“What heartens me is simpler: Decency persists. I meet it on the street, in ordinary people who speak plainly and want no part in the ugliness of the headlines.” Yahia Lababidi (@ysl.bsky.social) on the everyday decency that endures — from his new book out this week by @newvillagepress.bsky.social

"Most people would not speak as they do if their lives had widened just enough to complicate what they take for granted, if familiarity had been allowed to interrogate fear." An excerpt from Yahia's new book out now in @hidden-cities.com, a meditation on the decency that survives. @ysl.bsky.social

Even in Trump’s America, Some Decency Survives

I meet it on the street, in ordinary people who speak plainly and want no part in the ugliness of the headlines.

hidden-cities.com

New Village Press@newvillagepress.bsky.social · 4d ago

If You Cannot Say GENOCIDE: Essays on Conscience and Witness is available now! Thank you to everyone who helped bring this work into the world. We hope you’ll sit with it, share it, and carry its questions with you. To order, visit the official webpage: www.newvillagepress.org/ifyoucannots...

With American troops gone, the security rationale that has long defined U.S. ties with Iraqi Kurdistan has expired. “The question is whether the relationship can survive without the military logic that created it.” @hidden-cities.com @us.theconversation.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/the-us-has...

The U.S. Has Finally Left Iraq. What Does It Mean for Iraqi Kurds?

The end of an American military presence changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test.

hidden-cities.com

The U.S. military’s withdrawal “changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test,” Firmesk Rahim writes in @hidden-cities.com “What remains are the preexisting security and political issues that have long divided Iraq.” @us.theconversation.com

The U.S. Has Finally Left Iraq. What Does It Mean for Iraqi Kurds?

The end of an American military presence changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test.

hidden-cities.com

"Israel waged a war of annihilation, a war in which we effectively laid Gaza to waste," @michaelsfard.bsky.social writes. "And the criminal, unforgivable project of destroying Gaza was an all-Israeli project." www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-will-...

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

"Withdrawal changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test." Firmesk Rahim on where the U.S. exit from Iraq leaves Iraqi Kurds and the Kurdistan region, which has become a target for Iran. @theconversation.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/the-us-has...

The U.S. Has Finally Left Iraq. What Does It Mean for Iraqi Kurds?

The end of an American military presence changes sovereignty in Iraq from a long-standing political claim into a practical test.

hidden-cities.com

Honored to publish this sweeping essay in @hidden-cities.com by @michaelsfard.bsky.social, Israel’s leading human rights lawyer, on Israel’s past and future: "Who will we be after the war? What will our political and moral visage be?" www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-will-...

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

"Think of your own neighborhood: your children’s school, the health clinic, the shopping center, the playground, the park, the office buildings, the residential blocks. Now imagine that everything, absolutely everything, is gone." @michaelsfard.bsky.social on Israel's "war of annihilation" in Gaza:

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

What Will Israel Be After Gaza? The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth. @michaelsfard.bsky.social www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-will-...

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

"The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth." Michael Sfard on how the ideology behind occupation and apartheid led to Israel's "war of annihilation in Gaza" — adapted from "Occupation From Within" by @degruyterbrill.bsky.social

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

"The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth." Michael Sfard on how the ideology behind occupation and apartheid led to Israel's "war of annihilation in Gaza" — adapted from "Occupation From Within" by @degruyterbrill.bsky.social

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

“The occupation, the siege on Gaza, the apartheid regime we had created, and the constant erosion of democratic features inside Israel, all the ills society had grown used to, melded together after Oct. 7.” A new essay by Michael Sfard, Israel’s leading human rights lawyer, in @hidden-cities.com:

What Will Israel Be After Gaza?

The war in Gaza is the tragic culmination of all the processes Israeli society has undergone since its birth.

hidden-cities.com

@hidden-cities.com relies on reader support to publish work like this and everything else over the past year. To help sustain this little magazine and independent journalism covering the world beyond the headlines, please subscribe. I'm running a special anniversary sale this week, starting today.

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Hidden Cities is a magazine that illuminates the world — part travelogue, part global news brief. Click to read Hidden Cities, by Frederick Deknatel, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscriber...

hidden-cities.com

A year ago I launched @hidden-cities.com with this essay by Omar El Akkad, a piece of absolute clarity, outrage, and humanity — adapted from his vital book, "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," which went on to win the National Book Award. www.hidden-cities.com/p/omar-el-ak...

Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'

It is a disorienting thing, to keep a ledger of atrocity, to write the ugliness of each day as it happens.

hidden-cities.com

“If there is no law, or if the law is seen as a mere recommendation, everything is permitted—everything,” Michael Sfard writes. “There is no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/it-didnt-s...

It Didn't Start on October 7

There is still no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.

hidden-cities.com

“If there is anything that the history of humanity, scarred by atrocities, should teach us, it is that no crime can justify another. Nor can any crime mitigate the severity of another.” Michael Sfard, writing in the days after October 7, an all too prescient warning of what was to come in Gaza:

It Didn't Start on October 7

There is still no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.

hidden-cities.com

Congratulations Samar Yazbek, a finalist (again!) for the National Book Award for translated literature. Read an excerpt from her harrowing, vital book "Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza" in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...

Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors

What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?

hidden-cities.com

Lit Hub@literaryhub.bsky.social · 4w ago

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the finalists in all five categories—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature—for the 2026 National Book Awards. buff.ly/WV44VkB

I first met and interviewed @alhakam.bsky.social back in 2016 for a long piece on Aleppo I wrote for the late, great Even Magazine. He was documenting his city's destruction in the hopes of one day rebuilding, despite everything. "You cannot kill hope or vision for the future," he told me.

Frederick Deknatel@freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 4w ago

Grateful to publish this piece by Alhakam Shaar in @hidden-cities.com on returning to Aleppo after years of exile and war, and what it means to finally see of what was lost and what can still be rebuilt. "We’ll be back. We’re home, after all." www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...

@alhakam.bsky.social on returning to Aleppo and his beloved Old City after exile, to save the family home wrecked by war but still standing. “I still have a home here—in Aleppo, in Syria—even if it’s a skeleton that we are slowly putting flesh back on.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...

Home Again in Aleppo

On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.

hidden-cities.com

@alhakam.bsky.social on returning to Aleppo and his beloved Old City after exile, to save the family home wrecked by war but still standing. “I still have a home here—in Aleppo, in Syria—even if it’s a skeleton that we are slowly putting flesh back on.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...

Home Again in Aleppo

On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.

hidden-cities.com

Grateful to publish this piece by Alhakam Shaar in @hidden-cities.com on returning to Aleppo after years of exile and war, and what it means to finally see of what was lost and what can still be rebuilt. "We’ll be back. We’re home, after all." www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...

Home Again in Aleppo

On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.

hidden-cities.com

"Why have I come back to writing about war? Once again, memory returns, more insistent than ever. Between doubt and certainty lies the narrative of truth. We must approach language’s shadows and ghosts, we must listen to the voices of the victims." Samar Yazbek in @hidden-cities.com:

Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors

What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?

hidden-cities.com

“The Translator’s Betrayal,” a new poem from Gaza by Mohammed Abu Lebda. www.hidden-cities.com/p/the-transl...

Samar Yazbek's Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza, translated by Leri Price, has been longlisted for a National Book Award. Yazbek was also a finalist in 2024 and 2021. @orbooks.bsky.social Read an excerpt from her harrowing book in @hidden-cities.com:

Frederick Deknatel@freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors? Where does human pain go when justice is absent?” A beautiful, haunting essay by Samar Yazbek in @hidden-cities.com adapted from her new book: www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...

“The Assad regime of the early 2020s was riddled with contradictions,” Daniel Neep writes of Assad’s last years in power and how he left Syria in ashes. “From the outside, it was difficult to discern the degree of the regime’s degradation.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/how-syrias...

How Syria’s Future After Assad Echoes With Its Past

The debates in Syria today resonate with the same set of challenges that earlier generations of Syrians faced.

hidden-cities.com

“Despite the historical rupture delivered by the astonishing implosion of the Assad regime, the debates in Syria of the 2020s resonated with the same set of challenges earlier generations of Syrians had faced.” Daniel Neep in @hidden-cities.com on Syria’s future echoing with its past:

My 9/11 story is transcribing interviews with WTC evacuees two years later, when I was 18, as an office assistant at Columbia. I heard survivors recount things I never forgot. I wrote here about what what we remember about 9/11 and what “Never Forget” left out. www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...

What ‘Never Forget’ Left Out

In the instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—there were things America wanted to forget.

hidden-cities.com

After 9/11, there were things America wanted to forget. @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...

What ‘Never Forget’ Forgot

The instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—has always left things out.

hidden-cities.com

“As international support remains scarce, Syrians will keep doing what they have done for years: Managing, as best they can, from one day to the next.” Alex Simon on Syria after Assad and reckoning with what has changed and what has not. www.hidden-cities.com/p/into-syria...

Into Syria’s Day After

Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not.

hidden-cities.com

"Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not. The challenges Syria now faces, and the resources it brings to bear in tackling them, are years and decades in the making. A starting point is to reckon with that legacy." www.hidden-cities.com/p/into-syria...

Into Syria’s Day After

Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not.

hidden-cities.com