note on Apathy
First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.
Apathy is probably one of the most puzzling and serious social diseases affecting regional youth these days. Yet, we can blame economic conditions and the local fear culture, stemming out of authoritarian predilections of ruling regimes and the potential for ethnic strife in some cases, only so much before we have to stop and consider the involvement of other factors in this matter as well. For fear and economic hardships only represent the inhibitive side of the equation, while human behavior is equally shaped by motivating factors. Indeed, the lack of credible leaders and the lack of a promising vision of the future, both of which are necessary factors for inspiring people into action, seem to be involved here as well. Continue reading “A Note on Apathy”
The all too real need
First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.
Nationalism, Baathism, Islamism, whateverism, etc, indeed, the various isms that have swept across the region in the late 90th and early 20th Centuries onward have been nothing but a betrayal of its amazing ethnic diversity and all the intermixing that has been taking place for centuries. What we need is something new, a new idea of who we are, a new conception, no matter how vague, that can allow us to celebrate our differences and turn them into a source of strength rather than trouble and internecine warfare and mayhem. WE need to knit ourselves again into new fabric that can be reinserted back into the civilized world, for all our sakes.
Diversity and Turmoil
First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.
Diversity in our region creates certain dynamics that are simply too complex to be tackled through some facile generalizations. In this regard, and while Arabs across the region and the world seem to stand in solidarity with Hezbollah, the Bedouins in Israel seem to have a different opinion on this matter. Indeed, the Bedouins seem to “bitterly resent Hezbollah,” since of its Katyusha rockets tend to fall at them. Also, and contrary to how many Arabs feel with regard to the US, the Bedouins of Israel “don’t think the U.S. is engaged in a war against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. They think Arab anger around the world can be laid at the feet of dictators who spread misinformation to distract people from inept rule.” Continue reading “Diversity and Turmoil”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 