Feature image by Ahmed akacha
HOF — After 14 years of war in Syria, here’s the hardest lesson I’ve learned:
The real war isn’t between you and your enemy. It’s inside you—between the part that wants to fight and the part that wants to compromise. Victory only comes when the will to compromise leads even the will to fight. Because only then can you reach the same part in your opponent.
Feature image by cottonbro studio
Note on “Greater Israel”: The term means different things to different people — from Chomsky’s use (Jordan to the Mediterranean), to the conspiracy version common in the region (Nile to Euphrates), which most Israelis reject. Here I use it simply to mean the future borders Israel may seek as Turkey and Iran press closer.
Rehau — Debates about Israel’s war after October 7, 2023, often fall into binaries: is this about fighting terrorism, or about realizing the dream of a “Greater Israel”? Critics use the phrase as an accusation; defenders reject it as slander. Yet across the Middle East, rival powers are also reaching for “greater” versions of themselves. Iran promotes its Shiite crescent. Turkey nurtures neo-Ottoman ambitions. In the twentieth century, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq pursued Arab nationalism across the region. Why should Israel alone be denied the question: what would a Greater Israel look like—and could it succeed?
Continue reading “When the Middle East Leaves Israel No Alternative but Greater Israel”
Feature image by TOMO
Rehau – The Palestinian flag is everywhere.
Painted on faces. Draped across shoulders. Waving above crowds in London, Paris, New York, Sydney.
But here’s the strange truth: for most Palestinians, that flag has rarely carried the power people project onto it.
Continue reading “A Flag Without a People, for a People Without a Flag”
Feature image by Yuting Gao
HOF — I’ve reached an age where I see aging as climbing a mountain. The higher we climb, the less we have — fewer resources, narrower footing, thinner air. The climb strips us of everything nonessential, leaving only what truly matters. And it’s precisely that scarcity that sharpens our appreciation. At the summit, we can look over the vast landscape — and at the few precious things we’ve kept — and feel proud.
That’s what 37 feels like.
Continue reading “The 3 Most Valuable Things in the Universe”
Hof — The fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 didn’t just end a brutal era in Syria’s history.
It ended the Syrian Arab Republic itself.
The last thread holding the country together — the Syrian Arab Army — unraveled. Or was pulled apart. Assad didn’t go out in flames or defiance. He slipped quietly into Moscow’s shadow, carrying nothing but the weight of a broken nation.
Continue reading “When God Plays Dice with the Universe”
Roumani Line 