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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
This e-Book was published on December 10, 2019 by the Arab Reform Initiative, edited by Khaled Mansour with an up-to-date introductory chapter. Contents page below with all hyperlinks. Editor: Khaled Mansour
First Posted at United Against Inhumanity website on 8.10.2019 The plight of civilians in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib became too much to ignore in the middle of 2019 hot summer, even in a world that had become flooded and numbed by mediatised suffering. In late August, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that […]
In many years at the World Food Programme and UNICEF, I worked with professional and committed leaders who clearly wanted to see our work as #charity and #Humanitarian_aid and not as a fulfillment of rights owed to children and the hungry. They cared most, as good executive bureaucrats do, about getting the job done and growing their organizations in the process. They […]
(An earlier version of this piece appeared in Ahramonline on 7.12.2013) It has been a truism for decades to attribute the drivers of US foreign policy in the Middle East to two realist drivers; free flow of oil from the major Gulf producers and Israel’s security, with the latter seen as part of the US […]
(This was first published in Ahram online on 30.11.2013) Before we jump into the horse-trading that marked the making of the US foreign policy on the Arab Spring in 2011-2013, it helps to scan and present the chief actors in Washington DC, even if quickly. The authority to formulate the US foreign policy ultimately rests […]