What’s behind the Arab silence over Khashoggi fate?
Has peace really arrived in Syria?
James Miller writes: Just a few weeks ago the world was preparing for a massive humanitarian and geopolitical disaster in Syria. The Syrian military and its Russian and Iranian allies were preparing to retake Idlib province, the last stronghold of the rebels who have been fighting the President Bashar Assad’s rule for the last seven years. Experts predicted that such an attack would have dire consequences. Syria’s rebels and civilians have both been displaced from every other corner of the…
Gaza’s dying of thirst, and its water crisis will become a threat to Israel
Sandy Tolan writes: Mohammed Nimnim carries the water for his family. On a scorching late morning last summer, the 15-year-old pushed an old wheelchair piled high with empty plastic jugs through Gaza’s Shati (Beach) refugee camp. He rattled past modest groceries, makeshift tire shops, and graffiti praising Gaza’s martyrs, down broken concrete lanes, and toward the local mosque, where sputtering taps provide the family’s only source of drinking water. No luck. Although it was 94 degrees and oppressively humid, the…
How the loss of Native American languages affects our understanding of the natural world
Dance is a unique way of passing on cultural stories to a younger generation. Aaron Hawkins/Flickr.com, CC BY-ND By Rosalyn R. LaPier, The University of Montana Alaska has a “linguistic emergency,” according to the Alaskan Gov. Bill Walker. A report warned earlier this year that all of the state’s 20 Native American languages might cease to exist by the end of this century, if the state did not act. American policies, particularly in the six decades between the 1870s and…
A history of true civilisation is not one of monuments
By David Wengrow Civilisation is back. But it is no longer the preserve of ‘Renaissance man’ or of ‘the West’, or even of literate societies. Civilisation is a way of talking about human history on the largest scale. From the cave paintings of Lascaux to the latest MoMA exhibition, it binds human history together. But in at least one essential aspect, the concept of civilisation remains fundamentally exclusionary. It is still the stuff of galleries, museums and UNESCO World Heritage…
Donald Trump’s complicity in murder
Robert Kagan writes: Sometimes a particular event, the fate of a particular individual, becomes a symbol of a global, historical trend. The reported murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributor, in a consulate in Istanbul is one of those moments. It symbolizes the departure of the United States as a restraining force against evil actors in the world. Saudi Arabia is a small nation that cannot defend itself without the support of the United States, and therefore…
Are there communities that are good at being good when things get bad?
Margaret Paxson writes: Let’s just say that suddenly you are a social scientist and you want to study peace. That is, you want to understand what makes for a peaceful society. Let’s say that, for years in your work in various parts of the world, you’ve been surrounded by evidence of violence and war. From individual people, you’ve heard about beatings and arrests and murders and rapes; you’ve heard about deportations and black-masked men demanding your food or your life….
Turks tell U.S. officials they have audio and video recordings that support conclusion Khashoggi was killed
The Washington Post reports: The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body, the officials said. The…
Trump’s loyalty to his Saudi customers
The Washington Post reports: For President Trump, Saudi Arabia is not just a political ally. It has also been a customer. Trump’s business relationships with the Saudi government — and rich Saudi business executives — go back to at least the 1990s. In Trump’s hard times, a Saudi prince bought a superyacht and hotel from him. The Saudi government paid him $4.5 million for an apartment near the United Nations. Business from Saudi-connected customers continued to be important after Trump…
Crown prince sought to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him, U.S. intercepts show
The Washington Post reports: The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered an operation to lure Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and then detain him, according to U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan. The intelligence, described by U.S. officials familiar with it, is another piece of evidence implicating the Saudi regime in Khashoggi’s disappearance last week after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials…
The U.S. has no ambassadors in Turkey or Saudi Arabia to handle a journalist’s disappearance
Quartz reports: President Donald Trump says the US is being “very tough” in dealing with the disappearance of a Saudi journalist in Saudi Arabia’s Turkish embassy. There’s a snag, though: The US doesn’t have an ambassador in either Ankara or Riyadh to handle the crisis. The New York Times and Washington Post (paywalls) report that Turkish officials believe Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist based in the US who in the past year has become critical of the Saudi monarchy, was killed…
Adelson drops tens of millions more to save the GOP Congress
Politico reports: Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is pumping tens of millions of dollars more into Republican Party coffers in an 11th-hour push to save their congressional majorities, according to two senior Republicans familiar with the donation. The contributions were made to a pair of GOP super PACs tied to congressional Republicans, Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund. They are expected to be reported in public filings with the Federal Election Commission by Oct. 15. The figures would…
Beto O’Rourke may benefit from an unlikely support group: white evangelical women
The New York Times reports: After church on a recent Sunday, Emily Mooney smiled as she told her girlfriends about her public act of rebellion. She had slapped a “Beto for Senate’’ sticker on her S.U.V. and driven it to her family’s evangelical church. But then, across the parking lot, deep in conservative, Bible-belt Texas, she spotted a sign of support: the same exact sticker endorsing Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat who is challenging Senator Ted Cruz. “I was like, who…
Thanks to genetic genealogy, anonymity will soon become a thing of the past
The New York Times reports: The genetic genealogy industry is booming. In recent years, more than 15 million people have offered up their DNA — a cheek swab, some saliva in a test-tube — to services such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com in pursuit of answers about their heritage. In exchange for a genetic fingerprint, individuals may find a birth parent, long-lost cousins, perhaps even a link to Oprah or Alexander the Great. But as these registries of genetic identity grow,…
Music: Shai Maestro Trio — ‘Maya’s Song’
The U.S. has helped nurture a new generation of Mideast dictators
Evan Hill writes: On Oct. 2, prominent Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi walked into his country’s consulate in Istanbul and never walked out again. The government adviser turned critic, who entered self-exile last year and lived outside D.C., was there to finalize paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancée. Once inside, according to Turkish authorities, a Saudi team lying in wait killed him and took his body away. Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible killing is a fork in the road…