The Best Books of 2023, Part II
Featuring fears, fates, burdens of power, memory wars, Sabbath days, Russian writers and timeless questions, years of upheaval, Japanese Jews, and more.
How the Jewish State Became So Important to the Self-Conception of the Arabs
Watch or read a discussion about the perennial power of the Nakba with Hussein Aboubakr and Ghaith al-Omari.
Hamas's Messianic Violence
Why Hamas frames the Israel-Palestinian conflict with the imagery of divine justice and cosmic warfare, and why it appeals to so many in the West.
The Perennial Power of the Nakba
How generations of Arab thinkers and leaders tried to turn the humiliation of their losses to Israel into a springboard to launch their nations into an enchanted new age.
Podcast: Hussein Aboubakr on the Holocaust in the Arab Moral Imagination
Mahmoud Abbas says that the Israelis committed “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians. Why does he believe that, and what does the rest of the Arab world think about the Shoah?
Why the Arab Spring Failed, and the Hopes Its Failure Seeded
Despite many real disappointments, the turmoil of the past decade has also revealed signs of promise in the Middle East.
The Best Books of 2020, Chosen by Mosaic Authors (Part I)
Five of our regular writers pick several favorites each, featuring Turkish denial, Jesus’s wife, coffeehouse culture, angst, WEIRDness, and Judaism straight up.
The Tremors of Muslim Reform
The powers at the center of the Muslim world are refusing to tolerate radical Islamism, and a spirit of repair and renewal is at hand. Will it catch on?
The New Agreement Breaks the Anti-Semitism at the Core of the Middle East’s Dysfunction
Arabs are finally concluding that they need to move past the toxic legacies of Arab nationalism and Islamism—which means moving past the mythology of Palestine too.