Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His most recent book is Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising, US, UK. His previous books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. Also by the same author, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (Saqi and University of California Press), The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder (2nd ed., Saqi, 2006) and The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (Saqi, 2010). He is the chairperson of the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS.
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Published in: HomeZionism, anti-semitism, and the Balfour DeclarationA complementarity between the anti-semitic desire to get rid of the Jews and the Zionist project of sending all Jews to Palestine seems ignored, for example, by Theresa May.
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Published in: North Africa, West AsiaShame on those who try to justify Giulio Regeni’s assassinationClaims that Regeni’s supervisors bear responsibility for sending him into danger are outrageous, betraying both ignorance of the facts and a severe lack of empathy.
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Published in: North Africa, West AsiaThe Syrian army and its power pyramidTo continue our examination of the Syrian army, a contesting view to that of Kamal Alam in an excerpt from Gilbert Achcar's 'The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising', identifying a complex manipulation of sect and clan in the maintenance of the Syrian regime and its apparatuses of violence.
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Published in: North Africa, West AsiaThe people want – but do they have a chance?Nasserism, by far, is the main form of progressive political consciousness that one can find in Egypt, when it takes the form of nostalgia, not for military rule, but for social benefits, jobs, agrarian reform, democratisation of education, and the national dignity of Egypt as incarnated and embodied by Nasser. Interview: 14 February 2014.
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Published in: HomeWelcoming the vote of the British Parliament while supporting the Syrian uprisingThe best way to “punish” the Syrian regime is to enable the popular uprising to break it, not to bomb the country.
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Published in: North Africa, West AsiaIsrael: the writing on the wall
Successive Israeli cabinets have worked to enforce on the ground in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories a situation that they could present as irreversible. Have they now reached the point where the biblical book of Daniel’s prophecy is once again relevant?