IR Aficionado

                                           One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev Khalil al Sakakini, a noted Arabic teacher in Jerusalem, is accused of treason and sent off to a prison in Damascus for helping a Jewish insurance agent who was on the run for his life. The year was 1917, the war that had gripped Europe was raging with full ferocity and the Ottoman empire was struggling to save face. Whilst Sakakini awaits the gallows in Damascus, British troops under the command of General Allenby reach Palestine and the Ottomans formally surrender. Sakakini is saved. In 1926, a young man called Yefim Gordin arrives in Palestine from Vilna, hoping to make a living in the ancient Jewish homeland. His verve for Zionism comes into its own with his active participation in the activities of the Battalion for the Defence of Language, the hot-headed organisation that sought to asse...

Pressing sanctions and recalcitrant mullahs In the throes of a threat to his country’s designs to dominate the region, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, countenanced a sharp rise in the price of a commodity that Iranians hitherto obtained for a pittance: petrol. What happened next? All hell broke loose. As though fate hadn’t been sufficiently unkind to Iran, this move came in the backdrop of widespread protests in Lebanon and Iraq, both of them countries in which Iran has made deep inroads. Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah, political party and militant organisation, wields considerable clout in Lebanon. Iraq, as revealed by documents recently leaked to The Intercept, has come under Iran’s sway ever since U.S. troops left the country in 2011. While the causes of these protests are mainly economic, they are also seen as fulminations against the sinister influence of Iran in Iraq and Lebanon. Economic woes The reason this step was taken at such an unpropitious moment can ...