Location: Middle East

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A new study on mental health in Afghanistan looks beyond the effects of its 12-year war and identifies the root causes of mental distress and anxiety among its citizens: poverty and vulnerability.

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Organizations using fear and anger to spread negative messages about Muslims have moved from the fringes of public discourse into the mainstream media since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to new research by a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sociologist.

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The Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (MEPPI), a collaboration among the Arab Image Foundation, the University of Delaware, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Getty Conservation Institute that launched last year, is building a network of conservation professionals dedicated to preserving the region’s rich photographic heritage, and their efforts show it — in projects now under way from Iraq to Morocco.

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U.S. reactions to tensions in the Middle East reflect an age-old dichotomy in American foreign policy – pragmatism versus morality, says military historian Dr. John C. McManus.

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What's in a name? President Obama’s middle name, Hussein, makes Israelis – both Jewish and Arab – perceive him as less pro-Israeli, reveals a new study conducted by the University of Haifa and the University of Texas.

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Social media expert Ananda Mitra coined the word "narbs" to describe the small pieces of information floating in the digital sphere. His research shows that using social media to spread hate messages is a trend, not a fad, and that narb patterns may have predicted the violence in Libya.

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Direct displays of respect can reduce conflict in protests in the Middle East, where a premium is placed on honor.

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Population stories to watch from the Wilson Center.

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David Siddhartha Patel is a professor of government at Cornell University and has studied Middle Eastern politics in Syria. He explains why "we are watching the beginning of a protracted and bloody civil war in Syria that will likely last several years."

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Uri Rosset, a lecturer at Sapir College in Sderot, Israel, and an expert on the Middle East, was Western Illinois University in early May as a guest lecturer for the School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration (LEJA) and its Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP). Through his classroom presentations and University-wide lecture covering terrorism, the Middle East and the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa, Rosset provided WIU students and faculty with contemporary and historical perspectives of the Hamas and Hezbollah organizations, as well as of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave.

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While the U.S. is drawing down significantly and turning over operations to the Afghans, it’s a mistake to say the war is ending. The war will continue beyond 2014 for the Afghans as well as for those U.S. service men and women who comprise the residual force that remains in country.

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Mount Holyoke student Anita Haidary ’14 is the cofounder of Young Women for Change, a Kabul-based grassroots movement committed to empowering Afghan women to improve their lives through social and economic participation, political empowerment, awareness, and advocacy. She answered questions about her work with YWC.

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The new book, “Jerusalem in World War I: The Palestine Diary of a European Diplomat,” is the first English translation of the diary of Spanish counsel Conde de Ballobar. The book, by Western Illinois University Assistant History Professor Roberto Mazza, gleans the recorded events Ballobar witnessed as well as his experiences and insights into late Ottoman Jerusalem. His diary also included a detailed account of local churches battles to control the city’s holy sites, the spread of Zionism and the establishment of British rule.

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A new University of Illinois at Chicago study explores the uses of Twitter as a news reporting mechanism during last year's Mideast uprisings known as Arab Spring.

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On a January evening in 2011, Egypt – with a population of 80 million, including 23 million Internet users – vanished from cyberspace after its government ordered an Internet blackout amidst anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The following month, the Libyan government, also under siege, imposed an Internet “curfew” before completely cutting off access for almost four days.

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The Arab Spring began in early 2011 in Tunisia as a demonstration in support of a street vendor who committed suicide to protest his mistreatment at the hands of a city official. Since then, the movement has spread throughout the Arab world to protest corruption in government and human rights violations. With many nations recently marking the one-year anniversaries of these revolutionary events, two Florida State University faculty members are available to provide analysis and perspective.

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Aline Nasreddine, a native of Kefraya, Lebanon, understands why people would be hesitant about traveling to her country. In fact, she has seen the violence many associate with Lebanon up close. However, she says that today her country is safe and tourists come to Lebanon from all over the world.

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After nine years of war, American military forces have withdrawn from Iraq. A Florida State University political scientist is available to provide perspective on that nation’s stability.

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Farid Al-Salim, assistant professor of history, says the desire for withdrawal is mutual. But the effects could result in great instability in the country if the Iraqi political parties engage in conflict to realize their political agendas.

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Iago Gocheleishvili is a Cornell University lecturer of Persian Studies, and has worked with the U.S.-sponsored Central Asia and Caspian Basin Project as an expert on the Iranian world. He comments on the recent sanctions by Western powers against Iran.