In The News

Interrupting a History of Tolerance – Part III

Fahad Nazer July 26, 2007
Any religion with global stature, such as Islam, must accept diversity in terms of culture, beliefs and practices. Tolerance for evolving beliefs demonstrates confidence. This YaleGlobal series explores how external forces encouraged intolerance, such as anti-Semitism, in the Middle East throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Saudi Arabia, as the guardian of holy Islamic sites, had its...

Interrupting a History of Tolerance – Part II

Riaz Hassan July 24, 2007
The roots of anti-Semitism in the Middle East are based not in Islamic traditions, but in practical opposition to external intervention, argues Riaz Hassan, professor of sociology in Australia. The first two articles of this three-part series analyze historical events that allowed anti-Semitism to permeate the Middle East. In the early 20th century, Palestinians fiercely resisted Jewish settlers...

Election Results in Turkey a Snub to the Old Guard

Sabrina Tavernise July 23, 2007
Analysts can parse election results in many ways – old guard versus new approach, military versus non-military, secular versus religious values. In the end, voters overlook symbolism and look for efficiency, solutions to problems and a better way of life. The Justice and Development Party of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did better than expected in the nation’s parliamentary...

Iraq Finds Unity on the Global Soccer Field

Ahmad Fadam July 21, 2007
Iraq’s soccer team defeated Australia and advanced to the quarter finals in the Asia Cup. And despite a bitter civil war, Iraqis unite in cheering for their team. “If the team, which includes Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds, can play together, then maybe the country can bridge the bloody hatreds that have ravaged so many communities here,” write Ahmad Fadam and Alissa J. Rubin for the...

Interrupting a History of Tolerance – Part I

Riaz Hassan July 19, 2007
Anti-Semitic rhetoric, literature and films emerge from modern Middle Eastern society, and yet Arab nations do not have a long history of intolerance. A three-part YaleGlobal series explores the history of anti-Semitism, with the final part analyzing the delicate task underway in Saudi Arabia to change attitudes and end intolerance. In the first part of the series, Riaz Hassan explains how there...

Immigration, Populations, Climate Change, Ideologies

J. Russell Tyldesley July 6, 2007
Conflict over immigration, economic growth, climate change, territorial claims, limited energy or water supplies all increase as the world grows more crowded. Such conflicts would be easier to resolve if population growth slowed, argues J. Russell Tyldesley. The world’s population now stands at more than 6.5 billion, as compared with 1.5 billion in 1900, 2.5 billion in 1950, with more than 9...

Brilliant Student, Doctor – and Now a Terror Suspect

Ian Herbert July 3, 2007
Physicians worldwide have long shared the motto, “First, do no harm.” Reports suggesting that the suspects in failed car bombings throughout the UK are physicians from the Middle East, Australia and India are unsettling – and make the job of combating terrorism all that more difficult. Analysts have long assumed that soft-power tools, education and economic development, take time, but worked...