US foreign policy Archives

How Israel’s Supporters Use Islamophobia to Silence Critics [Marc Steiner Show]

By now, the false equivalency between anti-Zionism and antisemitism—which Israel’s supporters use to give rhetorical cover for Zionism—is a well-worn topic on the left. What’s less discussed is the role of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in Zionists’ attempts to smear their critics, particularly Arab and Muslim ones, as antisemitic. A new report, Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine Israel Discourse from Rutgers University Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR), maps the use of Islamophobic tropes in the discourse on Israel-Palestine, noting that the racist association between… Continue reading

Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in Palestine-Israel Discourse [Insurgents]

Professor Sahar Aziz, Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law and author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, joined Jordan Uhl and Rob Rosseau on the Insurgents Podcast to discuss her recent report “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes In The Palestine-Israel Discourse.” The interview explores the ways Islamophobia spreads in the media and shifts the balance of conversation of coverage, resulting in a dehumanizing effect for Muslims, and how—especially in this moment—some genuinely pro-Palestinian advocacy is inaccurately framed as anti-Semitic.… Continue reading

Sure, the US cares about human rights — when it benefits us [The Hill]

President Biden’s red-carpet treatment of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is another nail in the coffin of U.S. human rights policy. Such willful blindness to India’s poor human rights record extends to the Middle East. Indeed, human rights advocates have long criticized the U.S. government for its selective, politicized enforcement of human rights laws and policies in furtherance of one goal: to remain the sole “Great Power” in the Middle East and North Africa. U.S. hegemony in the region has five main goals: first, to retain control over the distribution and… Continue reading

Current US Engagements and Evolving US Priorities in the Region [Arab Center]

Professor Sahar Aziz contributed her expertise on Egypt-U.S. relations on a panel addressing current and future US priorities in the region and America’s bilateral relations with key players and policies in Gulf Arab states, Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Iran. The panel, Current U.S. Engagements and Evolving US Priorities inn the Region, discussed China and Russia’s roles in the region’s conflicts, the United States’ direct military involvement and its haphazard disengagement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, as well as the US retreat on commitments to human rights and democracy. —… Continue reading

Deep Dives Interview with Sahar Aziz [ISPU]

This week on Deep Dives with ISPU, Director of Research Dalia Mogahed interviews ISPU Scholar Dr. Sahar Aziz about her new book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom.… Continue reading

U.S. Leadership Needed on Syrian Refugee Crisis [Wilson Center]

Sixty percent of Syria’s population are either refugees or internally displaced. Of those thirteen million Syrians, nearly six million are refugees who fled to neighboring Middle Eastern nations—five times more than the one million in Europe and the U.S. Unable to return home and with minimal, if any, access to education, jobs, and health care in host countries; Syrian refugees are trapped in a legal and economic purgatory. The challenge facing the international community is whether it will stand by and watch as a generation of Syrians is lost to… Continue reading

Trump’s Doublespeak in Saudi Arabia [CNN]

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Donald Trump, it is that he has no qualms about contradicting himself to get what he wants. In Saudi Arabia, he wanted a $110 billion arms deal – not to promote peace and tolerance, as he later proclaimed in his Sunday speech. Thus, his speech will not “be remembered as the beginning of peace in the Middle East,” as he loftily put it, but rather a boost to the war that is ravaging it. Nor will Trump’s speech put an end to the … Continue reading

The Expanding Jurisdiction of Egypt’s Military Courts [Carnegie Sada Journal]

Egypt’s ongoing expansion of military jurisdiction under the pretext of economic development and public safety is yet another indicator that its revolution was stillborn. Although the military has long been a key political player, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime has promoted the military to the helm of Egypt’s political and economic affairs. In parallel, there has been an unprecedented expansion of military trials of civilians to serve the interests of the military generals governing the country. Concerns over trying civilians in military courts have long been a priority for Egypt’s… Continue reading

Protest is Egypt’s Last Resort [New York Times]

Nearly three years after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt is at a critical crossroads: Will it move toward democratization or regress into authoritarianism? With a vote on a new constitution slated for the next couple of months, and promises of parliamentary and presidential elections by summer, Egypt’s military-backed interim government claims it has a road map to correct the country’s deviation from the goals of the 2011 revolution. But the passage last week of a law effectively quashing the right to public protest suggests the opposite. According to… Continue reading

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