Three jeeps took me to Arafat’s hideout
By: Robert Chatterjee, translated by Jens Hanssen with LLM assistance. Theodor Hanf was born in 1936 and has been conducting research in and on Lebanon for seven decades. For his book Coexistence in War:...
Category: OIB
The Geopolitical Force Field and The Future of Syrian Higher Education
This brief lecture was delivery by Professor Hanssen to inaugurate the one-day DAAD-sponsored conference on “National, regional, and EU funding programmes to strengthen Syrian academic capacities and resilience” at the EU in Brussels on...
Wie die deutschen Medien in Gaza versagten
Auf der Grundlage umfangreicher Analysen seziert Fabian Goldmanns neues Buch “Staatsräsonfunk. Deutsche Medien und der Genozid in Gaza” die deutsche Berichterstattung zu Gaza und attestiert ihr ein umfassendes Versagen.Von Jan Altaner Ursprünglich veröffentlicht in...
Zehn Tage, die über den Libanon entscheiden könnten
17. April 2026 Jens Hanssen[*] Seit Mitternacht des 16. April 2026 herrscht in Beirut eine offizielle Waffenruhe zwischen Israel und der Hizbollah. Zehn Tage lang – so steht es in der 6-Punkte Vereinbarung...
Greater Israel: Last but not least, a Christian Phantasy
The lasting impact of Protestant missionary dreams on Middle East policy in the West Julia Hauser[*] Mike Huckabee, the United States Ambassador to Israel, recently made headlines with comments in an interview with right-wing...
Helping and worrying in Beirut
A text by Rani Abi Haidar The following text on the humanitarian situation in Beirut following renewed massive Israeli air strikes across Lebanon was written by OIB intern Rani Abi-Haidar, a political scientist at...
Deutschland, der Holocaust und Palästina – Erinnerungsideologie im Gaza-Krieg
Abdel Raouf Sinno /Libanon [1] Historiker und Forscher Bewaffnete Konflikte haben stets schwerwiegende menschliche Tragödien hervorgebracht, die sich dauerhaft im kollektiven Gedächtnis verankern. Die gesellschaftliche Verarbeitung dieser Tragödien dauert Jahrzehnte. Zu diesen historischen Katastrophen...
Philologie, Theologie und Politik: Ein moderner Korankommentar im Kontext
OIB_upclose, the OIBlog from Beirut and Cairo, features an exclusive publication of Prof. Dr. Angelika Neuwirth’s honorary lecture on the occasion of migrating her monumental research project Corpus Coranicum from the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der...
House-to-house battle for the cultural memory of Jerusalem
By Jens Hanssen 02.07.2024, published in German in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, URL: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wissen/geist-soziales/besetzung-in-der-altstadt-haeuserkampf-um-das-kulturelle-gedaechtnis-jerusalems-19827287.html The displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem has been progressing for years. Now an Israeli court has ordered the eviction of...
Farajallah al-Hilu and Riyadh al-Turk On Dignity, Prisons and Loyalty
Mohammad Ali Atassi Article orginally published in al-Quds al-‘Arabi on 28 February, 2024 Translated by Jens Hanssen on 23 April 2024 This is the story of two men, two cities and two countries brought...
في مفهوم التضامن
بقلم يونس هانسن؛ راجَعَهُ لُغويًّا سومر المير محمود و براق زكاريا آب ٢٠٢٣، برلين «الجواب المختصر هو أنّ التضامن لا يعلُو على النقد… الولاء لمجموعة في صراعها من أجل البقاء لا يجوز أن يجُرَّ...
The Making of Arab Alternative Cinema and its Audiences: Babelsberg, Beirut, Damascus, Leipzig
في لايبزغ… كان كل شعب يعرض كفاحه ليتعلّم الآخرون [In Leipzig…People screen their struggles so others may learn] al-Akhbar, 15 December 1973, 32-33, Orient-Institut Beirut Library Anaïs Farine From Film Festivals...
Epistemology of the “genesis of the Qur’an” between the 19th and 20th centuries: the contributions of German, French, and English Qur’anic Studies
Sana Abu Antoun Sana Bou Antoun joined the OIB in 2022 for a duration of 12 months as an affiliated PhD student. She is a PhD Student in the Department of Arabic Studies at...
A History of Arts and Crafts from Late Ottoman Beirut (ca. 1860-1914)
Sarah Sabban In the post 9/11 context, permanent and temporary exhibitions of “Islamic art” aimed at countering the effects of “terrorist Islam” by improving the image of “Islam” and humanizing Muslims in the eyes...
The Role of Domestic Courts for Consociational Systems of Power-Sharing
Sophia Schröder Consociational settlements are often negotiated after violent conflict and various communities have to be accommodated. Cooperation between political elites is an essential characteristic in consociational theory – necessary to both the establishment...