Lucy Schouten
Shopping in the Middle East can be a surprise to Westerners. There’s the greeting, the inquiry after one’s family, leading questions from the buyer, perhaps a cup of Arabic coffee from the seller. The buyer suggests a price, and the…
Anyone who obtained too much power in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had two choices: join the Ba’ath Party or die. Joseph Kassab, a medical researcher at the University of Baghdad, chose a third option—flee to the United States. Thirty-five years later,…
In the course of my journalistic wanderings, I met a woman who gave up a dream of becoming a medical researcher to marry a farmer and have ten children. She not only homeschools them all, but also teaches a theological…
July 14, according to the United Nations, is Malala Day, referring to the birthday of the Pakistani “girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban.” Malala Yousafzai celebrated her seventeenth birthday by visiting the families of…
American diplomacy in the Middle East is starting to resemble a giant game of whack-a-mole. On top of everything else, the government of Bahrain has now expelled an American diplomat. Bahrain told Tom Malinowski, U.S. assistant secretary of state for…
The Middle East is known more for its locusts than crickets, but some kind of insectile chirping could be heard after the Sunni militant group ISIS declared itself a caliphate and commanded the Muslims of the world to join them….
“We win every battle, but we lose the war,” said Ami Ayalon, who once led the Israeli secret service. Ayalon spoke in the documentary “The Gatekeepers” about Israel’s strategy for the Palestinians, one that was highlighted by events over the last…
Arguably the Bible’s most successful evangelizer was the prophet Jonah, whose story is told in the biblical book of the same name. Despite a brief bout of cowardice and disobedience that ended in repentance thanks to the belly of a…
On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed and the door to the United States of America opened even wider. Nobler pens than mine have graced this event with prose, but I think it is worthwhile to…
Perhaps Americans have forgotten how much of the Cold War was fought in the Middle East, but Russia has not. Recent events in the Middle East have offered numerous opportunities for greatness in foreign intervention, and Russia, perhaps in a…
