Photo-essay: Sharing space in divided cities can take many shapes: from tense encounters and confrontations, to active cooperation and social relations. Here Yair Wallach of the Conflict in Cities and the Contested State research group examines Sheikh Jarrah, one of the flashpoints of confrontatio
The proposed E1 settlement expansion into the West Bank, recently blocked by Palestinian protestors at the short-lived Bab Al-Shams camp, is likely to not only have serious consequences for a potential Palestinian state, but will also have a crucial bearing for the future of Palestinians in Jerusa
The series of conflicts that besieged Beirut during the Lebanese civil war have radically reconfigured the social and spatial environment of the city we know today.
Responses to his death may well mark the end of the line for Islamist politics as we know it in Tunisia. It may also mark the rise of a unified opposition, which now realizes that its fight is not only, or no longer, for freedom of expression and association but an existential one, a matter of sur
Al-Khidr for the Alawis - as well as for many other religions and sects - is one of God's righteous men; capable of performing miracles. According to the Alawi creed, he never dies.
The protracted uprising in Syria has frustrated the Gulf States' previous ability to exert a decisive influence over the revolutions of the Arab Spring. As routes to aiding the opposition become increasingly complicated, will they lose their seat at the table in a future settlement?
As the two cities of Cairo and Port Said remain engulfed in the worst violence seen since the Revolution, the entwining in Egypt of ‘football and the game of politics’ could hardly be more complete. And the game, it would appear, has not even reached half-time, says Leila Zaki Chakravarti.
A 36-year old Algerian lecturer from the post-independence generation explains what Gillo Pontecorvo’s film means to him.
Cinematic representations of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation frequently invoke The Battle of Algiers as a point of reference. This reflects a long history of Palestinian identification with the Algerian independence movement and more specifically with Pontecorvo’s film.
Pope Tawadros II has realised that the revolutionary spirit in Egypt cannot be suppressed. His answer has been to create a system in the Coptic Orthodox Church that is more open minded and accessible than it has ever been in nearly two thousand years of existence, says Nelly van Doorn-Harder.
Is it possible in such a situation to face the threat of foreign intervention and yet make internal democratic change with the peaceful civil movement which started from Dara’a? I repeat, and say for the umpteenth time, yes, and yes.
A message to the openDemocracy conference Syria's peace: what, how, when? from Syrian writer and Arab Awakening blogger, Rita.