Middle East

Article

Resistance Reexamined

… to retreat into equivocations. “This is not about religion,” he reflected on the present … Catholic antiwar tradition to its zenith. What began as a small band of Catholic … mobilized thousands of people, including non-Catholics, to oppose the grisly horrors …

By Arvin Alaigh

April 23, 2025

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Crisis Mismanagement

Antisemitism—which is rife in the Trump administration itself—is now being used as a pretext for an authoritarian assault on universities.

By The Editors

March 23, 2025

Higher Education

Article

‘The Wounds Which Disfigure’

Twenty-five years ago, John Paul II’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land expressed hope for justice for both Israelis and Palestinians.

By Paul Moses

March 20, 2025

Pope John Paul II

Article

The Writer as Superhero

What the U.S. needed in 2015 was some imitation Baldwin. Ten years on, Ta-Nehisi Coates's style no longer matches the moment.

By Vincent Lloyd

February 3, 2025

Article

‘Their’ War

Regardless of the Trump administration’s work on the ceasefire deal, it does not appear as if it will act with greater concern for Palestinian lives than the previous one.

By The Editors

January 26, 2025

Article

Francis, Liberal Catholicism & Antisemitism

Liberal Catholicism has not been nearly vocal enough in supporting the rights of the Palestinian people and Christians in the Middle East.

By Massimo Faggioli

January 21, 2025

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

This Ox Has Gored Before

Rejecting the use of John 8:44 in such proximity to Jews is the lowest bar imaginable for delineating criticism of Israel from antisemitism.

By Ethan Schwartz

December 29, 2024

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

Syria’s Uncertain Future

After more than a decade of conflict, the ouster of Bashar al-Assad has thrown the future of Syria into doubt.

By Miles Doyle

December 24, 2024

Foreign Affairs

Article

Suffering and Strength

'Daybreak in Gaza' captures the persistence of Gazan life and culture amid unrelenting suffering.

By Tom Verde

December 17, 2024

Article

Netanyahu’s Chilling Threat

The seeds of peace will be planted in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East when justice comes for the people of Palestine.

By Joseph Phillip Amar

October 15, 2024

Article

Why Do Student Protest Movements Fail?

The uncompromising idealism of student protesters is rooted in social and economic isolation and detachment.

By Paul Baumann

September 27, 2024

Higher Education

Article

Toxic Relationship

Being Israel’s trusted ally does not require the United States to be Netanyahu’s protector—much less his enabler.

By Dominic Preziosi

September 20, 2024

Article

Memory & Prayer

Philip Metres’s newest collection of poetry speaks as eloquently as ever against empire—but he grounds the writing in this book in his own family’s story and history.

By Zach Czaia

September 19, 2024

Article

To Wander or Stay Put?

"Clinging to space closes off any hope for peace, while exile exposes the Jews to the dangers of the Diaspora."

By Rabbi Philip Graubart

September 10, 2024

Article

Harris & Gaza

"No more standing ovations for war criminals. No more empty warnings behind closed doors. And no more weapons for the collective punishment of an entire people."

By The Editors

August 20, 2024

Article

Rejoice in Revolution

The campus movement is about making neighbors with those in Gaza.

By Ariana Orozco

May 10, 2024

Article

Biden & Bibi

Time and again, Biden has sought to temper Netanyahu’s “over-the-top” assault but failed to impose meaningful limits on military support.

By Alexander Stern

April 17, 2024

Foreign Affairs

Feature

Christianity in the Middle East

Christians in the Middle East see themselves not just as abandoned, but as betrayed. How did we get here?

By Joseph Phillip Amar

April 1, 2024

Muslim-Christian Relations

Article

No More Military Aid to Israel

Nothing less than an end to U.S. military aid will get the attention of Netanyahu.

By The Editors

March 21, 2024

Article

Let Me Struggle

"This Laetare Sunday, then, I do want to focus on God’s love and my sins in light of God’s love, but not to the point of apathy, and instead to the point of further struggle."

By Amirah Orozco

March 8, 2024

Article

Gaza and Jewish Memory

The National Library of Israel curates a “national memory database” of the October 7 massacre.

By Tzvi Novick

March 5, 2024

Article

Stefanik’s Stunt

The further politicization of higher education is collateral damage from the U.S. government’s unqualified support for an unjustly prosecuted war.

By Alexander Stern

December 28, 2023

Higher Education

Article

Fragile Bonds in the Holy Land

In Israel-Palestine, the war is destroying networks of friendship and cooperation that were once seeds of hope.

By Santiago Ramos

December 1, 2023

Article

Unchristian

To honor those killed in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel in recent weeks, the least we can do is keep bigotry from festering and spreading in our communities.

By Jordan Denari Duffner

November 28, 2023

Jewish-Christian Relations

Foreign Affairs

Article

The Israel-Palestine Conflict

A collection of Commonweal's writings on the Israel-Palestine conflict since 2009

By The Editors

November 14, 2023

Foreign Affairs

Article

Thirty Days in Jerusalem

"There’s regular routine. There’s emergency routine. And there is wartime routine. The only thing I know about this routine is that it’s never routine."

By Abi Dauber Sterne

November 10, 2023

Article

The Israel-Gaza War Will Fail

The war in Gaza demonstrates that there is no military solution to the conundrum stemming from the creation of the Jewish State in 1948.

By Andrew J. Bacevich

November 10, 2023

Article

Searching for ‘Moral Clarity’ in Gaza

U.S. policy with respect to Israel has long lacked “moral clarity” and is due for reexamination.

By The Editors

October 26, 2023

Article

Jerusalem’s First Cardinal

Cardinal Pizzaballa offered himself in exchange for those being held by Hamas.

By Massimo Faggioli

October 16, 2023

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

A Patriarch Flees Baghdad

Cardinal Sako’s flight to Erbil underscores the complex rivalries playing out among Christian warlords in places like Iraq and Lebanon.

By Joseph Phillip Amar

August 31, 2023

Feature

Faces of Courage in Iran

Five hundred Iranian protesters have suffered serious eye injuries after police fired on them with birdshot. Here are eight faces of courage.

By Anonymous

April 6, 2023

Foreign Affairs

Article

Israeli Democracy on the Brink

Israel is now well on its way to becoming a right-wing ethnocracy.

By The Editors

February 27, 2023

Feature

A Barren Eden

Khuzestan, Iran—a region that oil once made rich—is being slowly devastated by the effects of the world’s addiction to fossil fuels.

By Solmaz Daryani

November 5, 2022

Article

Irreconcilable Differences

It is long past time to rethink our relationship with the violent, autocratic regime in Saudi Arabia.

By The Editors

October 24, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Article

‘Woman, Life, Freedom’

Iranians protesting after the death of Mahsa Amini continue taking to the streets, despite institutional challenges and violent crackdowns.

By Isabella Simon

October 19, 2022

Article

Smothering the Coptic Church

A fire that killed forty-one reveals the less-obvious difficulties Coptic Christians endure as part of daily life.

By Regina Munch

August 26, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Article

The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

Shireen Abu Akleh’s death is indicative of the dangers faced by journalists as governments increasingly clamp down on press freedoms.

By Griffin Oleynick

May 24, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Death and Dying

Article

A Ceasefire in Yemen

The United States has contributed to the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. We have a moral duty to make sure that children do not starve there as a result.

By Regina Munch

April 26, 2022

Article

The Pillage of Afghanistan

Biden’s executive order punishes ordinary Afghans for crimes committed by Al Qaeda and siphons off the country’s wealth as it faces a deadly famine.

By Regina Munch

February 22, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Article

Fear Is a Bad Teacher

Mitri Raheb offers an insider’s perspective on Middle Eastern Christians that counters the stereotypical Western narratives of victimhood.

By David Neuhaus, SJ

February 13, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Article

The Toll of Sectarian Politics

Lebanon is on the brink of ruin. Will its Maronite Church take action to help?

By Zeead Yaghi

January 31, 2022

Foreign Affairs

Article

Starving Afghanistan

Afghanistan faces a famine that puts 23 million people at risk of starvation. But the United States refuses to offer aid.

By Regina Munch

November 18, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Feature

The Other Afghanistan

American attention on Afghanistan often neglects the material needs of ordinary Afghans, especially food security, which is now being threatened by climate change.

By Solmaz Daryani

October 2, 2021

Article

The Forever War Continues

The United States’s military interest in the Persian Gulf reflects an outdated status quo of oil dependence.

By Andrew J. Bacevich

September 20, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Article

An Unwinnable War

Biden is right to pull us out of Afghanistan. But he’s wrong to absolve us of blame in the country’s ongoing struggle.

By The Editors

August 19, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Article

Your Lebanon & Mine

In Lebanon, hyperinflation, an influx of refugees, and complete political collapse have created a dangerous crisis.

By Joseph Phillip Amar

August 10, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Article

Iconoclasm 2.0

ISIS’s 2015 destruction of Iraqi sculptures raises broader questions about the fraught relationship between politics, religion, and technology.

By Mahri Leonard-Fleckman

July 11, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Article

No More Blank Checks

The House is repealing the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. But other AUMFs remain in place, and those, too, must go.

By Regina Munch

July 8, 2021

Article

Why Stay Silent?

Our faith promotes the dignity and rights of all. In the Holy Land, this means acknowledging the disproportionate suffering faced by Palestinians.

By Jordan Denari Duffner

June 29, 2021

Foreign Affairs

Article

Arab Christians in the Holy Land

As Christians, we must love Israelis and Palestinians, and in the name of that love envision a language broad enough to promote the well-being of all.

By Nicholas Frankovich

June 13, 2021

Jewish-Christian Relations

Foreign Affairs

Must Reads

Politics

More, or Else

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson offer a vision of a progressive future in which Democrats stop getting in their own way.

Bernard Prusak

March 24, 2025

Religion

Francis’s Church?

From an emphasis on the global church to synodality, Pope Francis brought an outsider's perspective to his twelve-year papacy.

Massimo Faggioli

April 21, 2025

Culture

‘The Church Is What We Do Next’

The final twist in 'Conclave' is hardly sensationalistic: it raises real questions about how the Church accommodates people outside binaries of sex and gender.

Mollie Wilson …

March 27, 2025

Books

Coming of Age in America

James Chappel’s new book offers a fundamentally optimistic guide to the shifting view and experience of aging in America.

Peter Quinn

April 9, 2025

Collections

Francis and 'Commonweal'

Bringing together Commonweal's coverage of Francis's transformative papacy, from his inaugural Mass to a rebuke of J. D. Vance.

The Editors

April 21, 2025

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