{"quotes":[{"text":"The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even cursorily, doesn't seem too adorable. The intended beneficiary of the stunt is a ruling group with close ties to two of the most retrograde dictatorships in the Middle East, each of which has recently been up to its elbows in the blood of its own civilians. The same group also manages to maintain warm relations with, or at the very least to make cordial remarks about, both Hezbollah and al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a document that was once accurately described as a 'warrant for genocide' forms part of the declared political platform of the aforesaid group. There is something about this that fails to pass a smell test.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["activism","al-qaeda","antisemitism","dictatorship","freedom-flotilla-ii","gaza","gaza-war","genocide","hamas","hezbollah","human-rights","israel","israeli-palestinian-conflict","middle-east","palestine","politics","protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion","symbolism"],"id":6195,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"The sultan had enormous eyebrows, fibrous like angora wool. In moments of strife, his eyebrows twitched violently. Like now!His Excellency’s royal blood boiled. Once again another mesmerized American news anchor gushed about Dubai’s vision, hailing the imagination of the al-Maktoum family.“Where is this vision coming from?” probed Katie Couric.“Ignorant Yankee!” Sultan Mo-Mo’s British twang bore traces of Basil Fawlty.The sultan wanted to retch. Dubai’s showboating gave him indigestion, but he continued helping himself to more chips and fiery salsa, downing cold Guinness, smoking excellent hash, humming the theme song of The Wonder Years.","author":"Deepak Unnikrishnan","tags":["fiction","middle-east","short-stories","surrealism"],"id":15144,"author_id":"Deepak+Unnikrishnan"},{"text":"When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer.","author":"Aysha Taryam","tags":["africa","arab-spring","european-union","middle-east","migrant","political-philosophy","politics","refugee","united-nations","war"],"id":18251,"author_id":"Aysha+Taryam"},{"text":"It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.","author":"Tahir Shah","tags":["africa","ancestry","middle-east"],"id":21491,"author_id":"Tahir+Shah"},{"text":"So many tankers come down with maintenance problems all at once. I do not think that the press is telling us the whole story. Then again, maybe they are just a little slow on the uptake. The truth will reveal that Allah has truly blessed us.","author":"Christian F. Burton","tags":["middle-east","terrorism","thrillers"],"id":22806,"author_id":"Christian+F.+Burton"},{"text":"...British appeasement of the Palestinian Arabs led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews [in the Holocaust] who might otherwise have found refuge in Palestine.","author":"Sol Stern","tags":["holocaust","israel","jewish","middle-east","political"],"id":35016,"author_id":"Sol+Stern"},{"text":"If God's love encompasses the whole world and if everyone who does not believe in him will perish, then surely this question needs to be asked: When, after two thousand years, does God's plan kick in for the billion people he 'so loves' in China? Or for the 840 million in India? Or the millions in Japan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Egypt, Burma ·.. And on and on?Why would a God who 'so loved the world' reveal his message only to a tiny minority of the people on earth, leaving the majority in ignorance? Is it possible to believe that the Father of all Mankind would select as his Chosen People a small Middle Eastern nation, Israel, reveal His will exclusively to them, fight alongside them in their battles to survive, and only after their failure to reach out to any other group, update His plan for the world's salvation by sending His 'only begotten son,' not to the world but, once again, exclusively to Israel?","author":"Charles Templeton","tags":["agnostic","agnosticism","atheism","atheist-argument","battle","china","christian-criticism","criticism-of-faith","earth","fight","god-s-love","good-question","ignorance","india","israel","japan","losing-faith","love","love-of-god","middle-east","question","survival","thinking","will","world"],"id":36953,"author_id":"Charles+Templeton"},{"text":"Very soon nations will understand that in reality Water is the most expensive natural resource for their survivals. Not Middle East oil neither African gold.","author":"M.F. Moonzajer","tags":["gold","middle-east","survival","water"],"id":51353,"author_id":"M.F.+Moonzajer"},{"text":"While Kalila didn't quite know what she wanted, she knew what she didn't want. She didn't want to live a charade. She didn't want a marriage of convenience where you were together but alone.","author":"Christian F. Burton","tags":["fiction","middle-east","thriller-novels"],"id":51684,"author_id":"Christian+F.+Burton"},{"text":"Civil order mattered.\tZoe didn’t know why Farah continued to wear the headscarf, but most Middle-Eastern women wore modest clothing to anchor themselves to a moral order, in an upside-down world.\tZoe wore the chador as a protective shell, to erase herself, to avoid thinking, to envelop herself in the complete custody of her adopted Muslim sisters. In their care she would come out healed, able to process the bigotry that caused the murder of her Jewish parents. Then, when she was whole again, she would reclaim her place in the world.\tThough others couldn’t see it, behind the nameless, shapeless, Middle-Eastern garb, she was healing. The chador cocooned and nurtured her. Dour exteriors meant blossoming interiors . . . To Zoe. Judaism centered her, but Islam shielded her. Both served their purpose . . . For now.","author":"Michael Benzehabe","tags":["benzehabe","chador","cyber-war","exterior","interior","islam","judaism","middle-east","mossad","spy","unassimilated"],"id":55372,"author_id":"Michael+Benzehabe"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":60,"pages":6,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}