“Palestine is at its core a struggle against fossil capitalism.” Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox, and Rafeef Ziadah on why “the battle for survival waged by Palestinians today, in Gaza and beyond, is inseparable from the fight for the future of the planet.” www.hidden-cities.com/p/why-the-st...

“The Iran we knew couldn’t be conveniently minimized to caricatures and platitudes about its present and past.” Kourosh Ziabari mourns a lost Iran, where social cohesion, civil dialogue, and collective identity have cratered under state repression. www.hidden-cities.com/p/an-elegy-f...

“The Iran we knew couldn’t be conveniently minimized to caricatures and platitudes about its present and past.” Kourosh Ziabari mourns a lost Iran, where social cohesion, civil dialogue, and collective identity have cratered under state repression. www.hidden-cities.com/p/an-elegy-f...

"Iran’s metamorphosis is that of a country estranged from its identity, deluded about its present, confused about its future, and detached from its past." A new essay by Kourosh Ziabari, mourning a lost Iran: www.hidden-cities.com/p/an-elegy-f...

"One day there will be no more looking away... One day there will be an accounting." A powerful excerpt from Omar El Akkad's searing book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," in my new publication, Hidden Cities. Read and subscribe! hiddencities.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...

“Egypt has always trusted in the afterlife of words—that brief counsel, well-shaped, can outlast stone.” A lyrical journey by @ysl.bsky.social from ancient Egypt to medieval Cairo, finding comfort and clarity in the humble aphorism. hiddencities.substack.com/p/the-ancien...

“I Wish I Had a Leg,” a new poem in Hidden Cities by Vaheed Ramazani. hiddencities.substack.com/p/i-wish-i-h...

What the fall of Baghdad, the occupation, sectarianism, and callous American adventurism could not erase: a sense of humor, of food, of hospitality and humanity. hiddencities.substack.com/p/playing-ch...

Delighted to share my piece on The Ancient, Enduring Wisdom of Egyptian Aphorisms Hidden Cities is a new publication: part travelogue, part global news brief— a magazine that illuminates the world Launched by @freddydek hiddencities.substack.com/p/the-ancien... #egypt #wisdom #history #quotes

New from me in Hidden Cities: Assad is gone, along with the regime cronies who were behind an authoritarian vision of Syria's reconstruction, if it could even be called reconstruction at all. Yet Syrians still don't have enough say in how their country might be rebuilt under Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“The current crisis isn’t just about bread and jobs, it’s about who decides what Iran stands for.” Kamran Talattof in Hidden Cities on why Iran’s protests go deeper than economic frustration alone. @us.theconversation.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/neither-ga...

“Jordan cannot be reduced to the banalities of orientalist folklore, much less the other tropes that have long garbled how the Western media describe the kingdom.” @seanyom.bsky.social in Hidden Cities on what Jordan’s history reveals about the Middle East: www.hidden-cities.com/p/why-tiny-j...