Response ·
How Islamism Took Over the Middle East
By Ze'ev Maghen, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, Bernard HaykelThree experts on Arab and Islamic thought discuss the ideas that have mired the Middle East in grievance, instability, and authoritarianism
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour is a researcher at ISGAP, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and the author of the Abrahamic Metacritique substack.
Latest Content
Response ·
Today’s Jihadism Uses Ancient Vocabulary, but Its Ideas Are Modern
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourIslamists absorbed the ideas of Fanon and Foucault from the air around them.
Monthly Essay ·
The Enchantment of the Arab Mind
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourToday’s Islamism promises authenticity but is postmodern in form, postcolonial in posture, and pretends to retrieve the sacred through the techniques of the profane.
Observation ·
Why the Attacks on Iran Won’t Lead to an Arab Embrace of Israel
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourThe rulers of the Gulf states are cheering every Israeli strike. But they now have less incentive to improve diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.
Response ·
Hamas’s Messianic Violence
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourWhy 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.
Monthly Essay ·
The Perennial Power of the Nakba
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourHow 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.
Observation ·
Why the Arab Spring Failed, and the Hopes Its Failure Seeded
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourDespite many real disappointments, the turmoil of the past decade has also revealed signs of promise in the Middle East.
Observation ·
The Tremors of Muslim Reform
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourThe 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?
Response ·
The New Agreement Breaks the Anti-Semitism at the Core of the Middle East’s Dysfunction
By Hussein Aboubakr MansourArabs 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.
