Arab pride has seen better days. People are in no rush to declare their Arab credentials or make bids for the Arab League. Arabic passports do not wield much relative ‘power’ and pretty much since Team America depicted a crude mock-Arabic “Derka Derka Allah Muhamad Jehad”, a curtain of shame has fallen over the Arab identity causing closet Arabs to stay in the woodworks. The Middle Eastern Arab heartland is in serious existential trouble , spitting out citizens in refugee floods. With the region’s self-esteem at an all time low ...

Mini team Yazeed Mohamed al-Rajhi an co-pilot Timoo Gottschalk celebrate with a Saudi flag their second place podium of the Silk Way Rally in Beijing on July 24, 2016. PATRICK BAZ / AFP

Arab hospitality with its legendary generosity may not always be what it seems. Okay, most of the time it is - call Arabs what you like - terrorists (we’d rather you didn’t), racists, lazy…. but stingy they are not! Still, theirs is a slippery, sensitive culture that comes complete with its curious codes and cues that leave the true intention and meaning often lost on even the hardiest local. Arabic is a flowery language riddled in customary catch-phrases. These obligatory rejoinders and complementary formulas are designed to distance and ‘kiss ...

The Sultanate of Oman's Musandam-Oman Sail (Ultimate class) sails on St. Lawrence River on July 13, 2016 for the Transat Quebec Saint-Malo race in Quebec City. Every four years the Transat Quebec Saint-Malo brings together the best professional oceangoing multihull and monohull racers for an epic crossing from Quebec City to Saint-Malo, some 3000 nautical miles. Some 26 boats are competing this year. Florence Cassisi / AFP

Arabic is hard. No – Arabic is really ****ing hard, and everyone from university students to linguists to Arabs themselves agree that it’s exceptionally difficult to learn Arabic. According to the American Foreign Service , Arabic is ranked as a “Category V language” – requiring a minimum of 2,200 hours of continuous study to become proficient (i.e., not fluent, but able to handle yourself with the language). Compare that with Spanish, French, Norwegian, and other “Category I languages” which require a relatively tame 575 hours of study to reach similar ...

It’s the game everyone’s talking about. Across the Middle East, people are playing Pokémon Go-the app that allows you to capture-or rather “catch”-the famed digital creatures in an augmented reality. The creatures appear on the phone’s screen based on the player’s actual location. You may see a Pikachu (an electricity-spewing mouse) on Hamra street in downtown Beirut. You may find a squirtle (a squirrel-turtle hybrid that shoots water) while fighting Daesh (ISIS) on the frontlines north of Mosul, Iraq, as one American volunteer in a Christian paramilitary group did, later ...

Far from today’s reality, the Arab world of only a century ago was home to multicultural communities of Jews dating back millennia. From the Jews of cosmopolitan Baghdad, who spoke their own distinctive dialect of Arabic, to the Jewish villagers who lived and worshipped alongside their Berber neighbors in rural Libya, the Arab world’s perhaps most controversial religious group made its cultural mark on the region in ways that are now largely forgotten. A few traces of Jewish life still remain active in places like Tunisia, where the El Ghriba ...

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned their citizens against wearing national costumes abroad after an Emirati man wearing a traditional white kandura was handcuffed in Ohio over suspicions he had links to Daesh. According to news reports from Dubai, local women visiting the West were also urged to skip that abaya and abide by bans on face veils “to ensure their safety”. But what about when the fashion shoe is on the other foot? Some international celebs insist on donning that thobe or head scarf out of 'when ...

A French football team supporter flashes the sign for victory as he watches the UEFA Euro 2016 final football match between France and Portugal, hosted in Paris, at the French Institue in Kuwait City on July 10, 2016. YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP

Last Friday marked the second anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s military siege on Gaza. The benign-sounding offensive caused catastrophic carnage - killing more than 2,100 Palestinians. It destroyed schools, hospitals, places of worship, and damaged half a million homes. Two years after the 50-day war, not much has changed. Reconstruction is painfully slow. Only 10 percent of the 11,000 fully destroyed homes have been rebuilt. World leaders pledged $3.5 BIL towards reconstruction, now thwarted by Israeli restrictions on critical building materials entering Gaza. A coalition of top-tier NGOs urged ...

Eid al-fitr is a joyous time of delicious meals and family gatherings that ends the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. But this year it was the opposite for millions across the Muslim world. Daesh (ISIS) - calling itself the Islamic State - is thought to have targeted and attacked four Muslim countries during and leading up to this year’s Eid, killing hundreds. When they should’ve been gathering with their loved ones, families instead buried them in Iraq, Bangladesh, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The recent violence has sent shockwaves through the ...