“Today, it is glaringly obvious that it was wrong for the United States to assume that it could ignore Arab public opinion about the treatment of Palestinians. Arabs have not, in fact, lost interest in the issue.” - Marc Lynch

foreignaffairs.com/israel/coming-…

This Earth Day, journalists Dana Hourany (Dana Hourany) and Yara El Murr (@yaralmurr) look into how the Israeli occupation has been scorching and poisoning the lands of southern Lebanon using white phosphorus munitions.

One of my favorite moments of the year, is when Institut des Finances publishes its citizen budget, a very accessible, yet extremely precise analysis of the Lebanese budget.

Kudos to a talented and dedicated team of civil servants who make it possible.

institutdesfinances.gov.lb/publication/ci…

Syria's booming drug trade has become a topic of global concern. Rarely, though, do we hear from those directly affected by it inside Syria.

Indeed, it would be easy to miss the fact that swathes of Syria face a serious crisis of drug addiction 🧵
synaps.network/post/syrian-dr…

Fellowships and scholarships are being announced in support of scholars and students from Gaza (and elsewhere in Palestine.) They are mainly in Europe. Below are two with deadlines soon. Here is a link to a list of others: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

A conversation w/Maya Gebeily - Reuters Bureau Chief of Lebanon, Syria & Jordan

Available on The Beirut Banyan

Covering Issam Abdallah’s killing, the investigation into the Oct 13 Israeli attack, Reuters’ response & special report, & the constraints of reporting from South Lebanon

Paper now out at Comparative Political Studies with Nic Lyon on whether sharing ethnicity with a police officer affects expectations of bias or favoritism. In particular, we focus on citizen perceptions of procedural justice in quotidian interactions with the police. 1/

journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.11…

Very valuable piece by Dr. Susann Kassem on the multiple dreadful impacts of the Israeli war in South Lebanon on people's livelihoods and spaces. Includes a useful synthesis of sources.
timep.org/2024/01/24/dea…

🧵MERIP Winter issue focuses on Palestine post-Oct 7: From Israel's Gaza war to global movements and regional tensions, it highlights crucial shifts in political organizing. merip.org/magazine/309/

Political scientists working on the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) face distinct challenges that are hard to grasp for those who work on the US and Europe. These two engaging books shed light on the practices and payoffs of scholarship on the MENA region.👇

As #Lebanon 's #Parliament votes on the 2024 #budget , glaring #tax inequities take center stage. This article by Sami Zoughaib | سامي زغيب and Georgia reveals how the proposed taxes disproportionately burden lower-income groups, while sparing wealthier segments.

🔗 thepolicyinitiative.org/article/detail……

Insightful article by Wassim Maktabi & Sami Zoughaib | سامي زغيب on labor transformations in Lebanon 5yrs into the multiple crises--must-read.
Profound and disruptive mutations in the workforce and in society do not presage good futures.

1/ In the long shadow of the Gaza war, South Lebanon is becoming increasingly uninhabitable. My conversations suggest that more and more residents are fleeing not only because of the daily clashes, but because of how hard it is to access basic needs.

Christiana Parreira & I are putting together an APSA panel on the relationship between protest & electoral behavior/outcomes in authoritarian regimes. If you have a paper that fits this theme, please email me at [email protected]. Thanks!

76,018 people have now been displaced in Lebanon. On December 7, the number was 58,835.

The vast majority of these displacements are from/within South Lebanon, where battles continue to intensify:
today.lorientlejour.com/article/136328…

*24 postdocs on #democracy and #development !* 6 each in Bogota, Budapest, Cape Town, & Colombo. I'll be a resident senior adviser for part of the '24-25 fellowship period in S Africa and Sri Lanka. Please apply and/or encourage others to apply! Details ⬇️

democracyinstitute.ceu.edu/articles/openi…

Congratulations on an excellent thesis and defense Hirotaka Fujibayashi! (Scholars of refugee politics, migration, and the MENA region - look out for his work).

There’s something surreal about the deluge of green branding in Dubai: billboards, packaging, hotels, Uber, you name it.

That was true when I visited in September; it’s gone through the roof for COP.

My thoughts on why it matters:

nytimes.com/2023/12/08/opi…

This extraordinary tool shows how Israel used the pause in Gaza to wind down tensions on the Lebanese border a few notches.

Of course that does not preclude a return to daily escalation. In a sense it allows it: Pre-pause tit-for-tat had reached levels too dangerous to uphold.

What do I mean by “authoritarian teleology”? (Thank you @kaiserkuo for the plug!) Broadly speaking, it’s a style of thinking that interprets whatever an authoritarian govt does as a “strategy” to “stay/remain/survive in power.” 1/n