ALL VIDEOS IN THIS CATEGORY

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  How Isis Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt

  On Monday 24 May, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies professor Omar Ashour and Wesleyan University professor Emy Matesan will try to shed light on how a small terrorist group can transform itself into a proto-state. How did ISIS –a widely-hated, massively outnumbered and outgunned organization– manage to occupy over 120 cities, towns and villages from the Southern Philippines to Western Libya? Seeking to understand ISIS’s combat effectiveness, Omar Ashour analyses in his latest book the military and tactical innovations of ISIS and its predecessors in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. He argues that their ability to blend conventional military tactics with innovative guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism strategies allowed ISIS to expand and endure beyond expectations. Taking advantage of this new publication by Edinburgh University Press, Casa Árabe is organizing a homonymous talk and inviting its author, currently an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, to engage in dialogue with Emy Matesan, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. This talk is a must for anyone interested in understanding how a small terrorist group can morph into a proto-state. The event will be presented by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe's International Relations Coordinator. Omar Ashour is an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is the Founding Director of the Critical Security Studies Graduate Program (MCSS). He obtained his PhD in Political Science from McGill University in Canada and his BSc and MA in Political Science (International Relations) from the American University in Cairo. Professor Ashour is specialized in asymmetric warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency, Islamist movements and ideologies, democratization (with focus on security sector reform and civil-military relations), security, terrorism, and strategic military studies. He is the author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements (Routledge, 2009). He served as a senior consultant for the United Nations on security sector reform, counter-terrorism, and de- radicalization issues (2009-2013; 2015) and co-authored the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (UN-ESCWA) paper on security sector reform during the transitional periods of the Arab Spring. Professor Ashour served as a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution (2010-2015) and as an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London (2015-2016). Ioana Emy Matesan is an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. Her research focuses on Middle Eastern politics, particularly security and political violence, democratization, and Islamist movements. In Egypt and Indonesia, Matesan conducted fieldwork supported by the National Science Foundation to explore why groups adopt or abandon violence and how tactical and ideological change happens within Islamist movements. She has also researched and published on Hamas and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, new security challenges in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab Spring, and the dynamics of resistance to foreign rule. Her book The Violence Pendulum (Oxford University Press 2020) examines what drives Islamist groups to shift between violent and nonviolent tactics. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Global Security Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, Journal of Strategic Security, and Nations and Nationalism. She holds a master's degree from Arizona State University and a PhD from Syracuse University. More info: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/how-isis-fights-military-tactics-in-iraq-syria-libya-and-egypt

  Published at 43 19,,, 21 2021
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  SDG 5: Gender equality in the the Middle East and North Africa

  As part of the series of conferences on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) organized by Casa Árabe, on the upcoming date of May 19 we will be analyzing Goal 5, which seeks gender equality and the empowerment of women. The debate will be broadcast live for all audiences on our YouTubeand Facebook Live channels. Written in terms of “Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls,” SDG5 is one of the most important for the Middle East and North Africa. The reason is that, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2021), the region has the largest gender gap in the world (at around 40%), and ten of its countries rank among the bottom 15 on the list. Despite undeniable advancements attained in recent decades, it is impossible to speak of a homogeneous situation either between or within countries. Furthermore, the coexistence of certain factors at the present time cast doubt on these outcomes and highlights their fragility. In particular, the region is suffering from widespread public discontent, the rise of ultra-conservative movements, the spread of armed conflicts and, for more than a year now, COVID-19. All of these circumstances have raised the risks for women, who are more exposed than ever to violence, disease, premature wedlock and, on the whole, to their definitive relegation to the status of second-class citizens. What other challenges will be faced by those who strive for the effective, robust implementation of SDG5? At this event, we will be joined by three speakers who discuss gender issues in the Middle East and North Africa region: Lina Abirafeh, an expert on the prevention of and responses to gender violence in humanitarian and emergency contexts, Sama’a Al-Hamdani founder and executive director of the Yemen Cultural Institute for Heritage & Arts, and Asma Khalifa, an activist and researcher in the field of human rights, women and youth empowerment. The session will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Economics and Training Coordinator. Lina Abirafeh is the Executive Director of the Arab Institute for Women (AiW) at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Lina completed her PhD at the London School of Economics (LSE) and, on the basis of her research, published “Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan: The Politics and Effects of Intervention.” Abirafeh is a board member at several organizations (SheDecides, Forced Migration Review, Society of Gender Professionals and Greenpeace MENA, as well as others). In 2018, she was one of two Arab women included on the list “Gender Equality Top 100: The Most Influential People in Global Policy,” on which she was named again in 2019. She has recently focused her work on the need for a feminist response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Arab women and girls. Asma Khalifa is a Libyan activist and researcher devoted to creating a structure for civil society and peace building in her country. As a non-Arab, Amazigh Libyan who grew up under Colonel Gaddafi’s rule, she witnessed the negative impact of discrimination and violence against women. In 2016, she was awarded with the Luxembourg Peace Prize and a year later was named one of the “100 Most Influential Young Africans” at the Africa Youth Awards. Khalifa is also a co-founder of the Tamazight Women’s Movement, a group for thought and action which works on gender equality and research about indigenous women in Libya and North Africa. Sama’a Al-Hamdani is the founder and executive director of the Yemen Cultural Institute for Heritage & Arts. As an art curator, she has been concerned with recovering the unique art forms and heritage of Yemen. In August 2019, she took part in a pilot program involving women in conflict (Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship), which focused on “The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding.” At present, she is a non-resident analyst at the Middle East Institute (MEI), whose main work deals with Yemen’s political dynamics. Prior to joining MEI, she was a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), specializing in Transitional Justice, and a researcher at the Yemen-headquartered Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (SCSS). She has had articles published by Arab world and Western media and groups of experts, including Al-Monitor, the Lawfare blog, Brookings Institution, The National (UAE), MENAsource (Atlantic Council Blog), Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Fikra Forum, The Middle East Institute Journal, Yemen Observer and the Yemen Times, as well as others. More info: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/sdg-5-gender-equality-in-the-arab-world

  Published at 03 19,,, 21 2021
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  Nakba at 73: what lies ahead?

  To commemorate Nakba Day, Casa Árabe and the Diplomatic Mission of Palestine in Spain present this conference with Hanan Ashrawi, political and civil society leader, academic and Palestinian activist. She will be speaking with José Vericat on May 17 at 6 p.m. at our headquarters in Madrid. The event will be broadcast live on Youtube and Facebook Live.  1948 marks the start of the Nakba, “catastrophe” or “disaster” in Arabic, when more than 700,000 Palestinians had to flee from their lands, and hundreds of cities and towns were destroyed or forcibly depopulated. Since then, many UN Resolutions have been disregarded by Israel, which has carried out the construction of illegal settlements and deepened its occupation of the Palestinian territories. Against the odds, the Palestinian people have refused to forget and give up the right of return and have continued to resist throughout the decades. In this conference, organized with the cooperation of the Diplomatic Mission of Palestine in Spain, Hanan Ashrawi will talk about the deep legacy of the Nakba, but also about current Palestinian affairs in the light of the recent crisis in Jerusalem and Gaza. She will also tackle the prospects for future elections and reform in Palestine and the role of the European Union. Hanan Ashrawi will be joining the event through an online connection from Ramallah and will engage in a dialogue with José Vericat, Senior Adviser at the European Institute for Peace. Presented by: Musa Amer Odeh, Ambassador of Palestine in Spain and Pedro Martínez-Avial, Director General of Casa Árabe.   Hanan Ashrawi is a distinguished Palestinian leader, legislator, activist, and scholar who served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, beginning with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.  Making history as the first woman to hold a seat in the highest executive body in Palestine, she was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009 and most recently in 2018. She resigned in 2020. In 1996, Dr. Ashrawi was appointed as the Palestinian Authority Minister of Higher Education and Research. She was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996, and she was re-elected for the “Third Way” bloc ticket in 2006. As a civil society activist, she founded the Independent Commission for Human Rights (1994), MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (1998) and AMAN, the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (1999).  She serves on the advisory and international boards of several global, regional and local organizations, and she is the recipient of numerous awards from all over the world, , including the distinguished French decoration, “d'Officier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur” (2016), and several academic accolades, including eleven honorary doctorates from universities in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Arab world.    José S. Vericat is Senior Adviser at the European Institute for Peace. He’s a seasoned Middle East expert with more than two decades of experience working in conflict zones. Before joining the European Institute of Peace, he was the Carter Center’s Israel-Palestine Country Representative and Field Office Director promoting viable peace between Israelis and Palestinians and inter-Palestinian reconciliation. Previously, he was a Middle East advisor at the International Peace Institute (IPI) influencing policy-making at the UN headquarters, an EU official working on security sector reform in Palestine, and a prize-winning journalist covering the Second Intifada and the Iraq war. He has a PhD in Oriental Studies from Oxford University and an MA in International Relations from Columbia University. More information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/nakba-at-73-what-lies-ahead Photo: Montecruz Foto. Palestine Nakba Day demo in Berlin

  Published at 31 12,,, 21 2021
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  Thirty years after “Desert Storm”: changes in the media’s coverage of the MENA region

  On the upcoming date of May 12, we will be hosting this conference by three experts on this topic. The event will be broadcast live on our YouTube and Facebook Live channels. The first Gulf War (1991) ushered in pioneering real-time coverage of conflict, which seemed to portend great opportunities in the world of news and information. However, the many red lines drawn by the Pentagon, which biased and restricted the content that could be broadcast, kept footage and sounds from being broadcast immediately or translated into a deeper understanding of the conflict by the public. After that experience, over the last three decades we have witnessed countless foreign operations and interventions in the region. From those carried out by the United States in countries such as Iraq or Yemen, and with NATO in Libya, to those recently orchestrated by Arab states (with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the forefront); and those carried out by Israel (over ten in Gaza since 2005 and one in Lebanon in 2006), they have all contributed to upheaval in the already complex map of interregional conflicts. In addition to this, the Arab uprisings of 2011 and coverage in countries such as Egypt, Syria and Bahrain have posed major challenges to grassroots journalism. As a result, many questions and controversies surrounding the documentation of war conflicts remain thirty years later. How has the media landscape in the Middle East and North Africa changed since the end of the twentieth century? What has the coverage of these conflicts meant for journalists, audiences and media practices? What has the impact been due to increased competition for audiences arising from the major rise in channels and means for conveying information? What gaps continue to exist between East and West? To answer all of these questions, we have invited three experts with extensive experience in media coverage of conflicts: Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English; Zahera Harb, director of the Master’s Degree in International Journalism at the City University of London, and Adel Iskandar, an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University. The debate will be moderated by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s International Relations Coordinator. Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English, covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent sectarian conflict by traveling alongside allied forces in Anbar and Tikrit. More recently, she was responsible for reporting on the Arab Springs in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, and since 2014 she has been documenting the situation of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe. Before taking over her current position, she worked for ABC News during the United States’ “Operation Desert Fox” in Iraq (1998). Zahera Harb is the director of the Master’s degree programs in International Journalism and Media and Globalization at the City University of London (CUL). Her publications include the collections “Reporting the Middle East: the Practice of News in the 21st Century” and “Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Palestine and Lebanon”. Harb has more than 11 years of experience as a journalist in her native Lebanon, working for both local and international media (BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera). Adel Iskandar Adel Iskandar is an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada and co-editor of the online journal Jadaliyya. His most notable works include “Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution”; “Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism”; “Mediating the Arab Uprisings,” and “Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring.” Prior to this, he taught at Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and MA in Communication, Culture & Technology). Photo: Mat Simpson. Random TV coverage of the Iraq War (2003). Más información: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/thirty-years-after-%E2%80%9Cdesert-storm%E2%80%9D-changes-in-the-media%E2%80%99s-coverage-of-the-mena-region

  Published at 16 05,,, 21 2021
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  The Gulf and the Maghreb in uncertain times. Session II and Closing Remarks

  Second session and Closing Remarks of the seminar "The Gulf and the Maghreb in uncertain times. Clobal players, reshaped regions and trasnational trends", organized in collaboration with Fundación Alternativas, which will bring together analysts with vast experience and knowledge from both sides of the Mediterranean, providing a platform to analyse the growing importance of relations between the GCC and the Maghreb states. Session II. Regions in transformation: adjusting to new social, economic, and political realities. Moderator: Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal – Fundación Alternativas Youssef Cherif – Columbia Global Centers Yasmina Abouzzohour – Brookings Doha Centre Luciano Zaccara, Qatar University Conclusions: Haizam Amirah-Fernández – Real Instituto Elcano Closing Remarks. What role for Europe in the region? Ambassador James Moran, Centre for European Policy Studies Yahia Zoubir, KEDGE Business School Recent developments show that regional configurations and alliances within the Arab world cannot be taken for granted. While in the not so distant past the Maghreb and the Gulf were put in competition against each other, these last years have witnessed a greater involvement of Gulf countries in the Maghreb through an array of mechanisms and shifting patterns depending on specific contexts. Clear cases in point are the conflicting interests invading Libya’s politics and the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel in line with the so-called Abraham Accords. In spite of cultural and historical links, and notwithstanding a shared Arab identity, both geography and conflicting geopolitical and economic concerns have kept these subregions apart from each other. However, the Gulf and Maghreb states share interests and concerns. Dynamics throughout the Mediterranean nowadays encompass events at both the subregional, regional and transcontinental level. States are confronted with a number of transnational and cross-regional phenomena, both at the macro and the micro-level. The international relations and economies of Maghreb countries are becoming more multifaceted, with more assertive African policies and the expansion of new trade relations as well as diversification of allies. Will they emulate the Gulf’s regional and global endeavors, leading to a showdown, or will pragmatism and conflict fatigue prevail? Will traditional fault lines shift and adapt to new threats and opportunities? How can domestic politics shape future events? Will the Maghreb become an arena for power competition and Gulf Arab rivalries? How will the GCC’s irregular dynamics affect the balance of power? Have other external powers a role to play? Will potential partnerships be able to translate into deeper strategic ties providing with new opportunities for institutions and societies? The seminar will gather analysts with vast experience and insight from both sides of the Mediterranean, providing a platform to analyze the increasing importance of relations between the GCC and the Maghreb states. More info: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/the-gulf-and-the-maghreb-in-uncertain-times Photo: USAFRICOM U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Apolonia L. Gaspa

  Published at 57 16,,, 21 2021