Category: The Middle East

Don’t know much about history

Sunk By Jeff Stein, August 21, 2012   Gwenyth Todd had worked in a lot of places in Washington where powerful men didn’t hesitate to use sharp elbows. She had been a Middle East expert for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She had worked in the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2023/05/05/dont-know-much-about-history-2/

When a tangled web woven unravels

1950s U.S. Foreign Policy Looms Large in Lebanon By Jacob Boswell, July 29, 2022   The Cold War may be over, but the legacy of containment looms large over Lebanon. For decades, the U.S. has been the single largest financial supporter of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), in a bid to balance Iran’s influence in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2022/08/03/when-a-tangled-web-woven-unravels/

Thank you for your service

  ‘I didn’t know who I was any more’: how CIA torture pushed me to the edge of death By Abu Zubaydah, Sat 29 Jan 2022 04.30 EST   I found myself chained to a steel bed in a white room. As soon as I started letting myself fall asleep, a small amount of water …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2022/01/30/thank-you-for-your-service/

100 Years Ago

What is Happening in Palestine Danger of Zionists Acquiring Supreme Power. By Lord Syndenham of Combe, June 1 1921   Do the British people understand whither Mr. Balfour’s Palestine policy is leading us? asks Lord Sydenham in an article in the Nineteenth Century, and he goes on to give a pessimistic view of the results …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2021/07/23/100-years-ago/

Until the next Dahiya

Israel Is in Shock, in a Sickening Show of Hypocrisy By Gideon Levy, Published on 07.08.2020   Official Israel presented itself as shocked at the disaster that struck its neighbor, Lebanon, yesterday. Almost everyone put on a sorrowful face. Except for Richard Silverstein, who writes a blog, Tikkun Olam, no one accused Israel of causing …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2020/08/08/until-the-next-dahiya/

I will remain

In War-Torn West Beirut American James Ragland Stands By His Troubled School By Mary Davis Suro, People Magazine, July 1982     In the Palestinian stronghold of West Beirut, the streets of the Mouseitbe neighborhood were cratered by shells and littered with garbage. Rifle-toting men stood at the corners, their uniforms changing, street by street, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2020/04/16/i-will-remain/

Børre Ludvigsen

I first read Alice’s short statement Monday evening, around 7 PM: “Many of you have already heard this very sad news that I now choose to share here. My brother, Børre Ludvigsen, passed away early this morning. He died peacefully in his sleep, at home; to our complete shock and disbelief. We will miss him …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2020/04/01/borre-ludvigsen/