Nader Atassi
@naderatassi.bsky.social
Politics, economics, history, theory. تشاؤم العقل تفاؤل الإرادة
43% of Democrats (52% of 18-29 voters) say foreign policy and Israel will play a role in their vote in the 2026 primaries. (81% say the economy and healthcare, of course.) 80% want to reduce support for Israel 74% want an arms embargo 72% say it's a genocide 65% want sanctions
Palestinians in Gaza are human beings entitled not only to life and security, but also to self-determination and political rights. Anyone who advocates for the militarized technocratic despotism that the Trump-Blair plan would put in place is rejecting all those basic premises.
Notice how in all int'l proposals for a "day after" in Gaza there is not even a pretense that Palestinians in Gaza should have a say in their own political future. No lip service even to self-determination or democratic rights.
As Netanyahu addresses the United Nations in New York City this morning, the world recoils in horror at the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This new edited volume looks great. Chapters on energy history in colonial, anticolonial, and communist contexts. www.sup.org/books/politi...
Energy's History | Stanford University Press
Energy history is an approach to understanding the past that takes changes in the human exploitation of Earth's energies as its object of inquiry. This interdisciplinary field documents and analyzes h...
sup.org
Lots of rumors going around about Syria-Israel normalization. Israel has said it has no intention of ending Golan Heights occupation. US won’t push them either—Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over Golan in 2019. But no Syrian leader can capitulate on this issue & remain politically viable.
Turkey's Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat in a visit to Damascus calls for Turkish-Syrian economic integration modeled on NAFTA and EU www.enabbaladi.net/749553/%d8%a...
تركيا تنشد تكاملًا اقتصاديًا "قويًا" مع سوريا
تركيا تنشد تكاملًا اقتصاديًا مع سوريا.. إليك التفاصيل.
enabbaladi.net
I grew up with stories of the civil war. Many of those stories were connected to photos that hung on the walls of my dad's office or in his archives. Here are a few www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025...
Lebanese Civil War began 50 years ago. Here’s how one photographer saw it
Award-winning photojournalist Claude Salhani documented his country’s war for nine years, until he had to turn away.
aljazeera.com
Just returned from a trip to Syria. I visited the destroyed suburbs of Damascus - Jobar, Harasta, Arbeen, Douma, Yarmouk. Nothing prepares you for the extent of the devastation - it goes on for miles. If Syrians are to return home the sanctions must be lifted so that people can rebuild.
Reuters reporting that Saudi Arabia plans to pay off Syria's $15m World Bank debt www.reuters.com/world/middle...
Exclusive: Saudi Arabia plans to pay off Syria's World Bank debts, sources say
Saudi Arabia plans to pay off Syria's debts to the World Bank, three people familiar with the matter said, paving the way for the approval of millions of dollars in grants for reconstruction and to support the country's paralysed public sector.
reuters.com
Katz keeps saying 'we will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon.' But what made southern Lebanon become southern Lebanon? www.dropsitenews.com/p/syria-occu...
Grassroots Resistance Builds Against Israeli Occupation of Southern Syria
Locals in southern Syria have begun taking up arms against an Israeli occupation of the region that began after the fall of the Assad regime.
dropsitenews.com
woke and DEI get removed, economy instantly crashes.
Syria's new constitutional declaration is said to be inspired by the 1950 Syrian Constitution. I wrote some belated thoughts on the different economic visions of these two documents and what that tells us. naderatassi.substack.com/p/the-spirit...
The Spirit of 1950?
Economic Aspects of Syria's New Constitutional Declaration
naderatassi.substack.com
Funny thing is this is probably what Israel fears most but due to their persistent aerial bombardments and aggressive expansionism in the south, they have all but guaranteed this outcome. www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-...
Turkey moves to take control of Syria’s strategic T4 air base: Sources
Ankara aims to use base to strike the Islamic State and deter Israeli aerial attacks in Syria, sources say
middleeasteye.net
Tariffs won't achieve any of their stated goals. Cheap imports didn't deindustrialize the US and they certainly won't reindustrialize it in two years. This is just Trump's personal dogma turned into disastrous policy, only consolation will be watching the rest of his party go down with the ship.
Keep The Meter Running: Ramadan Edition! I hopped in a taxi with Kareem from Subway Takes and longtime cab driver Mouhamadou, who I went on hunger strike with in 2021 to win historic debt relief. Here's an excerpt:
My colleague Rashid Khalidi: "We are approaching the status of Chilean universities under Pinochet, where on the orders of an authoritarian government, ideas and books were banned, students were expelled and arrested, departments were taken over & faculty fired." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Does Columbia still merit the name of a university? | Rashid Khalidi
Columbia has long been run more as a business empire than as an educational institution. Now it’s acting like Vichy on the Hudson
theguardian.com
Investments are going to be pouring in, but Gulf states should make sure that they're not locked into costly obligations and that their diplomatic and de-escalatory initiatives are not compromised. My latest for @centuryintl.bsky.social tcf.org/content/comm...
Will Gulf Countries Think Trump's Glitter Is Gold?
Donald Trump has quickly made it clear that the guiding light in his relationships with Arab countries of the Gulf will be his trademark transactionalism.
tcf.org
The brave people of Daraa province are standing up to Israeli expansionism in Syria and paying with their lives www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/li...
Israeli attacks kill at least five in Syria's Koya near Daraa
middleeasteye.net
In a targeted attack on his car, Israel has killed Al-Jazeera's Hossam Shabat, who was only 23 years old and was one of the last remaining journalists in Gaza. There are no words.
I wrote about the border clashes between Lebanon and Syria www.aljazeera.com/features/202...
Lebanon-Syria border clashes reflect new realities on the ground
Clashes along the Lebanon-Syria border drew armies, threaten Damascus and Beirut’s state-building projects.
aljazeera.com
New Dig! First in two-part series w @iliasalami.bsky.social & @70sbachchan.bsky.social: analysis of entire (poly)crisis-ridden world capitalism system, Trump’s militarism and tariff wars, the new Cold War with China, Europe after the liberal international order… www.thedigradio.com/podcast/glob...
thedigradio.com
"The battle is an uphill one. But the fact remains that neither the centre nor the far right can offer a pathway out of America's institutional decay. A left cultural world has been built before, in the US & elsewhere,& there is no alternative to building it again." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
Aziz Rana, Constitutional Collapse — Sidecar
Trump and the law.
newleftreview.org
