Stories Archive | Reset DOC

Analyses

Ramin Jahanbegloo, one of Irans preeminent intellectual figures, attends the conference ‘Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Asia’ held under the auspices of former Czech president Vaclav Havel on September 11, 2009, in Prague. Other guests of this conference are Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, former President of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk, Rabiya Kadeer, head of the World Uighur Congress, Robert Menard of France, former Secretary-General of Reporters Without Bord and others philosophers and disidents.AFP PHOTO MICHAL CIZEK (Photo by MICHAL CIZEK / AFP)

Philosophy
Incorporating 2011 into the Syllabus of Arab Intellectual History
Idriss Jebari 2 December 2025

For those who teach Arab intellectual history in Western universities, the Arab Spring has hung over the curriculum like the sword of Damocles. What meaning should we ascribe to this event? Does it follow logically from the previous episodes, their ideological themes, and intellectual figures? Or was it a revolutionary break of such magnitude that it risks rendering the whole course obsolete? In the age of “learning aims,” “real-world relevance,” and course evaluations, instructors have had to take a position, despite the ongoing and unresolved nature of the Arab Spring. Some disciplines, such as MENA politics, may have clearer ways of drawing conclusions about its repercussions. What of the Arab intellectual scene?
Society
The Possibility of “Soft Universalism”
Sari Hanafi 1 December 2025

I read Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab’s essay with great interest, as well as Mohammed Hashas’s thoughtful response. Kassab rightly calls for the emergence of a new contemporary Arab thought—one less culturalist and more attuned to people’s demands for freedom, dignity, accountability of rulers, and social justice.
Radical Change beyond the Arab World? A Reply to Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab
Mohammed Hashas 27 November 2025

When the “Arab Spring” erupted in December 2010, its aspirations were ambitious: liberty, dignity, and social justice. But the democratic backlash in Tunisia, the coup d’état in Egypt, and civil wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and more recently Sudan, have left little doubt that the Spring devolved into a nightmare, a failure of what began as pacifist demonstrations for change. The Arab monarchies and emirates, meanwhile, absorbed the protests quickly through a mix of measures, from modest constitutional reforms to expanded subsidies for the unemployed and the poor.
Philosophy
On a Shifting Intellectual Scene: A Response to Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab
Harald Viersen 21 November 2025

In her recent contribution to Reset DOC, Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab echoes this sentiment, as she sketches an ambitious and important project to map the changes that the last decade and a half of upheaval in the Arab world has wrought in the intellectual scene. She describes what has been brewing in these circles as “new contemporary” Arab thought, contrasting it to the merely contemporary thought of the period between the 1960s and the beginnings of the Arab Spring in 2011 that she chronicled earlier in her comprehensive survey published in 2010.
Society
The Arab Spring as a Turning Point
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab 12 November 2025

Undoubtedly, 2011 was a turning point in the history of the Arab region. The 2011 popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Syria, and, to a lesser extent, Morocco, were followed by another wave of such uprisings in Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon in 2019. The genocidal war raging in Gaza since 2023 has taken the region to a yet deeper abyss in existential, moral, political, and economic terms. How have thinkers of the region been interacting with these upheavals? How have these dramatic events impacted the intellectual scene of the region?
Religion
King Charles III and Pope Leo XIV Mark a New Chapter in Ecumenism
Massimo Faggioli 11 November 2025

The meeting between King Charles III, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and Pope Leo XIV, the leader of the Catholic Church, was history-making. The British monarch had met the pope before in the previous century, beginning with King Edward VII and Leo XIII in 1903, until Elizabeth II and Pope Francis met in 2014. But in the past, visits made by the British monarch to the Vatican were labelled “informal” or “private visits”, thus sidestepping the political, diplomatic, and ecumenical complications surrounding the meeting of the leaders of two officially separated (since Henry VIII’s decision in 1534) branches of the Christian family.
International Affairs
Yuli Tamir: “Arab States and the Palestinian Authority Must Lead Beyond Hamas”
Alessandra Tommasi 6 November 2025

The ceasefire in Gaza, tied to Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, remains extremely fragile amid repeated violations. Among the latest escalations, an Israeli air raid overnight between October 28 and 29, launched in retaliation for the death of an IDF soldier and Hamas’s refusal to return the bodies of hostages, left more than a hundred people dead. While Hamas accuses Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of obstructing the entry of humanitarian convoys, uncertainty looms over the so-called “phase two” of the plan. On paper, the Palestinian group has agreed to relinquish direct control of the enclave, but not full demilitarization nor the international supervision envisaged by Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace.” The plan also makes no mention of the West Bank, fueling fears that Israel intends to solidify the separation between the two Palestinian territories. In this context, Reset DOC spoke with Yuli Tamir, former Israeli education minister, to discuss the prospects for peace and Israel’s political future.
International Affairs
Iran: The End of the Axis and Strategic Adaptation
Pegah Zohouri 6 November 2025

Over the past two years, Iran has suffered the most significant blows to its deterrence capacity since the founding of the Islamic Republic, losing much of the regional influence it once wielded through loyal proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Yemen. Once able to mobilize allied forces across the Middle East in pursuit of shared interests against Israel, Tehran now faces a drastically diminished strategic position. Following Hamas’s October 2023 attacks, Israel systematically targeted Iranian proxies—crippling Hamas in Gaza, weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, with the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, depriving Iran of its crucial Syrian ally. Subsequent Israeli strikes deep into Iranian territory further exposed Tehran’s intelligence failures, limited military reach, and diplomatic isolation. Yet the current retrenchment of Iran and its allies does not signify collapse; rather, it represents a phase of strategic recalibration within an evolving regional order characterized by multi-alignment and shifting power centers.
International Affairs
Cengiz Aktar: “Turkey Confronts Tel Aviv’s New Regional Hegemony”
Alessandra Tommasi 6 November 2025

Over the past decade, Turkey has tried to carve out a role as a regional power, swinging between neo-Ottoman ambition and economic pragmatism. Ankara has multiplied its interventions: backing Qatar, confronting the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and deepening its involvement in Libya. Yet since October 7, 2023, the balance of power in the Middle East has shifted again. The Gaza war, the reshuffling of alliances, and the weakening of the so-called “axis of resistance” have all curbed Ankara’s claims to leadership, according to Cengiz Aktar, Turkish dissident and professor of Political Science at the University of Athens, in an interview with Reset DOC.
International Affairs
Olivier Roy: “Israel Made a Palestinian State Impossible”
Alessandra Tommasi 6 November 2025

Two years after October 7, the Middle East is undergoing a profound transformation. Israeli assertiveness, Iran’s weakening influence, and the reshaping of al-Sharaa’s Syria are redefining the regional balance, while fragile truces and new hierarchies of power reveal a landscape still in flux. In this context, French political scientist and leading expert on political Islam, Olivier Roy, reflects for Reset DOC on the region’s prospects, the deadlock of the Palestinian question, and the evolving relationship between Israel and its neighbors.