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On July 28, The Economist ran a story on what it said is why women are so much “fatter” than men in Arab countries. The story, titled “Why women are fatter than men in the Arab world,” laid the blame primarily on cultural restrictions on women that hinder their access to exercise and outdoor spaces. To accompany the short report, The Economist chose a photo of Enas Taleb during her performance at Iraq’s annual cultural Babylon Festival, thus portraying Taleb as an example of such overweight.

Taleb, 42, is a veteran of Iraqi TV dramas who began her career in locally produced shows at the age of 16. From 1996 to 2002, there were hardly any TV shows that did not include her as one of the main protagonists. She has appeared in ads and music videos in Iraq over the past two decades and is admired and respected among audiences and peers alike for her highly praised on screen performances and down-to-earth offscreen persona. Until The Economist used her image depicting “fat” Arab women, Taleb had largely remained distant from controversies, be they political, social or religious, unlike many other artists in Iraq’s entertainment scene. Also unlike many in the entertainment business, the married mother of two adolescent daughters has hardly changed her appearance over the years, eschewing the usual plastic surgeries that have become commonplace throughout the Arab world.

Also not properly examined in The Economist piece are other influences, like a culinary culture that encourages the overconsumption of carbohydrates, especially sweets and refined sugar, as exemplified by a rise of imported trends like junk food and sugary soda drinks that are not properly condemned by local health authorities. A general predilection for staying up late at night, which is common behavior throughout the Arab world, could also be an understudied factor contributing to the epidemic in the region.

representatives from the Polish Film Institute, which provided Heymann with a grant of NIS 188,000 [$54,500] to make the film several years ago, suddenly insisted upon seeing the film, stormed out in the middle of the screening, and demanded their money back, since the film includes experts who claim it was uncommon for Poles to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Poland finds itself firmly in the grip of an ultra-nationalist right-wing government. Embedded in this regime is a desire to retell the story of the Holocaust by portraying Poland and the Polish people in a better light — and the most effective way of going about this is to clamp down on critics, police the public discourse, and control the historical narrative.

I’m in the throes of an artistic, political, financial, and international crisis. I didn’t know that my film, “High Maintenance,” would create such drama. How could one know? Dani’s work was never executed because of the political situation in Poland. The commissioner of his work, an American Polish Jew living in the United States, was supposed to pay for this big monument. He decided in the end to cancel the project because he realized that the Polish government would take advantage of Dani’s work to convince everybody that Poland was one big righteous nation during World War II, and that everyone was busy risking their lives to save Jews.

a film based on “The 1,001 Arabian Nights” is a risky venture. On the one hand, Hollywood Golden Age standards like “The Thief of Baghdad” (1924) and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (1944) get applause even from someone like Jack Shaheen, who in his book “Reel Bad Arabs” tries very hard to sniff out anti-Arab sentiment. On the other hand, Disney rolled the dice in 1992 and wound up with “Aladdin,” one of the most scandalous films ever made. This was thanks to an ill-advised song lyric about the Middle East: “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face.” (The 1993 VHS version tossed out this carbuncle but kept the phrase “It’s barbaric, but hey it’s home.”) The 2019 Will Smith reboot of the same name, one of that year’s highest-grossing films, didn’t do much in the eyes of critics to update Orientalist caricatures. Teachers still use the 1992 version to show what not to say about Arabs and Islam. Another Disney production, 2010’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” which was based on the Persian national epic “Shahnameh,” got panned for casting Jake Gyllenhaal, a white actor, to play a Persian character. And the list goes on.

both Byatt and Miller get much of the folklore right. Viewers learn that djinn come in many varieties, including those who fear God, like Alithea’s djinn insists he does, and those who don’t. Djinn are made of “smokeless fire” while humans are made from dust, based on the Quran’s chapter 55, “The Merciful.” Djinn can live for thousands of years, change size and shape, make love, eat and sleep (the djinn in the movie says his kind don’t do the latter). All this and more, drawn from Islamic folklore through Byatt’s story, makes Robin Williams’ blue meanie from the 1992 “Aladdin” look like the cardboard cutout he is

at a time of heightened sensitivity to who gets to tell stories, can Hollywood still celebrate the Middle East?

a rare public glimpse of how Israel and its American allies harness Israel’s influential tech sector and tech diaspora to run cover for the Jewish state as it endures scrutiny over the humanitarian impact of its invasion of Gaza.

reveal the degree to which, in the tech-oriented hasbara world, the lines between government, the private sector, and the nonprofit world are blurry at best. And the tactics that these wealthy individuals, advocates, and groups use -- hounding Israel critics on social media; firing pro-Palestine employees and canceling speaking engagements; smearing Palestinian journalists; and attempting to ship military-grade equipment to the IDF -- are often heavy-handed and controversial.

Members of the hasbara-oriented tech world WhatsApp group have eagerly taken up the call to shape public opinion as part of a bid to win what’s been described as the “second battlefield” and “the information war.”

reinforcing the entrenched identities, hardened by trauma, which have contributed to the intractability of this conflict. Many researchers have been pointing out for years that societies are becoming more polarized, meaning that more people are reaching a point of complete identification with a single group, leading to demonization and, in extreme cases, dehumanization of those outside their group, and a corresponding inability to communicate with those outside of their community. Polarization essentially describes a situation where a middle ground, vital for dialogue, has been lost.

Emotions drive behavior, and extreme psychological states drive extreme behavior, including violence. The question becomes what to do with these insights, when violent responses to violence produce ever stronger emotional states stemming from fear and rage. The long history of this particular conflict ensures that there are now generations of traumatic memories to reinforce large-group identities based on shared feelings of vulnerability and victimization, creating an intractable cycle.

most of us gain our sense of belonging through a variety of groups we interact with on a daily or weekly basis — our families, friends, colleagues, sports teams or groups based around other hobbies and interests. But in addition to these groups that we experience in person through shared activities, we all have larger-group affiliations, which can vary in strength from one person to another. These can include our country of birth or residence, a political party, a wider religious group that includes people from other countries and cultures, an ethnicity, a language group or an identity based on shared passions, such as being a music or sports fan. There are many parts to a typical identity, but sometimes, if rarely, one comes to dominate above all others, leading to specific psychological states and associated behaviors, including violence.

Going back 10 years to the Arab Spring and eight years before that to the invasion of Iraq, much of the region has experienced terrible loss not only on a human scale, but also of its archaeological heritage. The culmination of both came in 2015 with the brutal murder of the 82-year-old archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad — who had been in charge of the Syrian UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra for 40 years — and the destruction of part of the 2,000-year-old site by the Islamic State group

Three countries — Iraq, Syria and Libya — have an extraordinary heritage of ancient archaeological sites, many of them now endangered, and had in common long-standing dictators, (although in the case of Syria, of course, the Assad regime continues), all of whom used their cultural heritage in various ways to define how they saw their nation

That dictators draw inspiration from ancient history to shape their nations is nothing new — Mussolini looked back to the Roman empire, while Hitler and the Nazi party developed their mythical, ancient “Aryan” race. The last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, threw one of the most lavish parties in history at Persepolis in 1971 during national celebrations to illustrate the grandeur of the 2,500-year-old Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C.

The raids also served as an opportunity to deflect attention from Saied’s core conundrum: As he has consolidated power in his own hands, he has also consolidated responsibility for the country’s failing economy and public services, rising prices and food shortages, and the general sense of precarity that pervades Tunisian life. Yet in a late-night lecture — the former law professor’s favored mode of communication — to members of the security services last week, Saied insisted that those arrested in the raids had been conspiring not only to kill him and threaten state security, but to meddle in the food supply and force prices of basic goods ever higher.

Most hoped for accountability for those who had swindled Tunisia out of its prosperity, though who those people were exactly was hard to pin down. Was it the ambiguous group of “corrupt businessmen” Saied had sworn he would bring down during his campaign? Or was it the old politicians? The echo of “Ennahda,” the moderate Islamist party, resounded nearly everywhere.

The international community has been markedly milquetoast in its response to his political project, calling for a “return to a democratic path” while continuing to supply financial support, particularly for the security sector. The U.S. and EU are especially shy to condemn Saied, instead issuing statements such as that from U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Yael Lempert, who sought to “reiterate U.S. support for the Tunisian people, underscore the importance of taking steps to strengthen democratic governance, and emphasize the need for inclusive political and economic reforms” during a visit in May amid political arrests and protests.

In the final days of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, Kram was among the neighborhoods where groups of disenfranchised youth took to the street calling for jobs, freedom and national dignity. A decade later, its streets filled once again with youth protesting police violence in January 2021.

The political life of the capital and state institutions feels too far removed from the everyday life of the young people of Kram. “We only know the police,” complain the young Cinevog regulars. They consider themselves to be “anti-politics,” though they are far from apolitical.

Kram has three candidates running to represent it. By contrast, in Sherifa’s home district of La Goulette — the wealthiest municipality in the country, containing sea ports, airports and the capital’s main business district — there is only one: the former Member of Parliament Hichem Hosni.The same is true in 10 other districts in the country, six of which are in the capital. The seat is already allocated because only one candidate is running. The phenomenon is partly a result of political apathy and partly by design. In September, Saied rewrote the country’s electoral law in what he said was a bid to level the playing field by moving away from a party list-of-candidates system and instead focusing on individual candidates. In order to stand in the election, a candidate had to collect 400 signatures notarized by the municipality — a method that should in theory have shortened the distance between voters and candidates, but in practice only increased it.

In one of the most perilous moments of crisis the world has seen in 75 years, and with the basic notions of free speech under assault, most newsrooms aren’t fighting back. They are, instead, pulling their punches in a defensive, “rope-a-dope” crouch, and thus failing to truly inform — when democracy itself is at risk.

the push not to offend with Middle East news coverage is emblematic of a bigger trend of newsroom timidity and even rank cowardice that also permeates domestic news coverage, at a moment when right-wing extremists are controlling the U.S. House and are on track to regain the White House and full governmental control in a chaotic election year

deference to authority is already bleeding into serious policy coverage. Far too many news outlets uncritically repeated Johnson’s first major pronouncement — that $14 billion for Israel could be paid for by cutting the number of IRS agents (who audit the GOP’s millionaire donors) when even a third-grade math student would know that reducing revenue agents would cost the government money. Getting it right isn’t only important because Johnson is now the most powerful Republican in Washington, but also because he’s a kind of a John the Baptist prophecy of an even more dangerous Trump 47 in 14-plus months