Omar Ahmed
Omar has an MSc International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London. He has travelled throughout the Middle East, including studying Arabic in Egypt as part of his undergraduate degree. His interests include the politics, history and religion of the MENA region.
Items by Omar Ahmed
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- June 14, 2021 Omar Ahmed
The only Turkish boots on the ground in Palestine are on Israeli soldiers’ feet
When last month’s ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, thanked Iran for its support. “The Islamic Republic of Iran did not hold back with money, weapons, and technical support,” he said. Haniyeh also thanked Qatar...
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- June 1, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Israel superhero gets ‘ratioed’ by Captain Palestine
The comic book superhero genre is one of the great American art forms of the 20th century, its impact on popular culture is immense and it continues to thrive through other media such as blockbuster movie franchises and video games, not to mention a new generation of comics and...
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- May 17, 2021 Omar Ahmed
‘Please sir mention India’, Hindutva Twitter reacts to Netanyahu snub
One could easily be mistaken into thinking that some of the most ardent and vocal supporters of Zionism on social media are Israeli Jews or certain Evangelical Christians in the US. However over the past several years, far-right Hindu nationalists from India, who subscribe to the ideology known as...
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- May 12, 2021 Omar Ahmed
According to Khamenei’s prediction Israel has 19 years left, for Kissinger it’s next year
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei first claimed back in 2015 that Israel won’t see the next 25 years, “Firstly, you will not see the next 25 years,” Khamenei said. “God willing, there will be no such thing as a Zionist regime in 25 years. Until then, struggling,...
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- May 8, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Sunnis and Shi’a: A Political History
I’ve read several books on Islam’s Sunni-Shia split, with each having provided informative insights on this ancient schism steeped in both theology and politics. The latter is the primary focus through which Laurence Louër’s Sunnis and Shi’a: A Political History attempts to explain how this division has manifested throughout...
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- April 23, 2021 Omar Ahmed
No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy
There is a common assumption that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic thinking and foreign policy are fundamentally different from those of the pre-revolution era. The theocratic government’s worldview and its enmity towards the US and Israel are certainly noteworthy points of departure from the Imperial State of Iran...
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- March 26, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Saudi reconciliation could see Turkey on the wrong side of history in Yemen
After Qatar reconciled with its Gulf neighbours at the start of this year, chief among them Saudi Arabia, an almost four-year blockade came to an end. It was perhaps inevitable that talk of reconciliation between Qatar’s ally Turkey and Riyadh would follow. As a precursor to such a warming...
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- March 10, 2021 Omar Ahmed
The BBC’s coverage of the Pope’s visit to Iraq was biased and misleading
The historic visit by the head of the Catholic Church to Iraq was intended to promote interfaith dialogue and help in uplifting the country as it deals with an array of political, security, and economic challenges. Pope Francis’s visit went ahead having been postponed last year owing to security...
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- February 14, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Remembering the Bahraini Uprising
Known as the “Forgotten Uprising”, the largely peaceful pro-democracy protests erupted across the tiny island Kingdom of Bahrain ten years ago, only to be faced with a brutal crackdown by the police and finally be suppressed weeks later by the military intervention of neighbouring Saudi Arabia. In its wake,...
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- February 9, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj
Michael Christopher Low’s book Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj is a fascinating account of the Hajj pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest city of Makkah (“Mecca”) during the 19th century. It was a time when the semi-autonomous Sharifate in the Hijaz province was effectively at the crossroads...
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- January 19, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Pompeo’s attempts to link Iran to Al-Qaeda reveal the failure of ‘maximum pressure’
Last week, the outgoing US Secretary of State and former head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, announced a flurry of last-minute sanctions against rivals and foes China, Cuba and Iran. This was perceived widely as a desperate attempt to undermine the incoming Democrat Biden administration. He also designated Yemen’s...
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- January 6, 2021 Omar Ahmed
Profile: Kahlil Gibran (6 Jan 1883 – 10 April 1931)
Kahlil Gibran is regarded as the third-best-selling poet of all time after Lao Tzu and William Shakespeare, largely because of his book The Prophet. First published in 1923 it has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and is among the most translated of all books. Despite these achievements,...
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- December 22, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Failure to realise Yemen’s political reality prolongs the conflict and crisis
Exiled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi announced the formation of a new unity government on Friday, just over a year after the power-sharing agreement was signed with the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the Saudi capital Riyadh. I wrote last November that the Saudi-brokered peace deal —...
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- December 11, 2020 Omar Ahmed
This year began and drew to a close with Iran being baited into war
The single main story of the year has without a doubt been the coronavirus pandemic which has thus far claimed over 1.5 million lives around the world amid encouraging news about vaccine development. However it is now easy to forget that before this story became a near permanent fixture...
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- November 28, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Bahrain is yet to normalise ties with its own people
If the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen was known as “the forgotten war”, the 2011 anti-government protests in Bahrain soon became “the forgotten uprising”. Forgotten in the sense that following the so-called Arab Spring, to which both events were linked, most of the world’s attention had shifted to...
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- November 14, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Remembering Taha Hussein: ‘The Dean of Arabic literature’
According to most accounts, Taha Hussein, one of Egypt’s most esteemed writers and intellectuals and a giant in modern Arabic literature, was born on 14 November, 1889, in the Upper Egyptian village of Izbet Al-Kilo in the Minya governorate. He had humble beginnings hailing from a large lower middle-class...
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- October 30, 2020 Omar Ahmed
The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View
Recent events in France have once again pushed the notion of a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West onto centre stage. Last month the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); this was followed by the gruesome murder of a French...
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- October 20, 2020 Omar Ahmed
With defiance and perseverance, Iran has once again demonstrated its independence
The 13-year arms embargo imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council expired on Sunday in accordance with Resolution 2231 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the 2015 nuclear deal. This means that Iran is free to buy and sell conventional weapons, a diplomatic...
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- October 12, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Casting of Israel’s Gal Gadot as Cleopatra prompts debate on social media
Israeli actress Gal Gadot confirmed yesterday that she will be playing the role of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra...
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- October 8, 2020 Omar Ahmed
It’s a challenge to support Azerbaijan when its government is pro-Israel
The renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region has the propensity to draw in regional powers such as Iran, Russia and Turkey, and thus become a proxy war in the South Caucasus. The conflict is one that is already progressing towards outright war as fighting has...
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- September 30, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Biden to Trump: ‘Inshallah’ we'll see your tax returns
Although the Arabic phrase literally means “God willing” it is also popularly used in an informal way across the Middle East to denote something that is unlikely to happen....
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- September 28, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding
Whilst literature on Israel’s state violence against Palestinian children is nothing new, there are apparent limitations on the current discourse which tends not to extend beyond theories of childhood trauma in conflict zones; nor do they form part of a critique of the ideologies underpinning Israel as a settler-colonial...
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- September 16, 2020 Omar Ahmed
If Pakistan is unwilling to protect its Shia citizens, they may look to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
The world’s largest population of Shia Muslims outside Iran is found in neighbouring Pakistan where they account for an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the population. Although a sizeable minority in the country’s four provinces and major cities, they are the majority in the northernmost autonomous region...
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- September 14, 2020 Omar Ahmed
Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine
Most people would agree that it is important for parents to instil a sense of national and cultural identity in their children in order to preserve their heritage for future generations, especially for those from immigrant or refugee families. The Palestinian diaspora and others living in the western world...