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In Doha, wealthy Qataris and Western expatriates mingle with Syrian exiles, Sudanese commanders and Libyan Islamists, many of them funded by the Qatari state. The Qataris sometimes play peacemaker: Their diplomats brokered a peace deal in Lebanon in 2008 and negotiated the release of numerous hostages, including Peter Theo Curtis, an American journalist being held in Syria, in 2014.But critics say that, often as not, rather than acting as a neutral peacemaker, Qatar takes sides in conflicts — helping oust Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya in 2011, or turning a blind eye to wealthy citizens who funnel cash to extremist Islamist groups in Syria.

that welcome-all attitude is precisely what has recently angered Qatar’s much larger neighbors and plunged the Middle East into one of its most dramatic diplomatic showdowns

“The Emiratis and the Saudis seem to have miscalculated their position,” said Mehran Kamrava, the author of “Qatar: Small State, Big Politics” and a professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. “They thought that if they went all-out with a blockade, the Qataris would balk. But they haven’t.”

American officials privately say they would prefer Hamas was based in Doha rather than in a hostile capital like Tehran

Qatar is leveraging the wide range of ties its foreign policy has fostered. Food supplies and a few dozen soldiers from Turkey arrived in Doha after the embargo started on June 5.

It is likely that this time the Gulf States will demand the complete shuttering of the Al Jazeera TV Network before any mediation can take place. Additionally, the plug will have to be pulled on networks funded by Qatar such as Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), originally set up to compete with Al Jazeera and headed by former Arab Israeli politician Azmi Bishara.

will also demand the expulsion of all Muslim Brotherhood leaders and their Hamas affiliate figures from Qatar, along with Azmi Bishara and Islamist writer Yasser Al-Za'atra. Other demands will include the sacking of Al Arab newspaper editor Abdullah Al Athba

It seems though the initial pressure has already somewhat worked on Qatar. Last week Doha deported Saudi activist Mohammed Al-Otaibi who arrived in Qatar in March, while a number of Hamas officials have left Qatar at the country’s request.

Qatar imports over 90 percent of its food, and by one estimate about 40 percent of that comes from the its only land border, which is now closed. Within hours photos started circulating on social media of Qatari supermarket aisles that have been emptied by panicked shoppers. Furthermore Gulf media has hinted at an escalation of the dispute with Qatari commercial and trade ties being severed next.

In Syria, Erdogan faces a quagmire mostly of his own making, and he shows no inclination to pull back. He got Turkey involved early, backing elements committed to deposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during protests nearly a decade ago.

Turkey’s troops and proxies still occupy parts of northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border, and will stay there, according to Erdogan, “until the last terrorist is destroyed.” Terrorist, by his lights, means not only the Islamic State, or Daesh, as he refers to it, but Syrian Kurdish forces that have been aligned with the United States, and which Turkey views as linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated a terrorist group by Ankara and Washington.

campaign against the PKK includes attacks on the group inside Iraq as well

Libya, where Turkey has shifted jihadis it backed during the fight in Syria to Libya to fight on behalf of the Government of National Accord

Amberin Zaman writes that Azerbaijan’s military action, which set off the recent escalation, “was not sparked by accident but was preplanned by Azerbaijan and its regional ally Turkey.”

Turkey's all-in support for Azerbaijan, including providing arms and training, can allow Erdogan “to claim credit for winning back Azerbaijani territory, however little, [which] would be an enormous boost to his droopy poll numbers in the midst of a looming economic crisis."

Despite denials by Ankara and Baku, there are reports of Syrian jihadis joining the fray, sent there by Turkey

if Moscow comes to believe that Ankara has ulterior motives such as expanding its Turko-Islamist influence to the south Caucasus as part of Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions, it won't stand idle

as Turkish-Israeli relations go from bad to worse, both Ankara and Jerusalem are backing Azerbaijan in the conflict. Armenia recalled its ambassador to Israel because of Israel’s selling arms to Azerbaijan, as we report here.

Like Gaza, Jenin has long been a center of Palestinian social life and political resistance — and as such, a target of vicious repression

The bombardment of a populated urban area, together with the city’s collective punishment, is further justified by the demonization of Jenin as a “cesspool of terrorism” requiring constant intervention — in essence, the same doctrine of “mowing the lawn” that is applied in the blockaded strip a few kilometers away.

Gaza is hardly an exception to the rule of Israeli apartheid. Rather, it is the ultimate bantustan — the model for controlling and weakening a native population in a besieged space, using modern weapons and technology, with local rulers to handle their basic needs, at minimal cost to the settler society surrounding them

If the expulsion of Palestinians won’t be possible, Gazafication will be their future.

The army may feign distress over settlers committing “nationalist terrorism,” but it openly commands its soldiers to do the same, so long as it is done in uniform

The escalation of the conflict would be in no one's interest, particularly at a time of instability in the region

urgent need for progress toward a two state solution

despite a Sunni-Shi’a divide in attitudes toward Iran, even Sunni Arab views were based on a number of issues extending beyond sectarian identifications

the Arab sense that “there is a double-standard” on nuclear issues when it comes to the response to Israel’s nuclear program

Iranian support for the anti-Israeli movements of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Hamas, which controls Gaza, is popular among Arab publics, even though it is opposed by some Arab governments

“The Palestinian-Israeli question remains a prism through which Arabs make evaluations,”

Some Arab governments, particularly those allied with the United States in the Gulf region, believe that Iran poses a geostrategic threat both because of Iraq’s declining power in the region after the 2003 war and rising Iranian influence itself

Telhami described general Arab feelings for Iran as “not one of love or support for the regime.” However, Iran is seen favorably by many because, “It’s that a system can rise in the name of Islam and be fiercely independent.”

Dunne said she senses that Arab sentiment toward Iran recently “may have shifted in a more negative direction,” including because of Iranian support for the Syrian regime’s conduct in the civil war. Though Iran in 2006 won much popular approval for backing Hezbollah in its conflict with Israel that year, Dunne said “the conversation in the region has moved on.” Iran’s Islamic Republic does not offer as appealing a model to Arab publics as it once might have

“Morsy sends a clear message to the Gulf countries and especially the [United Arab Emirates] that he can easily create alternative strategic relationship,” Labbad says, adding that such “political vexing” is a response to the failure of the visit by Morsy adviser Essam al-Haddad to resolve the issue of 11 Egyptian detainees in the UAE. The latter are said to have strong connections to the Brotherhood’s international organization, in the midst of growing enmity between Egypt and the UAE.. Labbad argues that Morsy thus does not aim at real and deep rapprochement with Iran, but rather a cosmetic patch up to send signals to the Gulf. “The context here is very dangerous, because the revived relationship with Iran should be an addition to Egypt’s foreign policy, not a replacement of its relationship with the Gulf countries,” he adds. Momani doubts such an inclination by Morsy, as Egypt cannot afford the cost of such a policy. “This strategy can backfire and upset Gulf donors and benefactors. Iran can never supply the kinds of funds that are provided by the Gulf,” she says.

“I think neither Morsy nor Ahmadinejad enjoy the authority to have complete control or knowledge of their respective government’s grand strategies for Syria. What seems certain is that a realist agenda determines foreign policy on both sides. Both seek a Syrian government they can control or at least influence,”

The destruction of human communities is incomplete without cultural violence. This was the conclusion of lawyer and human rights advocate Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-born jurist who coined the term “genocide” and fought successfully for its recognition by international legal bodies as a crime. In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), he argued: By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group…[It signifies] a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. (Lemkin 1944: 80) Among the “essential foundations” of the life of human societies, Lemkin argued, were cultural sites, objects, and practices. The Holocaust galvanised his human rights work, but it was the tragic case of Turkish Armenians during the beginning decades of the twentieth century that served as the basis for Lemkin’s theory of genocide.

the Turkish state and its governments have systematically removed all markers of the Armenians’ civilisation

Also significant in this context was the systematic replacement of Armenian place names (on streets, buildings, neighbourhoods, towns, and villages) with Turkish names. The erasure of Armenians from collective memory was completed during the Turkish Republic; in their history textbooks, Turkish children hear nothing about Armenian culture or learn simply that they were enemies of the Turks.

This is cultural death, and it is especially dangerous because it legitimates the denial of diversity by authoritarian states and their societies.

Historical records document previous erasures of peoples and their culture: the Native Americans and First Nations of north America; the Mayas and Aztecs of Mesoamerica; and the Roman destruction of Carthage (north Africa), which some scholars point to as the earliest recorded organised genocide.

the harrowing plight of Syrian journalist Ali Mahmoud Othman, co-founder of Le patrimoine archéologique syrien en danger. Othman was arrested by government forces in March 2012 and has not been heard of since his televised “confession” in May 2012

Recurring Internet images of ISIS fighters beheading western men obscure the equally outrageous and horrific acts of sexual violence against women, torture of children, and destruction of homes, markets, churches, Shi’a mosques, and ancient monuments. All of this constitutes the challenging environment in which cultural activists must do their work.

Lemkin’s teachings still have something to say to us today: without monuments and cultural objects, social groups are atomised into disaffected, soulless individuals

Syria is still subsumed in the logic of fear, which forces once diverse societies to hew to their smaller parts, obliterating the ability to imagine broader communities and other identities. Beyond a set of principles, or promises so vague as to inspire more fear, no one has described the Syria of tomorrow. Not Assad, who offers his people a path back to the 1980s, when a stern government presided over a dreary economy with the grimace of a police state. But the opposition hasn’t really either, and that lack of vision has left frightened minorities more aligned with the regime.

There may someday be a vision for Syria and the Middle East that draws on their past, where ancient trajectories of the Ottoman Empire stitched together a landscape that often embraced its many identities. There is probably a future in which loyalties are less to the state and more to those antique metropoles like Aleppo, Tripoli, Mosul or Beirut, which often answered questions of community better than the contrived countries that absorbed them. The term might be post-Ottoman, where borders that never made all that much sense are encompassed by connections from Cairo to Istanbul, Maydan to Basra, and Marjayoun to Arish, in which people can imagine themselves as Alawite, Levantine, Arab, Syrian, Eastern — or some hybrid that transcends them all.

A Tunisian Islamist named Said Ferjani told me a few weeks ago that such safeguards and guarantees would require what he called “a charismatic state.” It was the antithesis of all those sempiternal leaders, presiding over imperiums with hollow slogans and manipulating society’s components with cynicism portrayed as principle. A charismatic state could mend itself, reform, adapt and heal when it failed in its fundamental task, delivering the rights and duties of citizenship. And only in citizenship, he told me, could diversity be preserved and protected. Citizenship, he seemed to suggest, would permit us to become greater than our parts. It would allow us to imagine.

entitlement, ownership, power and fear