Critics called it the “sleep campaign” because Angela Merkel did everything in her power to send voters into a slumber. Her tactic in the German federal election, termed “asymmetric demobilisation,” was designed to depress turnout amongst opposition parties by making a maximally inoffensive pitch to the electorate. It successfully pushed her main opponents, the Social… more
"It’s hardly surprising, given the mayhem and misery across the Middle East, that people who know and care about the region are scratching their heads trying to explain, never mind solve, its overarching problems," Ian Black, The Guardian's Middle East editor, wrote in his recent review of Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East. There… more
When President Obama goes to Riyadh on Thursday, he should meet not just the Al Sauds, but the Saudis the rulers deem politic to hide under a bushel. If he does so, he will discover a country which defies the western stereotype of a bland killjoy state, and away from the religious police preserves as variegated… more
In Holy Lands, longtime Middle East journalist Nicolas Pelham presents a strikingly original and startlingly optimistic look at the region. Sure, there's plenty of bad news and cruelty to report on, but Pelham also tells the story of those who are embracing diversity and trying to live side by side with all types of people, in the… more
In 1979, when armed jihadis seized the Grand Mosque at Mecca and killed well over a hundred worshippers, the high-drama narrative didn’t make the splash you might expect. It was, as one scholar put it, “the age before Al-Jazeera,” and the Saudi authorities saw no reason to allow negative news coverage of the pilgrimage that… more
