Trauma After Gaza
CENTERPIECE
Essay

Trauma After Gaza

Sara Shamma, "Incognito 3," oil on canvas, 60x80cm, 2015, from her "World Civil War Portraits" series (courtesy of the artist).

5 SEPTEMBER 2025 • By Joelle Abi-Rached

Joelle M. Abi-Rached reflects on the failures of psychiatry and psychiatric language in addressing the trauma arising from mass violence.

I must have been eighteen or nineteen when I first saw a production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in Beirut. I remember very little about the play save for one moment: when Vladimir takes a pistol from his pocket and pulls the trigger. The round was of course a blank. But the shot startled me, and I immediately left the theatre. Interestingly, I wasn’t the only one; others followed.

Another common trigger in our part of the world is the sonic boom of Israeli warplanes. As long as I can remember, they have been part of our daily lives. When I first went to London in 2006 — after leaving Lebanon under catastrophic circumstances during Israel’s war with Hezbollah — it took me several months to rid my ears of the constant buzzing sound of warplanes. My friends would laugh whenever I looked up at the sky in anguish. It took me months, if not years, to tame my fear of the sky. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever fully overcome it. This became painfully clear after the heavy bombardment of Beirut in September 2024, at the resumption of Israel’s unfinished war with Hezbollah. I was consumed by panic and dread.

Like many Lebanese, I carry psychological scars that are deep, multilayered, unresolved, and often unspoken. They sediment and pile up from crisis to crisis, through political upheavals, wars, and other plagues. Some are personal, and others collective. Some lie in the past; others are still unfolding. Some endure through intergenerational stories; others I have experienced firsthand. Some I have learned through encounters with survivors or descendants of survivors, and others through documentaries and history books. Together, they mark the blows endured and the residue we live with.

It took me years to distinguish between “rational” and “irrational” emotions — the ones I could not control, the ones that would erupt every time I returned to Lebanon and faced new, disturbing violations of what “normal” means. Alongside anxiety and some iteration of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — two pervasive ailments the Lebanese suffer from[1] — I also developed claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) and agoraphobia (fear of crowds or assemblies). The former has always been more paralyzing than the latter, and I know exactly why. It goes back to a traumatic memory endured in the stairwell of our building. Stairwells, or daraj (Arabic plural “for stairs”) are places very familiar to the Lebanese, who have often taken refuge in this dreaded “non-space” — to borrow Marc Augé’s concept — during wars and periods of civil unrest, since the vast majority of the population does not have the luxury of underground shelters. I must have been eight. This time, it wasn’t Israel but the different Lebanese factions shelling us during the accurately named “War of Elimination” (Harb al-Ilgha’). I was certain we would die. Bombs hailed down, as our neighbors, my sister, and my grandparents huddled in the dark of our shaking building, lit only by candlelight. I don’t remember how, why or even how long this ordeal lasted. What I do remember is my parents returning weeks later — after months being stranded away from us by mined roads — and promptly packing up our things. The following day we left for Cyprus by boat, only to return after the official end of the civil war in 1990. We never spoke of that period. We never processed it. Life simply continued.

ʿAṣfūriyyeh
Joelle Abi-Rached is the author of ʿAṣfūriyyeh, published by Penguin Random House.

I share these memories — a broad sketch of the topohistory of my traumas — because they have twice resurfaced with a vengeance in the past two years. The first was during Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Norton Lectures at Harvard in 2023, in which he spoke about how he and his parents came by boat from Vietnam to America. While I was listening from the upper floor of the magnificent Annenberg Hall, it occurred to me for the first time that we, too, had been refugees, though we had never articulated our ordeal as such. Perhaps this is because, as Hannah Arendt put it so well, “in the first place, we don’t like to be called refugees.” The second moment came after Hamas’ attacks on neighboring kibbutzim on October 7, 2023. Given what I know about the region’s history, it was clear to me that the gates of hell had been opened. What was different this time, however, was that I saw myself in those Palestinian children being slaughtered: helpless, treated like “human animals,” to use the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

A psychoanalyst would say that this identification with the children in particular is a form of regression (being reminded of and slipping back into an earlier stage of helplessness). But I believe it is because, for the first time in a long while, I felt deeply shaken by the overt double standards of academics and institutions — their euphemisms, their silence, their refusal to name what they saw. I witnessed racism among otherwise well-meaning people and watched dehumanization being excused. What shattered was my stubborn — perhaps naïve — faith in progress and in a universal humanism into which I could dissolve my identity. After all, genocide advances through the dehumanization of the other, and silence abets it. I see now that I had been an idealist malgré moi: skeptical of triumphalist progress and messianic histories yet still believing we could champion a just world under a universal human-rights framework.

The slaughter we have witnessed — and are still witnessing — in Gaza, the killing of poets, teachers, parents, children, healthcare workers, the annihilation of an entire society within a tightly controlled area with no escape — was, for me, a warning of what could one day happen to us all. Somehow, like Viet Thanh Nguyen, who, confronted with Trump’s policies of separating immigrant families, had been made to relive the memories of his own family’s displacement as refugees from Vietnam, Gaza made me realize two things. First, that I have never truly opened up about my own scars, which I have preferred to bury under an ethic of denial; and second, that, as written in the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is, alas, nothing new under the sun. All we who lack real power can do is witness and write what endures in human nature: its contradictions and its dualities.

Well before UNRWA characterized the overwhelming trauma experienced in Gaza as “chronic and unrelenting,” observing that it “defies traditional biomedical definitions of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), given that there is no ‘post’ in Gaza’s context,” numerous professionals, including Samah Jabr, had already articulated this point. Jabr, a Jerusalem-based psychiatrist who navigates both Palestinian and Israeli discourses, told me she has long wrestled with practicing in a society that often denies Palestinian suffering. She noted the “cognitive dissonance” of some Israeli colleagues, who overlook the psychological needs of Palestinians living under oppression, and she knows that psychiatry’s tendency to pathologize behavior is especially problematic in an oppressor–oppressed colonial context — a point central to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. In her Edward Said lecture at Princeton University in February 2024, Jabr sarcastically remarked how her profession was “not the most progressive.” And how psychiatry has been complicit throughout history in pathologizing dissent and rebellion, in effect aligning itself with regimes of power and structures of violence, exactly as Fanon wrote about. She gave the example of the Russian regime’s invention of a new diagnosis, “sluggish schizophrenia” — a diagnosis never validated or approved by mainstream psychiatry — for the purpose of silencing dissent and political opponents. She also mentioned how Ayelet Shmuel, an Israeli social worker and psychoanalyst who heads an International Resilience Center in Sderot, called Gazans “sociopaths” who should be held “accountable” for their “indoctrination,” contrasting them with “psychopaths,” whom she considered irremediable because they were “born that way.”

Jabr could have reminded her audience that this is exactly how racist white supremacists described Black Americans. In the nineteenth century, enslaved people who resisted were pathologized as “mentally ill”; “drapetomania” was even invented as a diagnosis to label that “condition.” Blackness itself was medicalized as a defect. Early “alienist” writing cast Blacks as closer to animals and the sexually criminal. Nineteenth to early twentieth-century Southern medical journals claimed a “preponderance of animal organs over intellectual and moral organs” in Blacks and published pieces like “The cause and prevention of rape-sadism in the Negro” and “Sex crimes among the Southern Negroes; scientifically considered.” This medicalized a stereotype of Black “brutishness” and criminality. During the civil rights movement, Black protestors and activists were described as suffering from a form of psychosis. The psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl has shown how the image of schizophrenia shifted from a largely white and innocuous disorder to an allegedly dangerous, paranoid, predominantly Black male condition. How familiar these racist and dehumanizing thoughts are, alas.

This is not to deny the reality of mental suffering and mental illness, of course. Those who depend on antipsychotics to manage their symptoms, who rely on lithium to reduce suicide risk, and those who need antidepressants to keep living despite immense hurdles, not to mention those who suffer from epilepsy, are among the most neglected amid the medication shortages in Gaza. They deserve access and support. Their suffering is real. And yet, what does it mean to “reduce the risk of suicide” in a setting where children say they would rather die than live? And, as Samah Jabr highlights, what does it mean to talk about mental-health support in a context where people are hungry and starving? Indeed, what does it mean to call for more mental-health tools and psychosocial support when the very possibility of psychological well-being is being erased and the conditions for mental health are being obliterated? Jabr and her co-author, American psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger, speak of an “occupied state of mind” in Palestine. I think there is more to it. There is, borrowing a Lacanian term, what we might call “psychic foreclosure,” which is the erasure of the conditions (including symbolic ones) necessary for mental health, foreclosing the possibility of psychic well-being entirely.

This “psychic foreclosure” also applies to those who lost loved ones in the Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020, which killed more than 217 people, wounded more than 6,000 people, and devastated substantial parts of the city. I was struck by how the parents of Krystel El-Adem, a victim of the blast, recently expressed their unrelenting despair and grief, five years on from their daughter’s death. They said they lost their will to live that day. Time had stopped. The only thing they looked forward to was getting closer to their daughter as the days passed. Krystel’s father was unequivocal: closure is impossible without justice. Had they sought psychiatric care, they would have doubtless been diagnosed with “Prolonged Grief Disorder” (PGD), a grief response that stays intense and disabling far longer than is typical for “the person’s culture.” In DSM-5-TR, PGD may be diagnosed in adults more than 12 months after a loss when there is persistent yearning for or preoccupation with the deceased, along with several symptoms that impair daily functioning. But how can one ever truly overcome such grief? What is “typical grief” in a country like Lebanon, “a land of aching hearts,” to borrow the title of Leila Tarazi Fawaz’s book? What is “typical grief” in Gaza? Aren’t Greek tragedies, in a sense, meditations on PGD? The culture and politics of “speed,” as Paul Virilio called it, the culture of efficiency, productivity, and transparency that we inhabit, is eager to declare PGD over and done. Cultures that reflect, even cathartically, on what it means to be human do not demand that grief end. Yet endless grief stands as an obstacle to an economy that depends on resilience, continuous growth, indeed “post-traumatic growth,” and the normalization of violence.

In a recent essay for The New Yorker, the journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish wrote that “in Gaza, therapy has become a language of holding on.” I would rather say that language itself has become a therapy of holding on, the language of chronicling, of expressing support, of listening, of caring, of denouncing, and calling out. Not therapeutic jargon per se, but a language that names ongoing crimes as clearly as possible; that speaks out and refuses to remain silent; that humanizes the “other” rather than tacitly or openly endorsing dehumanizing — or even pathologizing, language. The language of therapy is, after all, at best reductionist and, at times, historically dangerous. As many therapists would tell you, acknowledging crimes, violence, and the trauma they cause is the first step in therapy. For Palestinians, too, a recognition of their suffering is a form of therapy, a reassurance that their dignity endures despite the “Palestinian question” being liquidated in front of our very eyes. Some, like Samah Jabr, would even argue that what is needed is not therapy per se but support, “because people have been wronged.” Indeed, in the face of injustice, therapy is merely “palliative care” to again quote Jabr.

In Trauma and Recovery, American psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that trauma is an “affliction of the powerless” and that studying psychological trauma is inherently political because it draws attention to the experience of oppressed people. She is right. However useful biologizing can be (in providing certainty, less stigma, access), trauma is no heart disease; it is fundamentally relational, contextual, and political. The British psychiatrist Derek Summerfield was among the first to criticize PTSD as ahistorical, hegemonic, inadequate, and decontextualized. In this tradition, often called “radical” or “critical” psychiatry — which includes psychiatrists like Fanon and Summerfield — Jabr also criticizes the individualism of mainstream psychiatry, labelling it as “hegemonic psychiatry,” a discourse, which she deems profoundly inadequate for addressing historical injustice. Nevertheless, I think that even critical psychiatry has reached an impasse as it confronts the moral abyss in Gaza today, having exhausted its conceptual and technical resources. As such, perhaps only a language and approach grounded in justice can begin to address the psychological toll of such violence on victims, perpetrators and witnesses alike.

James Baldwin described the United States in 1962 as a “spiritual wasteland.” He argued that white Americans needed spiritual liberation, something achievable only by liberating and embracing Black Americans. Toward the end of his essay “Down at the Cross,” Baldwin warns that failing to do so will lead the country to ruin. I hear something similar in the slogan “Palestine will set us free,” chanted in many protests around the world: Palestine has become a symbol that exposes the paroxysms of hypocrisy and the language of double standards that defines today the Western liberal order as well as the reductionist vocabulary that pathologizes the other within a moral and spiritual wasteland. “Trauma after Gaza” may mean, precisely then, the work of freeing ourselves from our own mental shackles.

 

[1] A nationally representative phone survey of 1,000 Lebanese adults (July–September 2022, published 2025) found 43.5% screened positive for probable PTSD, and “a substantial 62.8% of participants screened positive for any disorder (PTSD, Anxiety, or Depression) while 28.10% screened positive for all three disorders,” see: Josleen Al Barathie and Elie G. Karam, “Exploratory Factor Analysis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5: Investigating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Interconnected Dynamics with Depression and Anxiety in the Aftermath of Multiple Collective Stressors,” PLOS ONE 20, no. 5 (2025): e0323422.

 

Joelle Abi-Rached

Joelle Abi-Rached Trained in medicine, philosophy, and history, Joelle Abi-Rached brings these disciplines to bear on questions of the politics of life and death. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the American University of Beirut, with a secondary affiliation in... Read more

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Issam Kourbaj’s Love Letter to Syria in Cambridge

12 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
Issam Kourbaj’s Love Letter to Syria in Cambridge
Poetry

“The Scent Censes” & “Elegy With Precious Oil” by Majda Gama

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Majda Gama
“The Scent Censes” & “Elegy With Precious Oil” by Majda Gama
Poetry

“WE” and “4978 and One Nights” by Ghayath Almadhoun

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Ghayath Al Madhoun
“WE” and “4978 and One Nights” by Ghayath Almadhoun
Editorial

Shoot That Poison Arrow to My Heart: The LSD Editorial

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Malu Halasa
Shoot That Poison Arrow to My Heart: The LSD Editorial
Essays

“Double Apple”—a short story by MK Harb

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By MK Harb
“Double Apple”—a short story by MK Harb
Featured article

Israel-Palestine: Peace Under Occupation?

29 JANUARY 2024 • By Laëtitia Soula
Israel-Palestine: Peace Under Occupation?
Books

Illuminated Reading for 2024: Our Anticipated Titles

22 JANUARY 2024 • By TMR
Illuminated Reading for 2024: Our Anticipated Titles
Poetry

Brian Turner: 3 Poems From Three New Books

14 JANUARY 2024 • By Brian Turner
Brian Turner: 3 Poems From Three New Books
Art

Palestinian Artists

12 JANUARY 2024 • By TMR
Palestinian Artists
Art & Photography

Cyprus: Return to Petrofani with Ali Cherri & Vicky Pericleous

8 JANUARY 2024 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Cyprus: Return to Petrofani with Ali Cherri & Vicky Pericleous
Essays

Gaza Sunbirds: the Palestinian Para-Cyclists Who Won’t Quit

25 DECEMBER 2023 • By Malu Halasa
Gaza Sunbirds: the Palestinian Para-Cyclists Who Won’t Quit
Books

Inside Hamas: From Resistance to Regime

25 DECEMBER 2023 • By Paola Caridi
Inside <em>Hamas: From Resistance to Regime</em>
Columns

Messages From Gaza Now

11 DECEMBER 2023 • By Hossam Madhoun
Messages From Gaza Now
Featured excerpt

The Palestine Laboratory and Gaza: An Excerpt

4 DECEMBER 2023 • By Antony Loewenstein
<em>The Palestine Laboratory</em> and Gaza: An Excerpt
Editorial

Why Endings & Beginnings?

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Jordan Elgrably
Why Endings & Beginnings?
Beirut

“The Summer They Heard Music”—a short story by MK Harb

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By MK Harb
“The Summer They Heard Music”—a short story by MK Harb
Books

Huda Fakhreddine’s A Brief Time Under a Different Sun

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Huda Fakhreddine, Rana Asfour
Huda Fakhreddine’s <em>A Brief Time Under a Different Sun</em>
Fiction

“I, Hanan”—a Gazan tale of survival by Joumana Haddad

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Joumana Haddad
“I, Hanan”—a Gazan tale of survival by Joumana Haddad
Art

Hanan Eshaq

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Hanan Eshaq
Hanan Eshaq
Fiction

“The Followers”—a short story by Youssef Manessa

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Youssef Manessa
“The Followers”—a short story by Youssef Manessa
Opinion

Gaza vs. Mosul from a Medical and Humanitarian Standpoint

27 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Ahmed Twaij
Gaza vs. Mosul from a Medical and Humanitarian Standpoint
Art & Photography

Palestinian Artists & Anti-War Supporters of Gaza Cancelled

27 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Nada Ghosn
Palestinian Artists & Anti-War Supporters of Gaza Cancelled
Opinion

What’s in a Ceasefire?

20 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Adrian Kreutz, Enzo Rossi, Lillian Robb
What’s in a Ceasefire?
Art & Photography

War and Art: A Lebanese Photographer and His Protégés

13 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Nicole Hamouche
War and Art: A Lebanese Photographer and His Protégés
Opinion

Beautiful October 7th Art Belies the Horrors of War

13 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Mark LeVine
Beautiful October 7th Art Belies the Horrors of War
Opinion

Palestine’s Pen against Israel’s Swords of Injustice

6 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Mai Al-Nakib
Palestine’s Pen against Israel’s Swords of Injustice
Books

Domicide—War on the City

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Ammar Azzouz
<em>Domicide</em>—War on the City
Art

Mohamed Al Mufti, Architect and Painter of Our Time

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Nicole Hamouche
Mohamed Al Mufti, Architect and Painter of Our Time
Fiction

“The Hauntology of Varosha” or “Room Number 137 of the Argo Hotel”

5 NOVEMBER 2023 • By Salamis Aysegul Sentug Tugyan
“The Hauntology of Varosha” or “Room Number 137 of the Argo Hotel”
Essays

On Fathers, Daughters and the Genocide in Gaza 

30 OCTOBER 2023 • By Deema K Shehabi
On Fathers, Daughters and the Genocide in Gaza 
Islam

October 7 and the First Days of the War

23 OCTOBER 2023 • By Robin Yassin-Kassab
October 7 and the First Days of the War
Art & Photography

Middle Eastern Artists and Galleries at Frieze London

23 OCTOBER 2023 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
Middle Eastern Artists and Galleries at Frieze London
Art

The Ongoing Nakba—Rasha Al-Jundi’s Embroidery Series

16 OCTOBER 2023 • By Rasha Al Jundi
The Ongoing Nakba—Rasha Al-Jundi’s Embroidery Series
Essays

Forging Peace for Artsakh—The Debacle of Nagorno Karabagh

16 OCTOBER 2023 • By Seta Kabranian-Melkonian
Forging Peace for Artsakh—The Debacle of Nagorno Karabagh
Theatre

Lebanese Thespian Aida Sabra Blossoms in International Career

9 OCTOBER 2023 • By Nada Ghosn
Lebanese Thespian Aida Sabra Blossoms in International Career
Books

Fairouz: The Peacemaker and Champion of Palestine

1 OCTOBER 2023 • By Dima Issa
Fairouz: The Peacemaker and Champion of Palestine
Fiction

“Kaleidoscope: In Pursuit of the Real in a Virtual World”—fiction from Dina Abou Salem

1 OCTOBER 2023 • By Dina Abou Salem
“Kaleidoscope: In Pursuit of the Real in a Virtual World”—fiction from Dina Abou Salem
Art & Photography

Adel Abidin, October 2023

1 OCTOBER 2023 • By TMR
Adel Abidin, October 2023
Books

“Sadness in My Heart”—a story by Hilal Chouman

3 SEPTEMBER 2023 • By Hilal Chouman, Nashwa Nasreldin
“Sadness in My Heart”—a story by Hilal Chouman
Book Reviews

Laila Halaby’s The Weight of Ghosts is a Haunting Memoir

28 AUGUST 2023 • By Thérèse Soukar Chehade
Laila Halaby’s <em>The Weight of Ghosts</em> is a Haunting Memoir
Film

The Soil and the Sea: The Revolutionary Act of Remembering

7 AUGUST 2023 • By Farah-Silvana Kanaan
<em>The Soil and the Sea</em>: The Revolutionary Act of Remembering
Poetry

Three Poems from Pantea Amin Tofangchi’s Glazed With War

3 AUGUST 2023 • By Pantea Amin Tofangchi
Three Poems from Pantea Amin Tofangchi’s <em>Glazed With War</em>
Art

What Palestine Brings to the World—a Major Paris Exhibition

31 JULY 2023 • By Sasha Moujaes
<em>What Palestine Brings to the World</em>—a Major Paris Exhibition
Book Reviews

Can the Kurdish Women’s Movement Transform the Middle East?

31 JULY 2023 • By Matthew Broomfield
Can the Kurdish Women’s Movement Transform the Middle East?
Book Reviews

Why Isn’t Ghaith Abdul-Ahad a Household Name?

10 JULY 2023 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Why Isn’t Ghaith Abdul-Ahad a Household Name?
Opinion

The End of the Palestinian State? Jenin Is Only the Beginning

10 JULY 2023 • By Yousef M. Aljamal
The End of the Palestinian State? Jenin Is Only the Beginning
Fiction

We Saw Paris, Texas—a story by Ola Mustapha

2 JULY 2023 • By Ola Mustapha
We Saw <em>Paris, Texas</em>—a story by Ola Mustapha
Beirut

“The City Within”—fiction from MK Harb

2 JULY 2023 • By MK Harb
“The City Within”—fiction from MK Harb
Cities

In Shahrazad’s Hammam—fiction by Ahmed Awadalla

2 JULY 2023 • By Ahmed Awadalla
In Shahrazad’s Hammam—fiction by Ahmed Awadalla
Arabic

Inside the Giant Fish—excerpt from Rawand Issa’s graphic novel

2 JULY 2023 • By Rawand Issa, Amy Chiniara
Inside the Giant Fish—excerpt from Rawand Issa’s graphic novel
Columns

The Rite of Flooding: When the Land Speaks

19 JUNE 2023 • By Bint Mbareh
The Rite of Flooding: When the Land Speaks
Art & Photography

Newly Re-Opened, Beirut’s Sursock Museum is a Survivor

12 JUNE 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Newly Re-Opened, Beirut’s Sursock Museum is a Survivor
Editorial

EARTH: Our Only Home

4 JUNE 2023 • By Jordan Elgrably
EARTH: Our Only Home
Arabic

Arab Theatre Grapples With Climate Change, Borders, War & Love

4 JUNE 2023 • By Hassan Abdulrazzak
Arab Theatre Grapples With Climate Change, Borders, War & Love
Opinion

Nurredin Amro’s Epic Battle to Save His Home From Demolition

24 APRIL 2023 • By Nora Lester Murad
Nurredin Amro’s Epic Battle to Save His Home From Demolition
Essays

When a Country is not a Country—the Chimera of Borders

17 APRIL 2023 • By Ara Oshagan
When a Country is not a Country—the Chimera of Borders
Essays

Artsakh and the Truth About the Legend of Monte Melkonian

17 APRIL 2023 • By Seta Kabranian-Melkonian
Artsakh and the Truth About the Legend of Monte Melkonian
Beirut

Remembering the Armenian Genocide From Lebanon

17 APRIL 2023 • By Mireille Rebeiz
Remembering the Armenian Genocide From Lebanon
Film Reviews

Yallah Gaza! Presents the Case for Gazan Humanity

10 APRIL 2023 • By Karim Goury
<em>Yallah Gaza!</em> Presents the Case for Gazan Humanity
Beirut

Tel Aviv-Beirut, a Film on War, Love & Borders

20 MARCH 2023 • By Karim Goury
<em>Tel Aviv-Beirut</em>, a Film on War, Love & Borders
Beirut

War and the Absurd in Zein El-Amine’s Watermelon Stories

20 MARCH 2023 • By Rana Asfour
War and the Absurd in Zein El-Amine’s <em>Watermelon</em> Stories
Fiction

“Counter Strike”—a story by MK HARB

5 MARCH 2023 • By MK Harb
“Counter Strike”—a story by MK HARB
Fiction

“Mother Remembered”—Fiction by Samir El-Youssef

5 MARCH 2023 • By Samir El-Youssef
“Mother Remembered”—Fiction by Samir El-Youssef
Essays

More Photographs Taken From The Pocket of a Dead Arab

5 MARCH 2023 • By Saeed Taji Farouky
More Photographs Taken From The Pocket of a Dead Arab
Cities

The Odyssey That Forged a Stronger Athenian

5 MARCH 2023 • By Iason Athanasiadis
The Odyssey That Forged a Stronger Athenian
Book Reviews

Finding Home, Finding Normal and The Myth of Normal

5 MARCH 2023 • By Sheana Ochoa
Finding Home, Finding Normal and <em>The Myth of Normal</em>
Essays

Home Under Siege: a Palestine Photo Essay

5 MARCH 2023 • By Anam Raheem
Home Under Siege: a Palestine Photo Essay
Book Reviews

Yemen War Survivors Speak in What Have You Left Behind?

20 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Saliha Haddad
Yemen War Survivors Speak in <em>What Have You Left Behind?</em>
Beirut

The Curious Case of Middle Lebanon

13 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Amal Ghandour
The Curious Case of Middle Lebanon
Beirut

Arab Women’s War Stories, Oral Histories from Lebanon

13 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Evelyne Accad
Arab Women’s War Stories, Oral Histories from Lebanon
TV Review

Palestinian Territories Under Siege But Season 4 of Fauda Goes to Brussels and Beirut Instead

6 FEBRUARY 2023 • By Brett Kline
Palestinian Territories Under Siege But Season 4 of <em>Fauda</em> Goes to Brussels and Beirut Instead
Book Reviews

Sabyl Ghoussoub Heads for Beirut in Search of Himself

23 JANUARY 2023 • By Adil Bouhelal
Sabyl Ghoussoub Heads for Beirut in Search of Himself
Art

On Lebanon and Lamia Joreige’s “Uncertain Times”

23 JANUARY 2023 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
On Lebanon and Lamia Joreige’s “Uncertain Times”
Art

The Creative Resistance in Palestinian Art

26 DECEMBER 2022 • By Malu Halasa
The Creative Resistance in Palestinian Art
Book Reviews

Mohamed Makhzangi Despairs at Man’s Cruelty to Animals

26 DECEMBER 2022 • By Saliha Haddad
Mohamed Makhzangi Despairs at Man’s Cruelty to Animals
Fiction

Broken Glass, a short story

15 DECEMBER 2022 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
<em>Broken Glass</em>, a short story
Art

Museums in Exile—MO.CO’s show for Chile, Sarajevo & Palestine

12 DECEMBER 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Museums in Exile—MO.CO’s show for Chile, Sarajevo & Palestine
Book Reviews

Fida Jiryis on Palestine in Stranger in My Own Land

28 NOVEMBER 2022 • By Diana Buttu
Fida Jiryis on Palestine in <em>Stranger in My Own Land</em>
Columns

For Electronica Artist Hadi Zeidan, Dance Clubs are Analogous to Churches

24 OCTOBER 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
For Electronica Artist Hadi Zeidan, Dance Clubs are Analogous to Churches
Editorial

You Don’t Have to Be A Super Hero to Be a Heroine

15 OCTOBER 2022 • By TMR
You Don’t Have to Be A Super Hero to Be a Heroine
Art & Photography

Kader Attia, Berlin Biennale’s Curator

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Kader Attia, Berlin Biennale’s Curator
Film

Ziad Kalthoum: Trajectory of a Syrian Filmmaker

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Viola Shafik
Ziad Kalthoum: Trajectory of a Syrian Filmmaker
Essays

Kairo Koshary, Berlin’s Egyptian Food Truck

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Mohamed Radwan
Kairo Koshary, Berlin’s Egyptian Food Truck
Essays

Exile, Music, Hope & Nostalgia Among Berlin’s Arab Immigrants

15 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Diana Abbani
Exile, Music, Hope & Nostalgia Among Berlin’s Arab Immigrants
Art & Photography

16 Formidable Lebanese Photographers in an Abbey

5 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Nada Ghosn
16 Formidable Lebanese Photographers in an Abbey
Film

Two Syrian Brothers Find Themselves in “We Are From There”

22 AUGUST 2022 • By Angélique Crux
Two Syrian Brothers Find Themselves in “We Are From There”
Art

Abundant Middle Eastern Talent at the ’22 Avignon Theatre Fest

18 JULY 2022 • By Nada Ghosn
Abundant Middle Eastern Talent at the ’22 Avignon Theatre Fest
Editorial

Editorial: Is the World Driving Us Mad?

15 JULY 2022 • By TMR
Editorial: Is the World Driving Us Mad?
Fiction

Where to Now, Ya Asfoura?—a story by Sarah AlKahly-Mills

15 JULY 2022 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
Where to Now, Ya Asfoura?—a story by Sarah AlKahly-Mills
Book Reviews

Poetry as a Form of Madness—Review of a Friendship

15 JULY 2022 • By Youssef Rakha
Poetry as a Form of Madness—Review of a Friendship
Film Reviews

War and Trauma in Yemen: Asim Abdulaziz’s “1941”

15 JULY 2022 • By Farah Abdessamad
War and Trauma in Yemen: Asim Abdulaziz’s “1941”
Film

Lebanon in a Loop: A Retrospective of “Waves ’98”

15 JULY 2022 • By Youssef Manessa
Lebanon in a Loop: A Retrospective of “Waves ’98”
Columns

Why I left Lebanon and Became a Transitional Citizen

27 JUNE 2022 • By Myriam Dalal
Why I left Lebanon and Became a Transitional Citizen
Book Reviews

A Poet and Librarian Catalogs Life in Gaza

20 JUNE 2022 • By Eman Quotah
A Poet and Librarian Catalogs Life in Gaza
Art & Photography

Featured Artist: Steve Sabella, Beyond Palestine

15 JUNE 2022 • By TMR
Featured Artist: Steve Sabella, Beyond Palestine
Fiction

Rabih Alameddine: “Remembering Nasser”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine: “Remembering Nasser”
Film

Saeed Taji Farouky: “Strange Cities Are Familiar”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Saeed Taji Farouky
Saeed Taji Farouky: “Strange Cities Are Familiar”
Fiction

Dima Mikhayel Matta: “This Text Is a Very Lonely Document”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Dima Mikhayel Matta
Dima Mikhayel Matta: “This Text Is a Very Lonely Document”
Art & Photography

Steve Sabella: Excerpts from “The Parachute Paradox”

15 JUNE 2022 • By Steve Sabella
Steve Sabella: Excerpts from “The Parachute Paradox”
Fiction

“The Salamander”—fiction from Sarah AlKahly-Mills

15 JUNE 2022 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
“The Salamander”—fiction from Sarah AlKahly-Mills
Art & Photography

Film Review: “Memory Box” on Lebanon Merges Art & Cinema

13 JUNE 2022 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Film Review: “Memory Box” on Lebanon Merges Art & Cinema
Book Reviews

Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”

16 MAY 2022 • By Nora Lester Murad
Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”
Film

Art Film Depicts the Landlocked Drama of Nagorno-Karabakh

2 MAY 2022 • By Taline Voskeritchian
Art Film Depicts the Landlocked Drama of Nagorno-Karabakh
Beirut

Fairouz is the Voice of Lebanon, Symbol of Hope in a Weary Land

25 APRIL 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Fairouz is the Voice of Lebanon, Symbol of Hope in a Weary Land
Book Reviews

Joumana Haddad’s The Book of Queens: a Review

18 APRIL 2022 • By Laila Halaby
Joumana Haddad’s <em>The Book of Queens</em>: a Review
Latest Reviews

Food in Palestine: Five Videos From Nasser Atta

15 APRIL 2022 • By Nasser Atta
Food in Palestine: Five Videos From Nasser Atta
Art & Photography

Ghosts of Beirut: a Review of “displaced”

11 APRIL 2022 • By Karén Jallatyan
Ghosts of Beirut: a Review of “displaced”
Opinion

U.S. Sanctions Russia for its Invasion of Ukraine; Now Sanction Israel for its Occupation of Palestine

21 MARCH 2022 • By Yossi Khen, Jeff Warner
U.S. Sanctions Russia for its Invasion of Ukraine; Now Sanction Israel for its Occupation of Palestine
Columns

Nowruz and The Sins of the New Day

21 MARCH 2022 • By Maha Tourbah
Nowruz and The Sins of the New Day
Columns

Music in the Middle East: Bring Back Peace

21 MARCH 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Music in the Middle East: Bring Back Peace
Essays

Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing

17 MARCH 2022 • By Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini
Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing
Poetry

Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah

15 MARCH 2022 • By Nouri Al-Jarrah
Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Art

Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes

15 MARCH 2022 • By Khalil Younes
Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes
Columns

“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”

24 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”
Art

Atia Shafee: Raw and Distant Memories

15 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Atia Shafee
Atia Shafee: Raw and Distant Memories
Fiction

Fiction from “Free Fall”: I fled the city as a murderer whose crime had just been uncovered

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Abeer Esber, Nouha Homad
Fiction from “Free Fall”: I fled the city as a murderer whose crime had just been uncovered
Book Reviews

Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world

10 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world
Columns

Sudden Journeys: From Munich with Love and Realpolitik

27 DECEMBER 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Sudden Journeys: From Munich with Love and Realpolitik
Comix

Lebanon at the Point of Drowning in Its Own…

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Raja Abu Kasm, Rahil Mohsin
Lebanon at the Point of Drowning in Its Own…
Comix

How to Hide in Lebanon as a Western Foreigner

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Nadiyah Abdullatif, Anam Zafar
How to Hide in Lebanon as a Western Foreigner
Beirut

Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Sudden Journeys: The Villa Salameh Bequest
Music Reviews

Electronic Music in Riyadh?

22 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Melissa Chemam
Electronic Music in Riyadh?
Art

Etel Adnan’s Sun and Sea: In Remembrance

19 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Etel Adnan’s Sun and Sea: In Remembrance
Book Reviews

Diary of the Collapse—Charif Majdalani on Lebanon’s Trials by Fire

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By A.J. Naddaff
<em>Diary of the Collapse</em>—Charif Majdalani on Lebanon’s Trials by Fire
Book Reviews

The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?
Interviews

The Anguish of Being Lebanese: Interview with Author Racha Mounaged

18 OCTOBER 2021 • By A.J. Naddaff
The Anguish of Being Lebanese: Interview with Author Racha Mounaged
Book Reviews

Racha Mounaged’s Debut Novel Captures Trauma of Lebanese Civil War

18 OCTOBER 2021 • By A.J. Naddaff
Racha Mounaged’s Debut Novel Captures Trauma of Lebanese Civil War
Film Reviews

Will Love Triumph in the Midst of Gaza’s 14-Year Siege?

11 OCTOBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Will Love Triumph in the Midst of Gaza’s 14-Year Siege?
Art & Photography

Displaced: From Beirut to Los Angeles to Beirut

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Ara Oshagan
Displaced: From Beirut to Los Angeles to Beirut
Columns

Beirut Drag Queens Lead the Way for Arab LGBTQ+ Visibility

8 AUGUST 2021 • By Anonymous
Beirut Drag Queens Lead the Way for Arab LGBTQ+ Visibility
Weekly

Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories

1 AUGUST 2021 • By Shereen Malherbe
Heba Hayek’s Gaza Memories
Memoir

“Guns and Figs” from Heba Hayek’s new Gaza book

1 AUGUST 2021 • By Heba Hayek
“Guns and Figs” from Heba Hayek’s new Gaza book
Weekly

Wafa Shami’s Palestinian Mulukhiyah

25 JULY 2021 • By Wafa Shami
Wafa Shami’s Palestinian Mulukhiyah
Weekly

Fadi Kattan’s Fatteh Ghazawiya الفتة الغزاوية

25 JULY 2021 • By Fadi Kattan
Fadi Kattan’s Fatteh Ghazawiya الفتة الغزاوية
Columns

When War is Just Another Name for Murder

15 JULY 2021 • By Norman G. Finkelstein
When War is Just Another Name for Murder
Fiction

Gazan Skies, from the novel “Out of It”

14 JULY 2021 • By Selma Dabbagh
Gazan Skies, from the novel “Out of It”
Art & Photography

Gaza’s Shababek Gallery for Contemporary Art

14 JULY 2021 • By Yara Chaalan
Gaza’s Shababek Gallery for Contemporary Art
Art

Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor

14 JULY 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Malak Mattar — Gaza Artist and Survivor
Essays

The Gaza Mythologies

14 JULY 2021 • By Ilan Pappé
The Gaza Mythologies
Columns

The Semantics of Gaza, War and Truth

14 JULY 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
The Semantics of Gaza, War and Truth
Latest Reviews

No Exit

14 JULY 2021 • By Allam Zedan
No Exit
Essays

Gaza, You and Me

14 JULY 2021 • By Abdallah Salha
Gaza, You and Me
Columns

Gaza’s Catch-22s

14 JULY 2021 • By Khaled Diab
Gaza’s Catch-22s
Essays

Making a Film in Gaza

14 JULY 2021 • By Elana Golden
Making a Film in Gaza
Essays

Gaza IS Palestine

14 JULY 2021 • By Jenine Abboushi
Gaza IS Palestine
Latest Reviews

A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15

14 JULY 2021 • By Tony Litwinko
A Response to “Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” 2014-15
Centerpiece

“Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” by Artist Jaime Scholnick

14 JULY 2021 • By Sagi Refael
“Gaza: Mowing the Lawn” by Artist Jaime Scholnick
Essays

Sailing to Gaza to Break the Siege

14 JULY 2021 • By Greta Berlin
Sailing to Gaza to Break the Siege
Book Reviews

ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter

4 JULY 2021 • By Jessica Proett
ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter
Weekly

A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”

28 JUNE 2021 • By Mark LeVine
A New Book on Music, Palestine-Israel & the “Three State Solution”
Columns

Lebanon’s Wasta Has Contributed to the Country’s Collapse

14 JUNE 2021 • By Samir El-Youssef
Lebanon’s Wasta Has Contributed to the Country’s Collapse
Columns

Lebanese Oppose Corruption with a Game of Wasta

14 JUNE 2021 • By Victoria Schneider
Lebanese Oppose Corruption with a Game of Wasta
Weekly

War Diary: The End of Innocence

23 MAY 2021 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
War Diary: The End of Innocence
Art

The Murals of Yemen’s Haifa Subay

14 MAY 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
The Murals of Yemen’s Haifa Subay
Essays

The Bathing Partition

14 MAY 2021 • By Sheana Ochoa
The Bathing Partition
Weekly

Beirut Brings a Fragmented Family Together in “The Arsonists’ City”

9 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Columns

Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim

14 MARCH 2021 • By Claire Launchbury
Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim
Poetry

A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza

14 MARCH 2021 • By TMR
A visual poem from Hala Alyan: Gaza
Weekly

Hanane Hajj Ali, Portrait of a Theatrical Trailblazer

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Nada Ghosn
Hanane Hajj Ali, Portrait of a Theatrical Trailblazer
TMR 6 • Revolutions

Revolution in Art, a review of “Reflections” at the British Museum

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Malu Halasa
Revolution in Art, a review of “Reflections” at the British Museum
TMR 6 • Revolutions

Ten Years of Hope and Blood

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Robert Solé
Ten Years of Hope and Blood
TMR 3 • Racism & Identity

Find the Others: on Becoming an Arab Writer in English

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By Rewa Zeinati
TMR 3 • Racism & Identity

I am the Hyphen

15 NOVEMBER 2020 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
I am the Hyphen
World Picks

World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues

28 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Malu Halasa
World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues
Beirut

Wajdi Mouawad, Just the Playwright for Our Dystopian World

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Melissa Chemam
Wajdi Mouawad, Just the Playwright for Our Dystopian World
Art

Beirut Comix Tell the Story

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Lina Ghaibeh & George Khoury
Beirut Comix Tell the Story
Editorial

Beirut, Beirut

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Jordan Elgrably
Beirut

It’s Time for a Public Forum on Lebanon

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Wajdi Mouawad
It’s Time for a Public Forum on Lebanon
Beirut

Salvaging the shipwreck of humanity in Amin Maalouf’s Adrift

15 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Sarah AlKahly-Mills
Salvaging the shipwreck of humanity in Amin Maalouf’s <em>Adrift</em>

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