A five star hotel in Hamas controlled Gaza? Earlier this month, the hotel’s developer, Palestinian investment company Padico decided to finally open it. The company, controlled by politically independent billionaire Munib al-Masri, hopes to recover at least some of its costs and hopes that Gaza’s knotty problems may finally be solved in the coming years. [...]
Middle East
Is Islam the Problem or the Solution? Maybe neither.
Nicholas Kristof has an interesting column on why the Middle East stagnated economically after the 1200s while the western world boomed. Many Arabs have an alternative theory about the reason for the region’s backwardness: Western colonialism. But that seems equally specious and has the sequencing wrong. “For all its discontents, the Middle East’s colonial period [...]
Winds of protest blowing in Jordan?
It seems to be economic in nature When rallies erupted in January, they were at first largely tribal affairs in the impoverished Bedouin villages where King Abdullah recruits his forces. But as they spread to Amman, the capital, and to other towns, other disgruntled Jordanians, including Islamists, teachers and leftists, have jumped on the bandwagon. [...]
Gaza
During the Israeli attack on Hamas, I was sent a variety of links, Facebook groups, e-mails, and people to write so I could show my solidarity with the people of Gaza. For some very complicated reasons, I decided to ignore all of them, even though they came from close friends. The main reason is that [...]
