Communication. Community. Commerce. These words share ancient Latin linguistic roots, and they all indicate some sort of coming together. War has been described variously as a breakdown of one or all of them.  The mainstream media typically portray the Middle East as a desert of war, but scattered ...

Wikipedia: The Church of the Nativity (Arabic: كنيسة المهد‎) in Bethlehem is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world. The structure is built over the cave that tradition marks as the birthplace of Christ, and it is considered sacred by followers of both Christianit...

Female bloggers from across the Middle East joined hands in marking the International Women's Day with posts reflecting on the occasion and celebrating the lives and achievements of women who have touched them. In Saudi Arabia, American Bedu admits that while many women in the kingdom may not ev...

This weekend the Syrian blogosphere warmed up for a new confrontation. A group of bloggers launched a campaign against the spread of blogs advancing LGBT rights, and the response came quick. LGBT is controversial everywhere, but within a society that is conservative in its majority, the topic gets m...

Six weeks into the job, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is starting to roll out the Obama administration's approach to the most prickly foreign policy challenges from Arab-Israeli peace to Russia....

Mullah Omar, the de-facto leader of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, is calling for a surge of fighters in Afghanistan to counter our planned surge: Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani journalist, wrote in Canada’s Globe and Mail on Saturday that Mullah Omar’s letter “to the commanders of...

I’m going to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego in a few weeks for a belated Valentine’s Day night out with my husband. Why the Hard Rock? Nobu. We love Nobu and haven’t been to the San Diego location yet. We’ve also been wanting to have a night out in the Gaslamp since [...]...

Egyptian women are trapped between who they are and who they are expected to be; they are required to live up to the expectations of their parents, families, colleagues, and later on, their husbands and children. In their attempt to meet those expectations, some of them feel that they lose touch wit...

Hat tip: The Daily Dish I've been reading about the case of Chas Freeman, who has been nominated for National Intellgence Council Chief. Seems as if Mr. Freeman has been targeted by the Israeli Lobby for being, agasp, a person not falling in line with everything pro-Israel. Mr. Freeman from a speech...

Click refresh to see new updates during the day. Israeli officials have decided to reinforce the police presence in Jerusalem next week, in the wake of yesterday’s tractor terror attack that left two police officers lightly wounded. Updates (Israel time; most recent at top) 12:26PM: Here is Sh...