You may think this is fiction, but it’s not. You may wish this were fiction, but you know better….especially if you have any sense of what the Middle East and Arab World has been, is as we speak and seems adamant on remaining – on the same course of hopelessness and injustice – for years to come. Continue reading ““Gaza: I saw the tunnel, he saw the darkness at the end of it””
Visualizing the Nakba
These days, it isn’t only a picture, but an infographic, that is also worth a thousand words. In commemoration of the Nakba (catastrophe) on May 15, when the State of Israel was established in 1948 after over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homeland, here’s the Nakba itself in one infographic. Continue reading “Visualizing the Nakba”
Je suis…hypocrisie
If I were asked to sum up this whole week of Charlie Hebdo debates and discussions, it would come down to one word: hypocrisy.
Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year
Having welcomed 2015 from the agitated waters of the Mediterranean Sea, especially when looked upon from Beirut, Eye on the East wishes a Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones. May 2015 be all that you wish for and more. And may it be a much better year for those who truly deserve it, those who battle sickness, misery and indignity, who have lost loved ones or are waiting for them to come back, wherever they may be, for those who flee death and violence and for the children who suffer, for childhood should be about anything by suffering.
Continue reading “Eye on the East wishes you a Happy New Year”
“A century of war and peace in Lebanon”: Eye on the East for Lacuna Magazine
“…resilience might have kept the country from falling apart, but has not helped in truly bringing it together. Resilience is surviving but not coming to terms with the past.”
As part of their World War I centennial issue, University of Warwick’s Lacuna Magazine invited Eye on the East to contribute a piece on Lebanon and we accepted with pleasure. This was the end result:
A century of war and peace in Lebanon
As you may already know, Eye on the East regularly contributes to a variety of online and print publications, listed in the Featured page here. I thought I’d highlight this latest contribution, especially since it isn’t usually something covered on the blog and especially in such length! I hope you enjoy it…
A walk along the Berlin Wall
Note: This is the first of two posts recounting Eye on the East’s recent visit to Berlin. Part two can be found here.
I hate to admit it, but until very recently, I still associated Berlin almost exclusively with the Berlin Wall. Even after 25 years since the wall crumbled to pieces, stories of successful and failed escapes from East to West Berlin, neighborhoods divided by a simple concrete structure and tales of how a Cold War of worldwide proportions was also played out in the alleys of a single city, have never failed to intrigue me. It is mostly due to this socio-political curiosity – and not my love of sausages – that finally led me to visit Berlin. The fact that the visit coincided with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, made the sightseeing a bit more crowded, but surely not less emotive. Continue reading “A walk along the Berlin Wall”
This is Gaza
After the pain from the heartbreaking pictures coming out of Gaza and the frustration towards a world seemingly unwilling to stop the bloodshed, what is left for you and me to do, for Gaza? If you ask me, I say what is left is for us to keep giving it a voice… Continue reading “This is Gaza”
Three Years and Counting: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, in Pictures
It has been three years already: Eye on the East has still not run out of things to say because Lebanon and the Arab World has never been so full of things to talk about. But since 2011, it has been each and every one of you, the readers, followers and supporters that have helped in keeping this going and made it worthwhile…. And for that, I thank you all.
Continue reading “Three Years and Counting: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, in Pictures”
Will he Stay or Will he Go?
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai isn’t one to shy away from controversy. Even before becoming patriarch, he set the bar very high, once threatening anybody who criticized or slandered the church and its leadership with excommunication. With the recent announcement, and his own personal confirmation, that he would accompany Pope Francis during his upcoming visit to Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories, Rai is back in the headlines. Continue reading “Will he Stay or Will he Go?”
Burying the Butcher, not Burying the Hatchet
In my part of the world, Ariel Sharon was known as the “Butcher of Beirut.” Even though his bloody legacy began to be built decades before he led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – through years of killing Palestinians in British-controlled Palestine prior to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 – he will still be primarily remembered for the responsibility he bore for Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of the same name. Continue reading “Burying the Butcher, not Burying the Hatchet”
Eye on the East 