Middle East
Israeli Druze Strike a Fine Balance
For decades, Israel’s Druze citizens fulfilled their obligations as citizens in the belief that the state would reward their loyalty with equality. But Israel’s increasingly extremist government and regional sectarian violence have made them feel deeply fearful for their future — in Israel and throughout the region.
A Camera on His Army Service
In “Shivtown,” documentary filmmaker Hillel Ben-Zeev Perlov tells the story of three unhappy years he spent as a photographer at a remote Israeli army base, asking penetrating questions about universal concerns like generational trauma and why we perpetuate cycles of hatred and wars.
Beyond Glastonbury’s Gaza Controversy
Protest chants over Gaza led by the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan at Glastonbury have been whipped into a front-page controversy. Yet while the furore deflects from the realities of the Israeli military’s actions, the horror felt by artists and the public at the war represents a turning point.
Losing Control? An Iranian and an Israeli on the Recent War
Academic Nahid Siamdoust and political analyst Ori Goldberg join New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai on Global Insights to discuss the fallout of the war between Israel and Iran.
Historicide in Gaza
Roman pots and Phoenician jewelry may be more glamorous than filing cabinets full of administrative papers, but the latter record the basic facts needed to understand a society. In Gaza, Israel has now destroyed these archives — the culmination of a long process curtailing the possibilities of Palestinian history.
Gaza and the Undoing of Zionism
A review of recent works on the Gaza war by Peter Beinart, Avi Shlaim and Pankaj Mishra explores how they converge on a single interpretation, long argued for by Palestinian scholars like Rashid Khalidi: The crisis is not an aberration, but the end point of a century-long project.
The Psychological Barrier Broken by Iran and Israel’s Missile Exchange
The latest exchanges of missiles between Israel and Iran have broken a long-standing psychological barrier in the Middle East, and are being viewed by states in the region with profound ambivalence. With deterrence fading, what follows may be more volatile still.