Qifa Nabki
Qifa Nabki
Allies and Opponents of the Islamic State
The Wikipedia page for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has a sidebar displaying the group’s banner, coat of arms, force strength, and a list of its allies and opponents. Among ISIL’s many enemies are included the following powers and their own enemies: The Syrian Armed Forces and the Syrian Opposition The … Continue reading
Thinking About a Post-Conflict Syria
I recently caught up with a friend of mine, Camille Otrakji, who is the founder of Creative Syria, Mideast Image, and was a longtime blogger for Syria Comment before some… artistic differences emerged, right around the spring of 2011. Camille has been working on something called “The Syrian Dialogue Project” and I thought some readers might be interested in checking … Continue reading
Hamas and the Peace Process
On May 13, 2008, Yuval Diskin, the director of the Israeli Internal Security Service, Shin Bet, met with U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones to discuss the prospect of a “cooling down” period with Hamas. The conversation was recorded in a government cable released by Wikileaks, and sheds some light on the military strategy that Israel has pursued … Continue reading
Humanitarian Relief in Gaza
A couple of weeks have elapsed since Gaza was “drawn into the center of Mideast strife” and the chorus of outrage has grown louder, with several Nobel peace laureates calling for a military embargo against Israel and a US Secretary-of-State famous for his “who-moi” moments giving an impromptu shot across the bow from a hot mic. Will it matter? Does … Continue reading
Of FreeCell and Phone Chargers: A Lebanese Parable
Lebanese politics often resembles a game of FreeCell to me. Or, for the millennials among us: 2048, which I often catch my students playing on their phones before class begins. For long stretches, the board is locked down. There is an occasional opening, a small shift in the grid, but it comes to nothing. Hardly anything moves for several rounds … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…