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Apr 1, 2025, 12:12 AM

Hypocrites and Breeders

The United Nations says Israel is stopping the women of Gaza from reproducing. The three-person Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (plus East Jerusalem, and Israel) has accused Israel of targeting anything to do with maternity. Good...

Jannus TH Siahaan

Jan 8, 2025, 9:04 PM

Indonesia, BRICS, and Global Geopolitical Dynamics

The official announcement of Indonesia's joining of the BRICS Organization has become important geopolitical news this week, not only for domestic audiences like me, but also for global audiences, both BRICS member countries themselves and developed countries. It seems sudden...

James M. Dorsey

Aug 2, 2024, 3:10 PM

The battle for Muslim education

Lost in the Middle Eastern fog of war is a struggle that is as much about geopolitics as it is about shaping future generations in a swath of land that stretches from the Gulf states and the Gaza battlefield...

James M. Dorsey

Mar 1, 2024, 8:54 AM

The battle for the soul of Islam: A game of seduction

Two recent high-profile Arab events honouring Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, highlight a subtle tug-of-war over who will define ‘moderate Islam’ in the 21st century. At the core of the tug-of-war is...

Jan 21, 2024, 4:05 PM

Towards a religion-based Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Participants at the R20 Princeton UDHR Conference

Last month marked the 75th anniversary of the historical Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was drafted in part in response to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. For the Jewish people, the barbaric massacre by Hamas on...

James M. Dorsey

Jan 14, 2024, 12:22 PM

Escalating Red Sea tensions and citizen boycotts trap US in Catch-22

Increasingly, the United States is caught in a Catch-22 with tension mounting in the Red Sea, Israel maintaining unabated its assault on the Gaza Strip, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) possibly ruling that Israel may be committing...

James M. Dorsey

Nov 28, 2023, 8:24 PM

Religious leaders strive to become peacemakers, not warmongers

A recent clash between pro-Palestinian Muslims and pro-Israeli Christians in the North Sulawesi coastal town of Bitung raised the spectre of Indonesia’s worst nightmare, inter-communal violence. In a country that prides itself on a culture of inter-communal harmony, the death...

James M. Dorsey

Nov 24, 2023, 7:36 PM

Gaza divides the wheat from the chaff among religious leaders

Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel has not just divided Muslim political leaders. It’s also solicited diverse responses from religious figures and institutions, reflecting deeper divisions about what Islam stands for in the 21st century. At the core of the...

James M. Dorsey

Nov 12, 2023, 9:04 AM

Arab and Muslim leaders put limited influence and differences on display.

It took Arab and Muslim leaders 35 days of war to call an ‘emergency’ meeting to discuss Israel’s assault on Gaza. Their limited ability to influence developments was on public display when they finally gathered this weekend in the...

James M. Dorsey

Sep 23, 2023, 5:00 PM

Keeping Saudi ultra-conservatism alive and kicking: Meet Sheikh Awesome

Meet Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem, aka Sheikh Awesome, a multilingual, ultra-conservative, and charismatic Saudi cleric. Mr. Al-Hakeem is more than just any Saudi Islamic scholar. An erstwhile Friday prayer imam of a mosque in Jeddah, Mr. Al-Hakeem articulates views that at...

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