By Michiko Kakutani
1 September 2010
New York Times

“A man without a shadow”; a “pleasant man with a pleasant family living in a pleasant North London house”; a bright, telegenic, yet elusive politician with a “smooth facade.” This is how a newspaper article in The Guardian famously described Tony Blair long before he became prime minister of Britain in 1997.

Mr. Blair’s decade in office would be marked by his momentous — and divisive — decision to go to war in Iraq alongside George W. Bush, and by his remaking of the Labour Party in a more centrist, Clintonian incarnation. Yet all these years and political miles later, the man — hailed by The Observer as “one of the most electorally successful and effective party leaders of all time” — remains a curiously opaque figure. And the self-portrait that emerges from his new memoir, “A Journey: My Political Life,” is very much that of a man without a shadow.

Much of this book is fluently written, and the production as a whole seems meant to ratify Mr. Blair’s belief that he “was a big player, was a world and not just a national leader.” At the same time the book sheds little light on what drives Mr. Blair or shaped his political vision, and even less new light on how he came to take Britain to war against Iraq.

By Rami Khouri, Arab Media Watch adviser, director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.

30 August 2010

Looking around the Arab world this week, it is difficult to know what are our real priority challenges, because multiple issues stand out as problems, vulnerabilities, weaknesses or threats. Most of the problems in our region can be traced to local incompetence, or, in the worst cases, criminality and irresponsibility in the seats of power -- though everywhere there is also an element of foreign involvement or manipulation that should not be ignored. The regional picture is not pretty.

By Sarah Irving, co-author of Gaza Benaeth the Bombs

27 August 2010

Ramallah-based writer and co-founder of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, Raja Shehadeh launched his latest book, A Rift in Time, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 14 August. Like earlier works, Shehadeh's latest title addresses the dispossession of the Palestinian people, the failure of the international community and their own leadership to deliver justice, and the abuse of Palestinian rights by the Israeli military and civil authorities. These themes are all presented through the lens of his family's history and his own experiences and passionate love of his land. But where Palestinian Walks, Strangers in the House and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing told the stories of Shehadeh and members of his close family, A Rift in Time takes readers back to the life of his great-uncle Najib Nassar, who edited the Haifa-based newspaper al-Karmil in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, before the First World War.

By Rami Khouri, Arab Media Watch adviser, director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.

23 August 2010

Following the American mainstream media’s celebratory coverage of the withdrawal of “combat troops” from Iraq earlier this week, the truth is that killing, destruction and waste of resources will continue apace in Iraq for some time. The full impact of the mayhem and devastation unleashed by the American-led invasion will only be measured in calculations across the entire region -- and globally in some instances, like the spread of networks of trained-in-Iraq terrorists -- for many years to come. To mark the withdrawal of US combat troops as a great milestone is to engage in new forms of intellectual colonialism and self-deception -- standard procedures when countries send their armies to the other side of the world for imprecise goals based on false pretenses.

By Kara Newhouse
20 August 2010
Electronic Intifada

Palestinian youth premiered nine short films at public screenings in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip last week. Forty youths worked in small groups during two parallel three-week workshops conducted in the al-Aroub (West Bank) and Jabaliya (Gaza) refugee camps during the month of July. Palestinian and international trainers facilitated the workshops through the participatory media program Voices Beyond Walls, in partnership with local youth community organizations.

The Re-imagining Project is a program of digital video, photography and storytelling workshops that supports Palestinian youth in expressing their cultural identity, personal narratives, and creative visions.

By Rami Khouri, Arab Media Watch adviser, director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.

16 August 2010

There has been much talk in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001 about the importance of “connecting the dots” in analyzing global intelligence information, meaning that different bits of information from varied sources should be linked to each other to provide a full picture of an actual or imminent security threat that is not apparent from a single act or source of intelligence.

The same process of connecting the dots is useful for any American interested in learning why the United States now finds itself in the unenviable situation of: a) fighting two wars in the greater Middle East region with limited success; b) pushing very hard for a resumption of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations with equally elusive achievements; c) steadily moving towards a more strident confrontation with Iran; and, d) seeing Arab public perception of the United States drop precipitously in the past year.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Guy Gabriel
13 August 2010
Al Hayat

In the May-June 2010 issue of influential magazine Foreign Affairs, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates states wrote: "In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States' safety and security are likely to emanate from states that cannot adequately govern themselves or secure their own territory. Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time."

There is no doubt that so-called 'failed states' are firmly on the US foreign policy radar in 2010, and the recent bombings in Uganda have brought the issue sharply into focus. As was recently reported widely, the US has expanded its covert military operations to 75 countries, and conducts many operations from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, home to around 2,000 military personnel.