Books, Friendship, Palestinians, Letters and more … (FB statuses Sep 2025 to Feb 2026)
20 Feb 2026 — Staying late reading a history book about prophet Mohammad and listening to early 20th century songs of Umm Kalthoum while waiting for the US to tell us that they have started bombing Iran again (or not). 23 Jan 2026 – “When I saw you in Egypt last August, you looked very […]
From 9/11 to Gaza: How I lost faith in the humanitarian system
“The Israeli revenge war has become a watershed, but it is by no means some sudden new trend.” First published in The New Humanitarian on October 27, 2025 Twenty-four years ago, on 11 September 2001, I sat on the veranda of a picturesque seafront restaurant in the Gaza Strip. I had started working for the […]
Libraries, Bookshops, Genocide, Trump and the world we live in (FB posts January-August 2025)
31 July 2025 – Borges said that heaven will be a library. This is how I felt in Hodges and Figgis Bookshop after visiting the old Trinity college Library in Dublin. The new books and the old manuscripts and the serious ess of it all compared to the AI hype and post-truth internet flood. 22 June 2025 — Two […]
How Music and Painting Can Help Syria Heal and Move On
Published 5 April 2025 in the EU Observer and co-authored with Petra Stienen “In the trash-strewn zigzagging streets of Al Husseiniya, a slum less than 15km south of Damascus, Ahmad Bakr walks with his Oud strung on his shoulder on his way to a small apartment where he runs a music school. Al Husseiniya is […]
Syria’s next chapter
Celebrations of liberation are fading and sectarian violence has returned. Can Syrians avoid vengeance? First published in the Prospect Magazine on March 15, 2025 Fourteen years ago, I stopped traveling to Syria. A security agency was suspicious of my visits because my passport listed my profession as a journalist. So I felt a bit anxious […]
Gaza Genocide, Syria’s Turbulence and a World trying to lose weight (or humans) (Facebook statuses Oct 2024 – Jan 2025)
19 Jan 2025 – Palestinian poet Refaat Al’ar’eer was killed by an Israeli bomb on December 6, 2023, after he wrote this poem below. Let us execute his will left in the poem below, let us make kites, the least we can do now on the day of a temporary ceasefire in a war that […]
A New Season in Damascus
Time for the UN to Check Out of the Four Seasons As Geir Pedersen, the UN envoy to Syria, left the abandoned Sednaya prison near Damascus, a woman spat in his direction and threw her shoes at his car — a gesture of deep disrespect and disdain in the Middle East. Prior to the collapse of the Assad […]
FaceBook Statuses June-September 2023 – Afghanistan, Iraq, US invasions and the UN
29 September 2023 — Some of my friends whose opinions I very much respect admiringly shared an analytical piece by Cheryl Benard on Afghan women after the failure of the American Neo-imperial project and their ignominious withdrawal this month. Here is the piece: https://unherd.com/2021/09/the-truth-about-afghan-women/… I found the main points of attractions in the piece either […]
The Saudis and Emiratis should pay blood money in Yemen
First published in MadaMasr on 13 October 2020 Even as the Saudis and the Emiratis continue to wage war in Yemen, they should step up and at least double the money they have been providing for humanitarian aid in the country. It is a moral duty and an ethical obligation, and although these are clearly […]
Lebanon, where humanitarian vultures descended
This was first published by MadaMasr on 6 September 2020 Less than three days after a massive explosion in Beirut killed nearly 200 people, injured several thousand and devastated the city, the head of the World Food Programme, the largest UN relief agency, flew into the Lebanese capital and drove to the site of carnage. […]
When Aid Workers Serve the Powerful!
This was first published on MadMasr on 22 August 2020 Seventeen years ago, this week, I survived a terrorist attack that killed 22 people and injured many, including several friends in the United Nations. The attack on the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad came a few months after the US invasion of […]
Egypt Faces a Malaise Deeper than Covid-19
By mid 2020, the pandemic has left most Egyptians, probably including government officials, counting more on divine intervention and what has been destined by fate, rather than government policies and market responses… This article was first run by Daraj on 16 July 2020 in cooperation with Pulitzer Center. By early July, over 3500 Egyptians fell to […]
