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1 week ago | 
almendron.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
1. My darling Sammour,After years of silence, I began writing you a letter last October. I gave it the title “Guardian of Hope”, since your absence is bound up with my sense of hope, both personal and public, slowly eroding for the last eleven years. But I stopped after a few lines, for there was nothing I could tell you about the situation. You are the situation. What could someone who has no part in your absence tell you about yourself?
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2 weeks ago | 
nybooks.com | Yasmine Seale |Yassin al-Haj Saleh
1. My darling Sammour,After years of silence, I began writing you a letter last October. I gave it the title “Guardian of Hope,” since your absence is bound up with my sense of hope, both personal and public, slowly eroding for the last eleven years. But I stopped after a few lines, for there was nothing I could tell you about the situation. You are the situation. What could someone who has no part in your absence tell you about yourself?
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
newlinesmag.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
While conflict with Israel has been part of the collective consciousness of the Arab world for generations, the character of the Israeli state and its ideological underpinnings have rarely been the subject of serious reflection outside of certain Palestinian circles. In some neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon, the existence of Israel has been used by rulers as a pretext to justify imposing unjust policies at home.
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Jan 3, 2024 | 
aljumhuriya.net | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
There is no better phrase to describe Riad al-Turk, who departed our world on Monday, than the French expression animale politique, a ‘political animal’.
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Sep 12, 2023 | 
links.org.au | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
First published at New Lines. Syria is a country of only 71,498 square miles in area, with a population of less than 24 million, and yet two global superpowers (the United States and the Russian Federation) and three of the largest regional powers (Iran, Turkey and Israel) are present on its territory. Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, and carries out almost nonstop incursions into Syrian air space today.
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Sep 6, 2023 | 
newlinesmag.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
How regional and global powers, internal colonialism and Salafi-jihadist subterfuge converged to short-circuit the Syrian struggle against despotism Syria is a country of only 71,498 square miles in area, with a population of less than 24 million, and yet two global superpowers (the United States and the Russian Federation) and three of the largest regional powers (Iran, Turkey and Israel) are present on its territory.
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Apr 12, 2023 | 
today.lorientlejour.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
There is something incomprehensible about the accelerated pace of normalization between a growing number of Arab regimes and Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. After the visits of the Syrian dictator to Muscat in February and then Abu Dhabi March, Syria's foreign minister made his first trip last Wednesday to Saudi Arabia since 2011. Moreover, Saudi Arabia will host a meeting of nine regional foreign ministers on Friday to discuss Syria’s return to the Arab League after 12 years of suspension.
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Apr 12, 2023 | 
lorientlejour.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Il y a quelque chose d'assez incompréhensible dans l’accélération du processus de normalisation des relations diplomatiques entre un nombre croissant de régimes arabes et le régime de Bachar el-Assad : après la visite du dictateur syrien à... Il y a quelque chose d'assez incompréhensible dans l’accélération du processus de normalisation des relations diplomatiques entre un nombre croissant de régimes arabes et le régime de Bachar el-Assad : après la visite du dictateur syrien à...
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Mar 10, 2023 | 
newlinesmag.com | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
39 min read In this deeply autobiographical essay, a leading Syrian intellectual recounts his early years in rural parts of the country, lamenting the political and cultural vitality since lost in a society shattered by tyranny and war Listen to this storyMy father, Ibrahim al-Haj Saleh, was a man of faith. As a child, he had attended a traditional Islamic elementary school, known as a “kuttab,” where he learned to read and write.
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Mar 8, 2023 | 
dawnmena.org | Yassin al-Haj Saleh
This catastrophe would not have happened were it not for the rest of the world normalizing death in Syria for so many years. State-centered international organizations like the U.N. have legitimized governments even when they are genocidal ones like President Bashar al-Assad's.
