When asked last September about a title for a talk I was to give at Yale University, where I am currently a Fellow at the MacMillan Center, I suggested “The Fog of Revolution in Egypt.” I spoke about three types of fog — the fog of the analytical (...)
Although motivations are notoriously hard to discern, it could be maintained that a primary objective of the latest Israeli offensive against Gaza is to shape Egypt's post-revolution policy toward the Palestinians, especially toward Gaza, before the (...)
The following are segments from a longer poem — “Moons and Donkeys" — which I wrote after I spent a summer in Gaza in 1997. I dedicate them to the people of Gaza who are currently suffering and resisting yet another massive Israeli assault.
Gaza is (...)
Since 17 April, some 2000 prisoners in Israeli jails embarked on an open-ended hunger strike to protest the conditions of their detention. News about an imminent deal mediated by Egypt and the Palestinian National Authority with Israel to respond to (...)
Book censorship in Egypt is alive and well and may signal trouble for the country's fledgling democracy. It serves as a distressing reminder that the old regime is not a mere ghost from the past. For most Egyptians, censorship might not be seen as a (...)
The present situation in Libya is quite fluid. Very few Arabs want the regime of Muammar Qadhafi to stay. At the same time, those who support the West's intervention have misgivings about its double standards. The Arab public does not like to hear a (...)
Unaccountable power in Egypt is diffuse; so must be the resistance to it. The resistance should continue and spread, wide and deep. Otherwise, only the façade of the political system will become prettier, at best.
Egyptians have begun to strip bare (...)
The following article is the first part of Al-Masry Al-Youm's weekly"Environmental Voices" series, in which issues related to the environment--whether local, regional or international in nature--will be discussed from the point of view of (...)
International discussions about the Gaza siege have focused on the possibility of easing restrictions at land crossings between Gaza, on one hand, and Egypt and Israel on the other. But there is another alternative: opening Gaza's sea and air routes (...)
After Helen Thomas, the doyenne and most daring of White House correspondents, made her statement suggesting that Israeli Jews should go back to Europe, she apologized for her words and immediately resigned under pressure. If her remarks were (...)
Nabil Sharaf Eddin's column, “The Phobia of Normalization,” in the Arabic edition of Al-Masry Al-Youm on 12 April about the boycott by Egyptian intellectuals and artists of the recent film festival at the French Cultural Center because it included (...)
Having bet one way all of his life, Mahmoud Abbas may be poised to accept what would amount to a historic setback, writes Sharif Elmusa*
The word from Washington is that resolution of the Palestinian question rests on the creation of a Palestinian (...)
The Israeli lobby has enlisted US university presidents to its cause with no debate on US university campuses, writes Sharif Elmusa*
The Israeli emperor now wears only the clothes of apartheid. Many people are noticing and are speaking up. Some have (...)
The Palestinians must jettison the false Fatah-Hamas divide and empower leaders that can save their aspirations from the abyss, writes Sharif Elmusa*
"When you embark on revenge, dig a grave for two," said Confucius. No words better describe the (...)
Perhaps "Palestine" should be declared to include Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan, writes Sharif Elmusa*
A Palestinian state of the West Bank and Gaza is no longer on the cards, irrespective of the make-up of the coming Israeli government. (...)
Though democracy is not a condition of wealth creation, it is the only thing that sustains it, writes Sharif Elmusa*
This is a season of democratic openings. Half a century ago and until the end of the Cold War, economic development, understood (...)
The journey of return is not something based only in politics, but cuts and runs through the very essence of Palestinian existence, writes Sharif S Elmusa*
The refugee camp on the edge of Jericho where I grew up wasn't home. Home was in Palestine: (...)