The award-winning historian Elizabeth Thompson, interviewed by @BeirutCalling :
"My first hypothesis is that the investigation of why the Arab world lacks democracy today must start with the extension of European colonization after World War I, not Islamic culture or the behavior of particular dictators since independence.
Second, a related takeaway is to ask new questions about the rise of authoritarian, violent, and religiously radical movements in the region. My current research explores the ways in which such movements were empowered after the violent destruction of democratic movements after World War I. This puts modern Middle Eastern political history in the same analytical frame of studies examining the rise of anti-liberal, anti-democratic movements in Europe during the same period."
Overall, a rich and fascinating interview.
https://t.co/wm9Doy1W98
There are moments in history when painting becomes an act of survival, when colors turn into a language that carries what words can no longer hold.
Here in Gaza, after the genocide, art is no longer a luxury — it has become the only way faces don’t disappear and stories are not erased.
I painted to stay alive. I painted because pain, if not transformed into an image, devours its owner from within.
My paintings were not born in a quiet studio, but under bombardment, in displacement, on cheap printing paper when real art paper became a distant dream.
Many were damaged by rain, cracked by humidity, and scattered by constant forced movement — yet they insisted on surviving, just as we did.
And today, I will no longer keep them in the shadows. I will open a major exhibition, the first of its kind in the Gaza Strip.
I will invite everyone to witness it — journalists, artists, and anyone who wants to see the truth as it is. I will make the world talk about it, not because I seek fame, but because these paintings carry what must not be hidden.
In this exhibition I will reveal everything: the suffering, the pain, the displacement, the homes turned to ash, and the souls that still resist.
Every painting will be a testimony. Every color will be a scream.
These works are not just art — they are what remains of us.
I need to frame them, to protect them from rain and decay, so the last part that survived this genocide is not lost.
Help me save what remains. Help revive this painted memory.
Because when art survives, an entire people gains the chance to be seen, to be heard, and never forgotten.
🇵🇸 Brutal agresión de colonos sionistas en Masafer Yata
Imágenes de cámaras de seguridad captaron el momento en que colonos israelíes atacaron salvajemente a Abu Ayoub en el pueblo de Fakhit (Masafer Yata, Cisjordania).
Lo golpearon hasta dejarlo con fractura de cráneo. Actualmente está hospitalizado tras una cirugía de emergencia.
Esto es el terror diario que viven los palestinos en Cisjordania: colonos armados, protegidos por el ejército israelí, atacando, golpeando y robando tierras con total impunidad.
No es un “incidente aislado”. Es política de Estado.
🇵🇸 Brutal agresión de colonos sionistas en Masafer Yata
Imágenes de cámaras de seguridad captaron el momento en que colonos israelíes atacaron salvajemente a Abu Ayoub en el pueblo de Fakhit (Masafer Yata, Cisjordania).
Lo golpearon hasta dejarlo con fractura de cráneo. Actualmente está hospitalizado tras una cirugía de emergencia.
Esto es el terror diario que viven los palestinos en Cisjordania: colonos armados, protegidos por el ejército israelí, atacando, golpeando y robando tierras con total impunidad.
No es un “incidente aislado”. Es política de Estado.
بتهمة جمع الخضار والزهور البرية.
لحظة قيام الجيش الاسرائيلي بترويع واختطاف أطفال فلسطينيين لمكان مجهول
لولا وجود منصات مثل X لما وصلت هذه المشاهد للعالم
فضحهم واجب على كل حُر حول العالم.