🇸🇾 🎉Thank you to all who joined us in Parliament for our roundtable on Syria’s transition nine months on. Our expert panel reflected on interim governance, legal reform & the prospects for meaningful accountability. 📝 A takeaway report will be out soon: fpc.org.uk/join/

As U.S. aid flows to Israel, settler violence in the West Bank is surging – with little state restraint. Experts say it’s part of a larger strategy to forcibly reshape the region. buff.ly/CpMDami By @aperliger.bsky.social, UMass Lowell

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza. Israel controls the flow of food into Gaza. It has calculated how many calories Palestinians need to stay alive. Its data shows only a fraction has been allowed in. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

John Simpson “The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights warns that countries are becoming bolder in attacking dissidents in the UK. Russia, China & Iran are the worst, but Bahrain, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, & the UAE have all attacked people here.”

Trump’s Justice Department is currently asking the Supreme Court for permission to build a deportation machine that can disappear anyone, citizen and immigrant alike, to a foreign prison forever, permanently extinguishing their constitutional rights with zero due process. slate.com/news-and-pol...

"There are other more incendiary options. One would be for the UK and others to properly adhere to their obligations under international law." @profmabon.bsky.social on the Gaza genocide. theconversation.com/gaza-is-star...

Israel’s allies should look at what was done to isolate South Africa during the apartheid years.

Trump and Miller are intent on building an unaccountable domestic secret police force that would be the world's third-biggest security force by funding levels, after the US and China's *militaries*. That kind of funding dwarfs its stated purpose, which tells you what its real purpose will be.

Insane that the British Foreign Secretary can meet with the former leader of Al Qaeda in Syria while, at home, on the same day, his government arrested 20 people on 'terrorism offenses' for supporting a non-violent pro-Palestine protest group.

Indiana Jones will be played by a rotating cast of three adjuncts who answer to two different associate deans

A judge ruled Anthropic training AI on books without permission was legal, but pirating the books was not. This is ultimately a very damaging decision but there are many other cases working their way through the legal system that have worse facts www.404media.co/judge-rules-...

This is such an important day for New Yorkers. Rooting for Mamdani! www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

“So, bottom line – all of these arguments are really trying to dress up purely preventative action into something more legally respectable. These arguments are not just weak, they are fatally weak.” Peak Marko. Hang it in the Louvre.

The EU's pathetic response to Trump's Iran attack: Europe jettisoned its principles to suck up to a president that doesn't even know they exist responsiblestatecraft.org/us-strikes-i...

The US president’s decision to join israel’s air campaign against Iran’s nuclear programme is the death knell of the old rules-based order.

“Donald Trump has guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in 5 to 10 years from now.” Iranian writer @tparsi.bsky.social tells @mehdirhasan.bsky.social that US bombing of Iran would push Tehran toward developing nuclear weapons. Watch the full conversation: zeteo.com/p/breaking-t...

If you want to understand the background in the Iran-Israel war, and where it could lead us, you really need to listen to this week’s Why Curve, with Simon Mabon from Lancaster University, Listen to the full episode here: whycurve.com/episode/worl...

“When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”

Stark regime change message from Netanyahu here. “As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom. The time has come for the Iranian people to unite around its flag and its historic legacy” www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...

A wonderful thread.

All alone in the world: The US vetoes a UN Security Council resolution demanding permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was supported by all 14 other Security Council members. news.un.org/en/story/202...

Too many were too impressed by David Lammy's recent statement on Gaza and the accompanying (feeble) measures against Israel. Lammy & Starmer's priority isn't stopping the genocide. It's limiting the domestic political fallout resulting from their complicity.

“Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical. These various initiatives… comprise a unified assault. The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Academia in 2025: For weeks I’ve been working through botched copy-edits of my monograph, outsourced by the publisher to a company I’d never heard of, until it finally dawned on me the terrible job might be AI. A quick search confirmed the company recently launched new AI software, which now means..

All thanks and credit to @profmabon.bsky.social for this excellent article on how Bahrain's regime seeks to to use space to try&manage and crush dissent

⚠️New #openaccessarticle online! 🛡️Space, #Security and #SovereignPower: The Case of #Bahrain 🔍 How does Bahrain’s regime use —physical and social— space in the securitisation process? Find out more here: shorturl.at/YH62c ✒️ @profmabon.bsky.social & @johnnagle1.bsky.social

At SciencesPo talking about sectarianism, sovereignty, Syria and Palestine.

As a long time Eurovision fan, it is difficult to deny the truth about the event when it comes to its politics. This is a brilliant piece by my friend @somdeepsen.bsky.social writing for @aljazeera.com : www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

cardinals out here rawdogging in the Sistine Chapel. we used to live in a society.

Oman announces US-Houthi ceasefire : "Neither side will target the other... ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping." Announcement is ambiguous about any Houthi commitment to stop attacking Israelis ships. uk.news.yahoo.com/oman-announc...

Editorial Board of FT: “…the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. Yet the US and EU countries have issued barely a word of condemnation. They should be ashamed.” www.ft.com/content/f5fd...

My latest article in International Spectator: “US Structural Power and Oil: Debilitating the Iranian Oil Industry" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Read Agamben. This seems an important moment to dig out and (re)read Homo Sacer and State of Exception. Then, when all seems lost, read about destituent power.

7. You can check out the full study here: www.mediamatters.org/google/right...

Order across the #MiddleEast has become increasingly precarious. According to @profmabon.bsky.social, the old order is fraying, but a new one is yet to emerge. Join us for his #AulaMed lecture: 📅 Thursday 13th March, 6.30 pm 📍 At IEMed (BCN) 💻 And live-stream 🌐 iemed.org/events/secta...

Been hearing about this too. The Israeli whitepaper is said to further argue that Turkey supports Hamas, and Turkey supports the new Syrian government, and thus, through some bizarre transitive property of the Middle East, Ahmed al-Sharaa must be Hamas www.reuters.com/world/israel...

James Bond Sequels To Focus On Evil Amazon Factory Workers Trying To Form Union

Oxfam: “Israel’s decision, to block aid to over 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Ramadan begins, is a reckless act of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited under international humanitarian law."

On my way to God’s own country to give a talk on Houses built on sand.

Just leaving this here.

So happy to see this out, please do read it and share! Thanks to my fab co-editor Javier Bordon, to @profmabon.bsky.social and Edward Wastnidge for hosting us, and to all our wonderful contributors. www.sepad.org.uk/report/footb...

'The idea that states are entities or persons with rights to exist separate from the rights of persons living within those states seems untenable. States often come in and out of existence with no wrong being done to the people in question per se.' - Andrew F. March

Here's a dark window into the other side of Syria's post-Assad story: an economically deprived wasteland where poverty is fuelling sectarianism & discontent. If the international community doesn't act fast, a hunger revolution, & with it more tumult, could be coming. bsky.app/profile/glca...

New article where I examine Gulf deposits to other Arab states' central banks as monetary statecraft in the service of counter-revolution @ripejournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

That proud moment when your MA students are reading articles written by your PhD students.

Saudi Arabia said it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state, contradicting President Donald Trump's claim that Riyadh was not demanding a Palestinian homeland when he said the US wants to take over the Gaza Strip reut.rs/4aIuIXz

5 key Arab states—the UAE, Saudi, Jordan, Qatar & Egypt—sent this letter to Rubio “unequivocally” condemning Trump’s endorsement of ethnic cleansing. It won’t happen. But it will distract from Trump’s domestic power grabs, juice up Hamas & put Americans at more risk of terrorism

Contract signed with Cambridge: Power and Sovereignty in the Middle East: Order and its Discontents. Excited to make a start on this in the summer.

So the emir of Qatar was the first head of state received by Pres. Sharaa in Syria, and Saudi Arabia is the first place he visits with his new title. I guess he should go to Turkey next if he wants to keep this balancing act up?