Name: A Double - Edged Sword Mr. Biden's Pilgrimage To Jeddah by Mideastsoccer
Duration: 10 min 54 s
Description: US President Joe Biden’s controversial pilgrimage to Jeddah is part of a broader and more complex geopolitical puzzle with multiple Gulf and Red Sea littoral states attempting to hedge their bets and play rival global and regional powers against one another.

US President Joe Biden’s controversial pilgrimage to Jeddah is part of a broader and more complex geopolitical puzzle with multiple Gulf and Red Sea littoral states attempting to hedge their bets and play rival global and regional powers against one another.

A Double - Edged Sword Mr. Biden's Pilgrimage To Jeddah

Majd Al-Shihabi of 'Palestine Open Maps' and Sana Yazigi of the 'Creative Memory of the Syrian Revolution' talk to us about how they have centered their archiving processes around maps, and what digital archiving can do for Palestinian and Syrian community-building.

This episode also features comment from Dr Sara Salem and Dr Mai Taha of LSE, who explore the importance of creative archiving through their project 'Archive Stories'.

Note: this episode was recorded before October 7, 2023.

Majd Al-Shihabi is a technologist turned urban planner, turned technologisturbanplanner. Majd is co-founder of Palestine Open Maps, a platform for searching, navigating, downloading and digitizing historical maps of Palestine. Majd was the inaugural Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellow which enabled him to start Palestine Open Maps.

https://palopenmaps.org/en

Sana Yazigi is a graphic designer and cultural activist. She is the founder of Creative Memory of the Syrian Revolution, a project that documents all types of creative expressions produced since the Syrian Revolution in 2011 until the present day. She is also the founder of The Cultural Diary, Syria's first bilingual monthly cultural agenda (2007-2012).

https://creativememory.org/

https://archive-stories.com/

Archiving and Mapping Technologies in Palestine and Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s walls are caving in.
Mr. Netanyahu’s multiple battles fall into two categories: keeping his increasingly fragile government in place and fighting a war he has already lost in the court of public opinion and possibly on the ground in Gaza if measured by the prime minister’s war goals.

Netanyahu’s Walls Are Caving In

Gaza’s population of 2.3 million are pawns in a cynical battle for control of post-war Gaza.
Israel’s refusal to lift restrictions on the unfettered entry into Gaza of food, medical supplies, and other desperately needed humanitarian goods, has less to do with a stand-alone starvation policy and more with who controls distribution in the Strip.
Both Israel and Hamas see control of aid distribution as a building block of who comes out on top once the guns fall silent.

Aid Is At The Core Of An Israeli - Palestinian Struggle To Control Post - War Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clutches at straws as he seeks to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza while attempting to create building blocks for a compliant post-war Palestinian administration of the Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Clutches At Straws

Three recent attacks on Israelis shine a spotlight on the 35,000-member Palestinian security forces that the United States, Gulf countries, and much of the international community want to see in charge of on-the-ground security in post-war Gaza.

Palestinian Security Forces Are Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place

How can art complicate claims of progress, innovation and the use of rapidly developing emerging technologies in MENA? In this episode, Cima Chehab speaks to visual artist Nadim Choufi about how he incorporates technology into his artwork both as subject matter and as medium.

In the conversation, they discuss Nadim’s own artistic practice, his use of “lecture performances” and the question of whether life is truly enhanced by progress and technology, which is one of the main questions that underpins his work. Nadim also explores emerging art in the Middle East and how technology has transformed a new generation of artists – from digital illustrations to meme accounts.

Nadim is a visual artist living in Beirut. He primarily focuses on the material histories and futures of innovation and desire, their social and political driving forces, and the visual and literary practices that surround them. He is a 2024 resident at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Currently he is the curator of the film programme of the 2024 festival edition of transmediale and a researcher at Haven For Artists. Previously he was co-Programs Director at Beirut Art Center.

https://nadimchoufi.com/

Art Meaning and Art Making with Nadim Choufi

The Greater Middle East is a ticking time bomb.
Generations in war-wracked Palestine, Syria, and Yemen have little, if anything, to look forward to. Moreover, discontent is mounting and could explode anytime in countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Iran.

The Greater Middle East Is A Ticking Time Bomb

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is tying himself up in knots as he grudgingly, and only to a limited degree, bows to US President Joe Biden’s demands.
In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu is puncturing Swiss-cheese size holes into Israel’s Gaza narrative, making it easier for Mr. Biden to take him publicly to task.

Biden And Hamas Tie Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Up In Knots

Despite its devastating human and physical cost, Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas has a whack-a-mole aspect.

Israel And Hamas Play Whack - A-mole

Nearly ten years since the onset of the crisis in Yemen this discussion provided an in-depth assessment of the conflict over the past decade. Panellists examined the local origins of the war, the humanitarian catastrophe that has ensued, and the challenges for sustainable development given the prolonged violence. Regional dynamics fueling the crisis were also analysed, including factors related to the war in Gaza. With the March 2024 milestone approaching, speakers assessed stalled peace efforts and policy options for international stakeholders moving forward.

Ahmed Al Khameri is the Team Leader for the FCDO-funded programme, The Yemen Support Fund at Chemonics UK. Most recently, he was the governance advisor under the DFID Yemen team leading DFID’s stabilization and governance efforts. 

Marwa Baabbad is Director of the Yemen Policy Centre. She is a researcher and development consultant with over ten years of experience working in the fields of community engagement, gender, peace and security, and youth political inclusion. 

Andreas Krieg is Associate Professor at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London and a Fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. Andreas is the Director of MENA analytica – a political risk firm – that works on Yemen and the Horn of Africa. 

Greg Shapland is an independent researcher, writer and consultant on politics, security, resources and environment (including water) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Greg is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. From 1979 until 2015, he served in the MENA Research Group in the FCO.

Navigating the Crisis: Yemen 10 Years On

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

A Double - Edged Sword Mr. Biden's Pilgrimage To Jeddah

Mideastsoccer

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