Issandr El Amrani
Opinion columnist
Issandr El Amrani is a writer on Middle Eastern affairs. He blogs at www.arabist.net. His column appears every Tuesday.
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Opinion articles
As I write these lines, a 7pm curfew has been imposed in Tunis, perhaps the clearest sign thus far that the wave of protests and discontent that has taken over Tunisia since 17 December is not about to end.
I have spent the day following the scraps...
Al-Masry Al-Youm published a poignant article written by Noha El-Hennawy two days ago. It was about 22-year-old Mariam Fekry, one of the victims of the bombing at Alexandria’s Church of the Two Saints, who had written on her Facebook page that...
A few weeks ago, in a meeting with Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid, I asked how the uncertainty over Egypt’s future leadership was affecting investment in the country--a portfolio Rachid has overseen since the departure of...
There is something definitely strange about Egyptian politics.
Opposition parties decide to participate in elections, even though they know from experience that they will be rigged. Having decided to fight for scraps--or, perhaps, for the nobler...
Suppose that a person with absolutely zero knowledge of Egyptian politics just arrived into the country. Inquiring about all the colorful electoral banners, they would be told that an election had just taken place in which the biggest opposition...
What is one to make of the first round of elections that took place on Sunday?
One could note, as every civil society monitor and every human rights group has, that fraud was widespread, from candidate registration to polling day itself, and that...
The latest developments in the Middle East peace process have been mind-boggling. After a 10-month settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, during which Israel continued to expand settlements, the United States is trying to bribe Israel into...
For several days, rumors of Kamal al-Shazli's death had been circulating. The man himself had threatened to sue his Wafdist rival over spreading false allegations of his demise to secure an electoral advantage, a tactic he must have grudgingly...
Last Tuesday, an unusual meeting took place at the National Security Council (NSC), the body that advises US President Barack Obama on national security policy and foreign affairs. It was unusual because NSC Middle East grandees such as Dan Shapiro...
For decades, the Egyptian economy was managed in the same manner that a taxi driver managed his vehicle. The taxi--let’s say a vintage Nasr 128--may have been 30 years old but was kept on the road by bits of string, extra-strong duct tape and...