Taylor Luck

Amman, Aroumd

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Middle East Correspondent at The Christian Science Monitor

The non-Swift Taylor. @csmonitor Middle East North Africa correspondent. Journalist. Analyst. Hoper of Far-Flung Hopes. https://t.co/BdtOxwEdbs

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Articles

Syria’s new flag is everywhere: ‘Everyone wants to touch freedom’

2 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

| With scarves and capes, caps and pendants, Syrians everywhere are wrapping themselves up in the new national colors. After years of being illegal in much of the country, the “free Syria” flag – a green-white-black tricolor banner adorned with three red stars – flies in Damascus. Yet the new flag is more than a national symbol. Syrians say what was for years the opposition flag is now an embodiment of the hardships of the revolution and the joy of their newfound freedoms. Why We Wrote This A...
In Syria, Palestinians’ war-shattered camp is a ruin. But it’s home.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

As soon as the dictator was out, Samer Jalbout was on the move. Within 24 hours of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall in early December, Mr. Jalbout was en route from Idlib in northwest Syria, heading back to his home in the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus. The father of three had not been there since pro-Assad forces drove his family out seven years ago. What he found was a concrete wasteland.
‘A chance to build’: How Syrian civil society is making the country work

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

When the Bashar al-Assad regime fell, Ameen Baddran knew whom to call. Immediately, the longtime activist got on the phone with other community members in his native Douma, outside Damascus. They decided to step in and form a local council, which arranged garbage pickup, rubble-clearing, and interim policing.
Arab world unites on Gaza. Can it get US, Israel, and Hamas on board?

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck |Ghada Abdulfattah

An alternative to U.S. President Donald Trump’s regionally reviled plan for Gaza’s reconstruction is gaining widespread buy-in across the region, and among Palestinians and Europeans. The Arab world’s own plan, dubbed “Gaza 2030,” entails a $53 billion reconstruction program and a new governing entity for the enclave. The three rather sizable challenges? Getting the United States on board, getting Israel on board, and tackling the thorny outstanding issue of Hamas’ arms.
Deadly clashes in Syria are precisely what new leaders sought to avert

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck |Dominique Soguel

An insurgency by gunmen loyal to the ousted government of Bashar al-Assad and a wave of sectarian revenge killings are threatening to transform Syria from a cautious success story to the Middle East’s next crisis. They are threatening both the country’s postwar reconstruction as well as the hard-line Islamist government’s strained ties with a skeptical West.
As Syrians struggle to rebuild, old US sanctions are a daunting hurdle

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

As he does most days, Taha Hader tours the ruins of the dream home he hopes to rebuild, stepping gingerly over the concrete shards that once were his neighborhood. The community was leveled by barrel-bombs and stripped clean of metals by the army of former dictator Bashar al-Assad. In the weeks since Mr. Assad was toppled Dec. 8, Mr. Hader has returned from exile in Idlib, in northwest Syria, to his hometown of Darayya, south of Damascus.
Amid Gaza ceasefire’s uncertainty, Palestinians focus on survival

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Ghada Abdulfattah |Taylor Luck

With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire hanging by a thread, Palestinians in Gaza are scrambling for certainty and survival. Even as residents returning to bombed-out communities struggled to clear space for their tents amid the rubble, a war of words between Hamas and Israel continued Tuesday over the second phase of a ceasefire that had been due to begin Sunday.
For Syria’s religious minorities, new freedoms, yet lingering insecurity

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

Ten weeks after a Sunni Islamist group took over Syria, the country’s rich religious diversity is on display at nearly every turn. In the northern area of Homs, the distinctive call to prayer rings out from 35 mosques belonging to the minority, Shiite-affiliated Alawite sect. Last week, Jewish Syrians returned to their Damascus neighborhood and held public prayers in a synagogue for the first time in decades.
Jordan in a bind: What to offer Trump instead of taking in Gaza refugees?

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

Across the Middle East, the art of the deal was hard to identify as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to torpedo a Gaza ceasefire he helped achieve even as he softened his strong-arming of one of America’s closest Arab allies. The stakes were already high for the visit Tuesday by Jordan’s King Abdullah to the White House. President Trump has been publicly pressuring him to take in Palestinian refugees forcibly relocated from Gaza, which would threaten the stability of his nation.
‘There is a lot of fear.’ In West Bank, Palestinians decry Israel’s Gaza tactics.

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck |Dina Kraft

Airstrikes, evacuation orders, homeless refugees, besieged hospitals. The litany of war is familiar. The location is different. Even as a fragile ceasefire enters its fourth week in the Gaza Strip, a parallel conflict is ramping up in the northern West Bank, where Israel is in the third week of an offensive that experts and residents say is employing the same tactics used in Gaza.