Middle East history

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• SOURCE: Public Seminar
  4/2/2021
  

  The World the Suez Canal Made

  by Aaron Jakes

  "The purpose of the Suez Canal, from the perspective of both the Egyptian state and its European investors, was not simply to render the world more interconnected and international transport more efficient, but to extract transit fees from the ships passing through it."

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• SOURCE: Vice
  3/30/2021
  

  The Last Time the Suez Canal Was Blocked a Utopian Communist Micronation Was Formed at Sea

  The Egyptian blockade of the Suez Canal in the 1967 Six Day War stranded several ships in an adjacent lake. Egyptian policy prevented the ships from leaving, but not from having supplies and fresh crew members brought in. For eight years, the ships were a floating international commune. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/12/2021
  

  Congress May Have To Act To Punish Saudi Arabia

  by David M. Wight

  Political pressures have made US presidents less disposed than Congress to impose limits on the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. If arms sales are to be a lever for change in the kingdom, it will probably be up to Congress to make it happen. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/12/2020
  

  An Epic Israeli TV Drama Exposes War Wounds Old and New

  A new Israeli television series represents one of the nation's few high-profile examinations of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and examines the toll of trauma on veterans. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  11/30/2020
  

  Iranian American Historian On Assassination Of Iranian Nuclear Scientist

  Abbas Milani of Stanford University discusses the US-Iran relationship and the shocking assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week. 

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• 11/1/2020
  

  Mythologies Without End: The U.S., Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020

  by Jerome Slater

  The author of a new history of the Israel-Palestine conflict argues that a myth of national innocence crafted by Israel and embraced by the United States impedes pragmatic compromise and costs lives through ongoing violence.