Published by the National An old song about the city of Tehran praises it for being “always full of light”. But this isn’t how most Tehranis are experiencing their city this week. Like other parts of Iran, the city is going through government-organised electricity cuts. Its long highways have gone dark and every home has received a …
Published by the Atlantic Waking up to the election results on Wednesday, many Americans who opposed Donald Trump may have felt inclined to resent their neighbors. How could more than 70 million of them vote for a convicted felon who had hobnobbed with a fascist, showed little respect for the country’s institutions or alliances, and couldn’t …
Published by Majalla The year 2024 was dubbed the ‘Year of Elections’ due to hundreds of millions of people voting in polls around the globe—from Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan to the UK and Iran. But there is no doubt which elections matter the most: the presidential polls in the United States. One could even argue …
Published in the Atlantic It took 25 days, but in the early hours today, Israel responded to Iran’s salvo of missiles earlier this month. The operation, named “Days of Repentance,” was the most significant attack on Iran by any country since the 1980s. The Iranian regime’s years of waging a shadow war on Israel have …
Published by the Atlantic There is something ironic about the fact that, of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran is the one that now finds itself on the brink of war with Israel. Iran is not one of the 22 Arab states party to the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict. Its population, unlike those of many …
Published in the Liberties A friend of mine once asked me why I get so worked up about Jewish Currents, a left-wing American magazine known for airing anti-Zionist views. Of all the actors large and small that help shape the narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, why care about a magazine based in Long Island with a few …
Published in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Even as it passed its seventieth anniversary, the 1953 coup in Iran has remained a hotly debated political topic. This is true in the public spheres of Iran, which saw its last democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, overthrown in the coup, and in those of …
Published by the Spectator It took more than a year of waging war, but Israel has finally succeeded in killing its top target in Gaza: Yahya Sinwar. Alongside Mohammad Deif, who is thought to have been killed by an Israeli strike in July, Sinwar was the man most responsible for organising the horrific attacks of …
Published by Al Majalla As leader of a militia that has been at war for every day of its existence, Hassan Nasrallah was no stranger to danger. But one summer night in 2006, he must have felt death to be particularly close. He was in southern Beirut, in a command building of Hezbollah, with two …
Published by the Atlantic Iran’s attack on Israel yesterday evoked a sense of déjà vu. On April 13, too, Iran targeted Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones—at that time marking a first-ever in the history of the two countries. The latest strikes were notably similar: more show than effect, resulting in few casualties (April’s …