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Alex Rowell Profile picture
Alex Rowell
@alexjrowell
Online editor @newlinesmag | Author 'We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World', 'Vintage Humour: The Islamic Wine Poetry of Abu Nuwas'
Jul 23, 2022 • 12 tweets • 7 min read
70 years today since #Egypt’s military coup of 23 July 1952, one of the most important events in modern Arab history, the impact of which still shapes the region in profound ways to this day.

A thread🧵:

#OTD By the standards of some of the copycat coups it soon inspired elsewhere in the Arab world, Egypt’s putsch of 1952 was a casual affair. Starting 11pm on the night of the 22nd, army units rolled on their Cairo HQ, detaining the top brass as they were meeting inside (2)
Nov 2, 2020 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
Thread: I’m as guilty as anyone of admiring Pity the Nation when it was the first book I’d read on #Lebanon and I knew nothing else about the place, and little else about its author Robert #Fisk, who has died at 74 (1) The first thing to say is Lebanese readers themselves were never so easily impressed by the book, as @emile_hokayem reminds us, and as @aelghossain, @faysalitani, and many others will also remind you if you prompt them (2)
Aug 5, 2020 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
The stupendous scale of the damage in #Beirut has to be seen to be believed, & can’t really be believed even when seen. Just took these in Mar Mikhael & Gemmayze: (1) ImageImageImageImage These aren’t one or two isolated spots; this extends for kilometres, from the eastern fringe of the city to its centre, and well beyond (2) ImageImageImage
Oct 29, 2019 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Quick thread with initial thoughts on why #Lebanon’s PM @saadhariri just chose to resign, in defiance of orders from Hizbullah’s Nasrallah: (1) @saadhariri First, just look at #Tripoli, #Sidon & #Beirut, Hariri’s traditional pillars of support (Sidon is his hometown), which have been major sites of #LebanonProtests. Every day this cabinet remained he was hemorrhaging what little popularity he still preserved (2)
Jun 21, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1. Thread: My take on Iran/Trump, which I may regret in just a few days, but anyway: Trump doesn’t want war with Iran, as today’s NYT & Reuters reports underscore. Trump sees Middle East wars against anyone other than ISIS/AQ as a waste of good American $ on brown people far away 2. Iran gets this. Iran is smart. It sees straight through Trump’s bullshit, as it did Obama’s. The Iranians are very astute readers of the region, and also understand Washington better, frankly, than many Washington pundits