In numerous corners of the Arab world, modern and historic artifacts are at best being neglected and at worst being destroyed. Libya, Iraq, Palestine and Algeria have all suffered conflict in the past few decades, but none more so than Syria, which has seen centuries-old communities, markets, architecture and art that took years, sometimes decades, to construct suffer decimation in a matter of months from regime and rebel artillery. In Syria, after the weapons are laid down and the foreign mercenaries depart, it will be the Syrians themselves who rebuild the country. Read more »
Syria
Breaking the Arab news
While civil war rages on the Syrian battlefield between regime loyalists and myriad rebel factions, another battle is taking place in the media world. Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, the two Gulf-based channels that dominate the Arabic news business, have moved to counter Syrian regime propaganda, but have ended up distorting the news almost as badly as their opponents. In their bid to support the Syrian rebels’ cause, these media giants have lowered their journalistic standards, abandoned rudimentary fact-checks, and relied on anonymous callers and unverified videos in place of solid reporting. Read more »