Conflicts Forum

A Conflicts Forum seminar, Beirut, June 19, 2007
Project Outline*:
We are at a point of conflict and growing instability in the Middle East where the West’s projection of its perception of Islamist identity is no longer recognizable to Islamists themselves; and the Islamist perception of American motivation for actions has little if any resonance with ordinary […]

By Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, openDemocracy*, August 14, 2007
Many parallels are currently being drawn between the crises in Palestine and Lebanon. A number focus on the most visible similarity: the “two-state, two-government” scenario which has become a reality in Palestine (with different authorities in charge in Gaza and the West Bank) and threatens to do the same […]

For several months now, the United States and Israel have promoted what could be described as a two-tiered narrative in confronting Iran. That coming from the U.S. government has catered to the “quality” press, while that from Israel has aimed straight for the tabloid headlines. The administration line has been measured, rational, yet uncompromising. Condoleezza […]

Is the Bush administration violating the law in an effort to provoke a Palestinian civil war?
Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working […]

By Mark Perry, Bitterlemons, September 7, 2006
Since talk of “Islamofascism” is so much in vogue these days, it might be useful to return to those years when the inventors of the ideology (let’s call them “Christofascists”) took their show on the road. If George Bush thinks that “the terrorists” hate our values now, he should […]

Part five: The politics of indignation
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, June 8, 2006
The foundational belief of the “war on terrorism” is that militant Islam is hollow. We are not fighting a credible movement with a set of core beliefs, but “evildoers” - people who have nothing to say, who are without values, […]