Taylor Luck

Amman, Aroumd

Middle East Correspondent at The Christian Science Monitor

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

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Articles

As food trickles into Gaza, UN calls US-Israeli plan ‘vastly insufficient’

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

Even amid Israel’s intensified military operations in Gaza, and the ever-evolving displacement of the enclave’s Palestinian residents, another Israel-Hamas war flash point has come to the fore this week: the entry and distribution of lifesaving aid. On Tuesday, Israel began distributing food through a controversial U.S.-backed mechanism it is implementing unilaterally in southern Gaza, cutting out international aid organizations that have been working on the ground in the strip for years.
Across Arab Mideast, a new alignment rises: An axis of cooperation

2 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

Banner portraits of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hang from buildings and overpasses in Damascus. In the Syrian capital’s hotels, Kuwaiti, Qatari, and Emirati investors fill the lobbies. In Baghdad, at a successful Arab League summit, the Iraqi government declared its support for a united Arab world and its rejection of foreign interference.
As sanctions fall, long-suppressed Syrian economy is poised to take off

2 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

A rare optimism is sweeping Syria, where a brutal 14-year civil war and a five-decade dictatorship have left the country’s economy cut off from the global financial system and decades behind its neighbors. Just days after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to lift sanctions, one of the world’s oldest economies is gearing up to roar back to life. Syrian business owners who for years worked around sanctions to turn a profit by hook or by crook are now eyeing a meteoric rise.
‘We just want to live.’ Syrian farmers pay the price for Israeli power play.

3 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

Clinging to the fringe of a sweeping plateau at the southernmost tip of Syria, a cluster of six quiet farming communities has emerged as an unlikely, but hotly contested, geopolitical fault line. Above the Yarmouk Valley in Daraa province, 25,000 villagers find themselves squeezed between two regional superpowers. On one side is Israel, whose troops have seized a United Nations-designated demilitarized zone and pushed into a sliver of Syrian territory that includes the villagers’ homes and farms.
Jordan wants to avoid proxy war. Banning the Muslim Brotherhood just made it harder.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

As its neighbors in the Middle East have been plunged into regional conflict, Jordan has stood as a rare, neutral stronghold of peace, resisting being dragged into proxy war. But Israel’s continued war in Gaza has put new pressure on the Arab kingdom, with members of Hamas calling on like-minded allies in Jordan to open a front against Israel.
Iraqis hope for an era of peace. Their neighbors hold the key.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Taylor Luck

As U.S.-Iran nuclear talks enter a second week and low-level talks begin between Turkey and Kurdish separatists, a cautious optimism is taking hold in Iraq. The country has long been caught in the middle of regional wars and geopolitical tensions. But there is hope here that should these talks succeed, an era of global and regional powers fighting their conflicts on Iraqi soil could finally come to an end.
Syria’s new flag is everywhere: ‘Everyone wants to touch freedom’

1 month 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.

2 months 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

2 months 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?

2 months 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.