On 21 August 1969, an Australian citizen called Denis Rohan set fire to an 800-year-old wooden pulpit, a gift to al-Aqsa mosque from the Islamic hero Saladin (1137-1193), who led the military campaign against the Crusaders. Apart from being considered mentally ill, Rohan thought he was acting on divine instructions. These were to enable the…
Donald Trump’s rash declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is so out of whack with global opinion and decades of international legal rulings, one has to surmise that the initiative stems from dubious inspiration. Turns out that the likely authors of the harebrained idea are Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner (36), and 32-year-old Saudi…
A week after French President Emmanuel Macron opened the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a painting attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci went on sale for a record $450 million at an auction in New York City. It was then reported that the buyer turned out to be none other than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi…
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the spin from Washington and Riyadh–and the journalists and think tank analysts only too eager be spun–has been outrageous. The level of sheer delusion is stupendous. This post will offer an anatomy of delusion and why it means only more suffering and bloodshed…
The best solutions to difficult problems are simple. The Columbus Egg. The Gordian Knot. The Procrustean Bed. So many people strained their fingers trying to untangle the messy knot, until Alexander came and slashed it open with one fine stroke of his mighty sword. Wise men vainly tried to make an egg stand upright on…
This November in Riyadh, colder than ever, turned out be hot in the political sense and provided Saudi Arabia the front-page spaces of the world mass-media outlets. To be more precise, it was secured by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohhamad Bin Salman Al Saud, who, throughout the whole month, was pursuing extremely active…
