What role can the Muslim Brotherhood, with its current ideological standpoint, play in the post-Arab Spring era in Egypt and following the ouster of its political leader Mohamed Morsi from the presidency? I believe that the movement may still have a role to play in revolutionary politics in Egypt...

Aside from the debate over its relative success or failure, the political dialogue in Tunisia marked the end of one turbulent era and the beginning of another, perhaps more crucial, period for the country. The deal sealed a week ago ended months of uncertainty and anxiety that made most...

For some Egyptian politicians to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and its leaders is expected; for most of the media to be recruited in an attack against the movement is likely, but this is not the place to discuss this and analyse its reasons. However, for the Egyptian judiciary to...

When the countdown to the creation of South Sudan began after the 2010 elections, some western sources described the upcoming state of the south as "predetermined to fail". They justified this by citing the many obstacles that faced the new state, including unclear borders, weak infrastructure, absence of institutions,...

About two weeks ago, Radio 4's BBC World Service broadcast a programme over four episodes on the Arab world in the contemporary era; the second episode was about the Gamal Abdel Nasser era. This time in Egypt's history was written and presented by Egyptian writer Tariq Osman, who depicted...

Human Rights Watch has denounced the Egyptian government's designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a "terrorist" organisation. It has described the move as a means by which the government can expand its attack on peaceful Brotherhood activities and continue to impose harsh sanctions on the movement's supporters. The human...

The trial for the deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was postponed until next February 1st due to weather conditions that prevented him from being transferred from his prison in Alexandria to the court headquarters in the Police Academy in Cairo. Egyptian Interior Minister Major-General Mohamed Ibrahim said that the...

Last week, after an evening pasting 'No to the Constitution' posters to walls in Cairo's downtown Garden City, three volunteers from the Strong Egypt party headed to take a minibus home. But en route down the Corniche they were arrested by police and taken to Qasr al-Nil police station....

On 14h and 15th January the Egyptian military-backed regime held a constitutional referendum in an attempt to bring legitimacy to the political developments that have taken place since the July 2013 coup, which ousted President Mohamed Morsi the country's first democratically elected president. In the ensuing months there has...

If the recent decision by General Al-Sisi's coup regime regarding the status of the Muslim Brotherhood says anything about the situation in Egypt, it would be that the continuing opposition to the coup has been much larger than the General and his allies had expected, and that there is...

The international legal team appointed by the Freedom and Justice Party announced yesterday in London that representatives of the "legitimate Egyptian government" have launched an international case against the current Egyptian authorities and in support of the ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The legal team...

Last Saturday, an Egyptian government fact-finding committee met to discuss the events that took place during the June 30th coup. At the same time, a group of human rights activists held a conference on violence and injustice at the journalist's association. The committee decided to begin with files pertaining...

I will not argue the power of Colonel Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's popularity, but I will allow myself to argue him being the "necessary" man and that there is no alternative to him ruling Egypt. This is due to the fact that this necessity compels us to expand our circle...

Weeks ago I said in a talk that the place of this constitution is underneath the shoes of the new generation. Yet, I did not expect this to happen so quickly. Successive news reports inform that old people were the majority of those who took part in voting over...

A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mahmoud Ghozlan, has denied any intention to tighten the siege on the Gaza Strip. He made his statement in the context of discussions about the tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt, adding that the Brotherhood will neither be part of the blockade...

By Senussi Bsaikri George Mitchell's last visit to the region ended without the announcement of any tangible development. This was the case with all his previous visits. On October 11th the American diplomat left the region without convincing the Israeli Prime Minister to halt the settlement building; a repeated...

By Bilal Al-Hasan Al-Sharq Al-Awsat18 October 2009 The popular Palestinian and Arab campaign against the PA's decision to defer the Goldstone report and not refer it to the Security Council or The Hague International Court of Justice has led to conflicting results. First Negative result: the campaign has weakened...

Foreign Policy (US). . Saree Makdisi 06/11/2009. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was no good for Palestine. And his exit will make a peaceful solution more likely. The announcement that Mahmoud Abbas has decided not to stand for re-election as head of the Palestinian Authority should come...

By Zulaikha Abdullah This week marks twenty one years since the November 18, 1988 declaration of a Palestinian state. To coincide with commemorations of this event, and amid increasing frustration and disillusionment over the stalled and ineffective peace process, particularly with regard to the issue of settlements, come the...

By Anshel Pfeffer I met this week a senior IDF general who had been intimately involved with the planning and execution of last year's Operation Cast Lead. I asked whether he was planning a trip to London any time soon. "I never went on vacation in Britain, even before...

What do you think of when you hear the words, "Palestinian refugee camp"? Miles of open land covered in tents housing entire families crammed together, perhaps? Poverty stricken people standing for hours on end in long queues waiting for food handouts from UN units? Or maybe swarms of people...

By Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem 18 December, 2009 Political Zionism arose out of the murderous pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 19th century. Such "anti-Semitism" was used by Theodore Herzl as the main argument when he tried to persuade European governments to establish a...

By Ibrahim Hewitt When concern about the after-effects of Israel's aggression against the civilian population in Gaza was still high, Time magazine described Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as "A Forgotten People" (25th February, 2009). It is an apt description, especially as the first anniversary of the start of Israel's...

By Ibrahim Hewitt In his classic 1963 song The times they are a-changin', American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wrote, "For the loser now will be later to win, for the times they are a-changin'". Having observed closely the situation in Palestine for more than twenty years, I can say in...

By Dr. Abdul Wahhab Al-Effendi22/12/2009 The steel wall that Egypt intends to build on its borders with besieged Gaza illustrates the double bind that resulted from the Camp David and Oslo agreements (the so-called Middle East peace process in general). From the start, it was announced that these agreements...

Today was Christmas and a rather surreal one at that. Instead of tucking into the usual Turkey with stuffing and all of the trimmings, Viva Palestina convoy members tucked into Falafel sandwiches in the hot Jordanian sun and drank strong Arabic coffee. The convoy of humanitarian aid which we...

In a world where, we are told, the West has a free press and everyone else prints government-controlled propaganda, it is interesting to examine how the media has covered the Viva Palestina convoy story. As has been explained on the pages of Middle East Monitor in the last couple...

By Ibrahim Hewitt This week saw the first anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza, but only one anniversary really matters in 2010: it is now almost 62 years since the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis by the creation of the state of Israel. Hope for one people...

Dr Abdel Sattar QassemProfessor of Political studies, Al Najah National University Egyptian officials start talking about Egypt's sovereignty every time Gaza is in need of food even though the people of Gaza have no desires on Egyptian territory and have no army intending to invade. All they need –...

By Yvonne Ridley in Cairo Telling the truth can be a complicated business. This was one of the first lessons I learned at a very tender age. Still unable to grasp the importance of the school timetable in my first week, I rolled up for class 20 minutes late...

By Roger Higginson On 4 December 2009, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that the United States had failed to persuade its partners in the so-called 'Quartet' to issue a declaration of support for Israel's temporary pause in settlement construction. The four members of the 'Quartet' are the EU, the...

By Dr Hanan Chehata In an international effort to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, Viva Palestina (VP) volunteers from around the world have left their families and in some cases resigned from their jobs in order to take part in this humanitarian undertaking. They have done this for...

From Khalid Amayreh in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank5 January, 2010 Under the rubric of fighting Hamas's influence in the West Bank, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has flagrantly fired hundreds of school teachers and other civil servants from their jobs for unexplained "security reasons." The dismissals were ordered by...

The European Commission's decision last month to stop buying diesel for Gaza's only power station means that the beleaguered territory will soon have no central power source for everyday activities. According to Rafeeq Maliha, director of the Gaza power station, without the intervention of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the...

By Seumas MilneThe Guardian, Thursday 7 January 2010 Egypt's complicity in the Gaza's siege underlines the role of western support for such regimes in the spread of war If an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor had gone on hunger strike in support of a besieged people in another part of the...

The source of the latest (but almost certainly not the last) attempt to revive the so-called "peace process" is shrouded in mystery. Egyptian officials claim that they kicked it off; an Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reports that it is a US initiative. The reality, of course, is that the source...

Dr Abdel Sattar QassemProfessor of Political studies, Al Najah National University An Israeli court has sentenced Sheikh Ra'ed Salah to nine months in prison for taking part in a "disturbance" at Al-Aqsa Mosque in February 2007. Sheikh Ra'ed, who is the head of the Islamic Movement in northern Israel,...

By Tariq Ramadan It is common knowledge that the Palestinians have long been direct victims of the directionless, spineless and hypocritical polices of the Arab leadership. It is equally common knowledge that the State of Israel need make no effort to impose its vision, its methods and its objectives....

By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta Newspaper columns are currently busy with commentaries on Arab, Israeli and US diplomatic moves suggesting new initiatives in the peace process, which died some time ago (although nobody has signed the death certificate yet). These attempts to resuscitate the process will not bring it back...

By Khalid Amayreh Ellen Rosser, Professor of English and a veteran peace activist, maintained an office in downtown Gaza from September 2006 to June 2007. During that period she was an eyewitness to the events which eventually culminated in the violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the summer...

By Dr Bothaina Shaaban Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a number of commentators have drawn attention to Israel's brazen efforts to use aid to the stricken country to "hide its ugly face in Gaza". That was how Akeiva Aldar described the obverse of "Israel's sympathy with Haiti" in...

By Nabil Sahli Recent reports have highlighted the acute water shortage facing Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Bethlehem in particular – and noted that the average Israeli settler consumes six times more water than the average Palestinian. This is despite the latter's rights to the sources...

EXCLUSIVE PICTURESIt is over a year since Israel ended its brutal attack on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, yet it appears that time stands still. The scars left by 22 days of land, naval and aerial bombardment and invasion remain fresh. More than 15,000 homes were destroyed or severely...

The political leader of Hamas, Khalid Meshal, has visited Russia and held meetings with senior officials, led by Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. This is the third visit of a senior leader of Hamas since the movement's victory in the 2006 elections and comes sandwiched between the visit to...

To many analysts President Obama's appointment of a special US envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was only another item of window-dressing. On the burning issues that affect Muslim peoples worldwide the administration remains evasive at best and in denial at worst. While the just concluded "Doha...

By Ibrahim Hewitt, for Al Jazeera EnglishSenior Editor of the Middle East Monitor Allegations that the Israeli secret service, Mossad, was behind the killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai are gaining strength. The accusation originated with Hamas after the 49-year-old was found dead in a hotel in...

By Abdel Bari Atwan The tripartite meeting held in Damascus last week included Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and his Iranian guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon. The three came together as a "war council" to discuss plans, roles and functions in the...

Reports from Egypt claim that shortages of gas canisters led to riots in the country in January and February. The complaints of the people were exacerbated by the controversial sale of natural gas by Egypt to Israel, increasing dissatisfaction with the Egyptian government. Oil expert Ibrahim Zahran told the...

By Omar Radwan This week is the sixth annual "Israeli Apartheid Week", a series of events including lectures, film screenings, workshops, rallies and other activities highlighting Israel's ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people. The focus is mainly on Israel's denial of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, its...

Putting a human face to the tragedy – Re-igniting the call for accountability On Monday 15th March Channel 4 aired an episode of Dispatches entitled "The Children of Gaza". It focused on the lives of a few of the children living in that small strip of Palestinian land whose...