A great interview on running an art institution in Iran. "We are under pressure from several directions at once, and the pressures are not even aligned with one another. Each comes from a different place, but all of them converge on the same point: the impossibility of standing on any solid ground."

'Closed Until Further Notice'—Keeping a Tehran Art Institution Alive During Wartime

Artist Parham Ghalamdar interviews Hamidreza Pejman on the shifting role of cultural institutions during crisis.

merip.org

NEW: 'Closed Until Further Notice'--Keeping a Tehran Art Institute Alive During Wartime. Hamidreza Pejman, founder and director of Tehran's Pejman Foundation, discusses how their galleries have navigated the US-Israeli war with artist Parham Ghalandar. buff.ly/ErkCMlq

'Closed Until Further Notice'—Keeping a Tehran Art Institution Alive During Wartime

Artist Parham Ghalamdar interviews Hamidreza Pejman on the shifting role of cultural institutions during crisis.

merip.org

This is the first preview piece from our Summer Issue “Art at Work”. Very grateful to be featuring this deep conversation on what it means to be running an art gallery or a film festival while bombs are falling.

Middle East Research and Information Project@merip.bsky.social · 9h ago

NEW: 'Closed Until Further Notice'--Keeping a Tehran Art Institute Alive During Wartime. Hamidreza Pejman, founder and director of Tehran's Pejman Foundation, discusses how their galleries have navigated the US-Israeli war with artist Parham Ghalandar. buff.ly/ErkCMlq

TIL another of Michael Rubin's deranged positions is Morocco should overrun Ceuta to punish Spain for not supporting Israel

Aron Lund@aronlund.bsky.social · 2d ago

Historically informed piece on the silly notion that Ceuta is occupied Moroccan land or an unjustly Spanish-ruled colonial possession, and how these claims spread among pro-Israel groups as a reaction to Spain’s pro-Palestine advocacy. @ajaltamimi.bsky.social www.aymennaltamimi.com/p/occupied-c...

More of this, please. You cannot answer the “how many states question” without first developing a plan to secure Palestinian rights and sovereignty. It does not matter where the border is drawn if Palestine/Palestinians are defenseless.

Ron Skolnik@ronskolnik.bsky.social · yesterday

El-Sayed: "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination, for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike... If that’s 2 states, I’m for it. If it’s 1 state, I’m for that. If it’s this 'land for all' model, ... or whatever they decide." www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

A clear, and I think popular and progressive, higher ed policy would largely redirect funds away from private institutions and towards public ones. The issues these institutions are conceding to the federal government are by no means existential ones.

Max Kennerly@maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2d ago

Time to add another formerly respected institution to the garbage pile, this time @aau.edu, which just worked with the Trump admin to endorse resegregation in high education, embedding MAGA fraudsters as faculty, and banning student expression. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Israeli army has set fire to vast olive groves in the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon 🇱🇧

Trump wants to escalate Trump orders escalation Israeli sources leak orders GCC countries back channel hard Trump climbs down Roomba recharges

NEW PODCAST: Susanne Dahlgren joins MERIP executive director James Ryan to discuss the Houthis' attacks on Saudi Arabia and her recent essay in Current Analysis, "Yemen After the Saudi-Emirati Split." LISTEN NOW

The MERIP Podcast Episode 27: Susanne Dahlgren

Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast features a conversation between MERIP executive director James Ryan and Susanne Dahlgren, a longtime MERIP contributor and analyst focused on Yemen whose recent…

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SUPPORT MERIP! If you've been enjoying the MERIP Podcast and all of our recent pieces, please consider making a donation to support our work. We provide all of our content without paywalls, and rely on our readers and listeners to keep it that way!

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SUPPORT MERIP'S CRITICAL WORK BY DONATING For 50 years, MERIP has published critical analysis of Middle Eastern politics, history, and social justice not available in other publications. Our articles…

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Read Dahlgren's essay from July 8 here: buff.ly/Ydcyfy3

Yemen After the Saudi-Emirati Split

In early December 2025, Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) took many by surprise when it seized control of the country’s oil-rich Hadhramaut governorate, a region that had been under the…

merip.org

Glad I could talk through the escalation between the Houthis and KSA with Susanne this week. Too much of what little analysis you see on Yemen is very superficial, Susanne’s been following Yemen on the ground (and in our pages) for 40 years. Listen up!

Middle East Research and Information Project@merip.bsky.social · last wk.

NEW PODCAST: Susanne Dahlgren joins MERIP executive director James Ryan to discuss the Houthis' attacks on Saudi Arabia and her recent essay in Current Analysis, "Yemen After the Saudi-Emirati Split." LISTEN NOW

Nuclear proliferation is plainly pretty bad but also nobody has done more to incentivize it in the Middle East than the United States

LeBron signed because he heard Pica’s finally opened in Broomall

Lmfao

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 3w ago

The news about US soldiers being killed in Jordan must be fake because I have been repeatedly told that there are no US bases in Jordan

Turkish ministers make speeches about how they believe they'll govern Al Quds in their lifetime and then shovel thousands of barrels of oil Israel's way, Jordanian ministers cry foul about the water and then shoot Iranian missiles down on behalf of TLV, the UAE condemn Ben-Gvir then host Bennett.

JUST IN: A day after the 2nd Circuit upheld the detention of Columbia activist Mohsen Mahdawi, the 4th Circuit goes the other way, upholding the *release* of Georgetown research Badar Khan Suri. 2-1 ruling. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

I’ve said many times here how much I enjoy being a 7-day dead tree subscriber to the Inqy. Their workers deserve fair treatment. Sign and share.

Abraham Gutman@abgutman.bsky.social · 2w ago

Help us. We are fighting for a fair contract that protects The Philadelphia Inquirer's journalism, our livelihoods, and our healthcare. We need you. If you value local news and what we do, *please* sign and share our petition: phillynewsguild.com Let our management know we are not alone.

To recap: 10.6.23 - KSA nears a normalization deal in exchange for nuclear assistance. 10.7.23 - normalization off the table, nukes also off the table 7.22.26 - USA *signs* deal for KSA nukes 7.23.26 - deal still signed, but whether it goes through depends on normalization

John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 2w ago

This seems like a feeble attempt at gaining the support of the foreign policy establishment by uttering the magical words "Abraham Accords" www.cnn.com/2026/07/23/p...

The cocktail circuit as a path to power.

Nate Schenkkan@nateschenkkan.bsky.social · 2w ago

I think this can both be true, and not dispositive. What were Brzezinski and Kissinger? Among other things, great cocktail guests who loved to pontificate.

“more muscular military options”

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 2w ago

The U.S. is surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle East to give President Trump more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict against Iran, according to people familiar with the matter.-WSJ

There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.

So my alma mater UChicago colluded with a dozen or so universities to keep their tuition prices artificially high and then offered me and thousands of others aid packages that were a mix of grants and loans in order to juice the revenue stream from undergraduate teaching.

I was happy to contribute a couple comments to UW’s student newspaper on the zombie-Title VI NRC competition that is now underway after the administration of the funds moved from ED to State. www.dailyuw.com/article/jack...

Jackson School reapplies for federal funding after $2.5 million worth of allocated funds were withheld last year

Jackson School reapplies for federal funding after $2.5 million worth of allocated funds were withheld last year

dailyuw.com

You know what's worse than competitive authoritarianism? Plain old authoritarianism

Here come the Houthis. Oil goes green. * YEMEN'S HOUTHIS DECLARE A MARITIME EMBARGO AGAINST THE CRIMINAL SAUDI ARABIA -- STATEMENT @reuters.com #BabElMandeb

After allllllll that, the best team won. Sports is funny that way.

Greek soldiers rampage out of large walled horse WHY IT MATTERS: the towers of Ilium have been toppled ZOOM IN: this is great news for MENELAUS, bad news for PRIAM SPLIT SCREEN: Cassandra vindicated but it’s Odysseus who gets the win