I don't trust the mainstream American press for Middle East news, and have not for a good eight years. Beware newspapers bearing tales of the Iranian Menace. The yellowcake/Niger/WMD boondoggle was only six years ago - how quickly we forget!
When I want to know what's happening in Lebanon and the Arab world, I read
- Syria Comment by Professor Joshua Landis, Syria Studies expert at the University of Oklahoma
- Informed Comment by Professor Juan Cole, Middle East historian at U. Michigan
- Qifa Nabki, Lebanese grad student at Harvard currently living in Lebanon doing research.
- Sic Semper Tyrannis, Colonel Patrick Lang, retired U.S. Army Intelligence and Arabist whose portfolio was the Middle East during the Gulf War.
- Mondoweiss by journalists Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz. Keeping an eye on Zionism.
- I also check Angry Arab. He's angry and he doesn't use paragraph breaks, but he's often right.
- The Economist's Middle East desk is chaired by Max Rodenbeck, who is smart and knowledgeable and fluent in Arabic. He grew up in Cairo. He is not a neo-conservative nor is he an apologist for Israel.
No Al Jazeera?
Posted by: Alison Chaiken | May 24, 2009 at 08:17 PM