David Hearst

David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

September 12, 2019 | David Hearst

Dahlan: Philanthropist or notorious fixer?

About two weeks after the abortive coup in Turkey in July 2016, I reported the allegation from a high-level Turkish security source that the United Arab Emirates had collaborated with...

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, US
October 4, 2018 | David Hearst

From royal court to exile: Why MBS wants to silence Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi is a friend of mine, so what I am about to write lacks objectivity. In the many conversations we have had together, and for a long time...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Videos & Photo Stories, Yemen
February 8, 2018 | David Hearst

From father to son: How the Palestinian struggle is passed from one generation to the next

Only when occupation ends and justice is addressed will the Israel-Palestine conflict be resolved

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
July 7, 2017 | David Hearst

The end of one revolution and the start of another

It is no coincidence that the deadline Qatar was given to comply with Saudi Arabia's 13 demands fell on 3 July, the fourth anniversary of the military coup in...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
June 21, 2017 | David Hearst

Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's prince of chaos

When King Salman and his son Mohammed came to power, there was hope of sorely needed leadership in the region. Instead, they may have fragmented it beyond repair

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia
June 8, 2017 | David Hearst

Why the campaign against Qatar is doomed

Saudi Arabia and the UAE bit off more than they can chew once they took on Qatar, a country with vast wealth and powerful allies

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, US
May 25, 2017 | David Hearst

The Trump effect: More dangerous than the man himself

These are dark days. Darkened by the slaughter of children in Manchester. Darkened by the fawning welcome Donald Trump received in Riyadh. But darkened further by the Trump effect,...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, US
May 18, 2017 | David Hearst

Why Saudi Arabia would rather pay a ransom to Trump than support its own people

The price tag of an audience with Donald Trump is high, and rising. Saudi Arabia has already pledged an estimated $300bn in defence contracts over the next decade and...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Middle East, Opinion, US, Videos & Photo Stories, Yemen
April 26, 2017 | David Hearst

Saudi palace coup: the sequel

A Saudi prince needs three sources of power to become king. In order of importance, they are the United States, the royal family, and the Saudi people, although the...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, US
February 15, 2017 | David Hearst

Trump's Valentine: From the White House to Daesh, with love

George W Bush set the bar high for the accolade of worst US president in history. Before 9/11, he ignored warnings of an impending attack, failed to respond to...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Libya, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, Turkey, US
January 31, 2017 | David Hearst

Who speaks for Muslims? The Saudis, the Turks or the Germans?

The reaction to Donald Trump's executive order to ban refugees and Muslims from seven countries has been unprecedented. Flash crowds descended on JFK and Dulles international airports on Saturday....

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, US
January 8, 2017 | David Hearst

REVEALED: Secret tapes expose Israeli influence over UK Conservative

A senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy in London has been secretly filmed talking about how he would like to "take down" UK foreign office minister Alan Duncan,...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, UK
December 8, 2016 | David Hearst

This is what will happen when Aleppo falls

Whether by habit, or tradition, the US presidential transition is the ideal time to deal with unfinished business. The handover from one administration to its successor offers tempting opportunities...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria, US
November 2, 2016 | David Hearst

Saudi Arabia reaps what it has sowed

After squandered opportunities and blunders galore, the kingdom's foreign policy is backfiring across the region and that's just the beginning

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Lebanon, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
October 5, 2016 | David Hearst

Good time for a bloodbath in Aleppo? Putin thinks so

It is nearly a year since Vladimir Putin sprung one of his little surprises on Washington by entering the civil war in Syria as an active combatant on Bashar...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, Syria
September 22, 2016 | David Hearst

Sisi is a dead man walking

"You want to be a first-class nation? Will you bear it if I make you walk on your own feet? When I wake you up at five in the...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
September 7, 2016 | David Hearst

Mahmoud Abbas' last stand

The Palestinian president was angry: "No one dictates an opinion to us. We are the decision makers and we are the ones who decide and the ones who implement...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, US
August 24, 2016 | David Hearst

Is America losing Turkey?

In the dying days of Boris Yeltsin's presidency, the great and the good in Washington scratched their heads and asked themselves: "Who lost Russia?" Post-communist Russia was more fluid...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Opinion, Turkey, US
July 30, 2016 | David Hearst

UAE 'funnelled money to Turkish coup plotters'

The United Arab Emirates' government collaborated with coup plotters in Turkey before the unsuccessful attempt was launched, using exiled Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan as a go-between with the US-based...

Published in: Blog, Blogs - Politics, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Turkey, UAE
July 17, 2016 | David Hearst

How an iPhone defeated the tanks in Turkey

As the people of Turkey battled for their future, there was a crashing silence from Western leaders whose brand image is democracy. The French consulate had closed two days earlier. Did it know something Turkey did not?

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Opinion, Turkey
July 9, 2016 | David Hearst

Blair and Bush's attempt to reshape the Middle East lit a fire which burns to this day

Like Sykes and Picot a century before them, Blair and Bush tried to reshape the Middle East. It had devastating results.

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, UK, US
April 21, 2016 | David Hearst

It's open season on the Muslim Brotherhood

Last week the Islamic State (IS) devoted 25 pages of its propaganda magazine Dabiq to a "feature" denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood as apostate. "Over the last few decades, a...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Jordan, Middle East, Opinion, Region, Syria, Tunisia, UK
February 20, 2016 | David Hearst

Why Russia and the West can't win in Syria

Ever since the Soviet Union fell, Russia and the US have had an asymmetric relationship. In all its moods – the pendulum has swung from craven pro-Westernism to hostile...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria, US
February 10, 2016 | David Hearst

Exodus and betrayal: How a Syrian Nakba was created

US Secretary of State John Kerry came close to revealing his true thoughts when he was accosted by two Syrian aid workers at a reception in London after the...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria, US
January 23, 2016 | David Hearst

Putin's war in Syria is Chechnya revisited

Nearly four months into its intervention, Russia is an active combatant in the Syrian civil war. This is not just an assertion. It is borne out by casualty figures...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria
November 25, 2015 | David Hearst

Syria: Where reason is crushed in the rush to war

The First World War started over less. Jets from Turkey, a member of NATO, shot down a Sukhoi 24 fighter from Russia, a state with around 7,700 nuclear warheads,...

Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Russia, Syria
November 13, 2015 | David Hearst

Sisi Must Go, Before It Is Too Late

With each planeload evacuating Russian and British tourists, Sharm el-Sheikh can feel its life blood ebbing. Arthur, on a fixed salary of 2000 Egyptian pounds (500 more than the...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
October 13, 2015 | David Hearst

New Intifada for a New Generation

A few days before he stabbed and killed two ultra-orthodox Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem before being shot dead, Muhannad Halabi addressed himself on his Facebook wall...

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
September 2, 2015 | David Hearst

Blair, Gaza and all that gas

Of all the bizarre encounters the Palestinian conflict has generated, Tony Blair's four meetings in Doha with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal must surely rank as among the oddest. Here was the...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, UK
August 18, 2015 | David Hearst

The Fatwa of Ayatollah el-Sisi

Sunday was a midsummer's day, whose balmy warmth lulled Londoners like me into a false and strictly transient sense that all was right in the world. I logged onto...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
August 3, 2015 | David Hearst

Iran and the Sunni Dictators Are the Best Recruiters for Daesh

John Allen, the retired marine general charged by Obama to coordinate the campaign against Daesh is a man confident of his facts. Fresh from Turkey, which had just agreed...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, US
July 1, 2015

Sisi is Pushing Egypt to the Brink

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gave on Tuesday the clearest indication so far that he intends to hang the democratically elected president whose power he usurped. Railing against the inability of...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, News

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David Hearst

Items by David Hearst