Middle East
Israel, Pariah State
Presidential hopeful Rahm Emanuel recently warned Israelis that they’ve become a pariah state, with most Democrats and even the majority of American Jews pulling away over the country’s policies. But Israelis seem unable to accept that the Gaza war is the reason their international image is at an all-time low.
The Fracture of Israel’s ‘Russians’
The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered significant shifts within Israel’s Russian-speaking community. Once viewed as culturally and linguistically monolithic, Russians and Ukrainians are now asserting their unique identities, which include political views notably more liberal than those of the generation who arrived as adults in the 1990s.
The Paths Forward for the Gulf States and Iran
In the aftermath of the Iran war, the Gulf Arab states may seek to achieve an equilibrium with the Islamic Republic through managing, rather than resolving, their differences.
Israel Is Trying To Extinguish Palestinian Cultural Life in East Jerusalem
Israel is slowly squeezing Arab cultural life from East Jerusalem, using a series of laws banning Palestinian self-rule and raiding cultural institutions, including a historic bookstore and theater.
Inside the Dispute Over How To Define a Journalist
The CPJ's decision to review eight journalists removed from its Gaza casualty database has sparked a broader dispute over how the organization defines journalism, culminating in a board vote to reaffirm its existing standards.
Israel’s Polluting West Bank Factories
Pollution from Israeli factories established illegally in the West Bank has poisoned the soil on Palestinian farms and damaged farmers’ health. Yet these unregulated industrial sites remain connected to European markets.
The Reality of Returning to Gaza
When a Palestinian journalist returned to Gaza after nearly three years in Cairo, arriving just before Eid, she expected destruction and grief. But she was struck instead by how thoroughly loss has been absorbed into ordinary life.