Hesham Sallam

Excerpt from my remarks at the No Kings rally in Palo Alto.

For the full remarks: youtu.be/mDC7O2TO7s4

If you're looking for a #NoKingsDay II event this Sat 10/18 & in the SF Bay Area, come join @indimidpen.bsky.social and @indivisiblepaplus.bsky.social for a parade and Democracy Fair!
Guests include @liccardo.house.gov @wazirelkif.bsky.social + more! www.indivisiblepeninsulabayarea.org/nokings/

Call for Applications: Spring 2026 Virtual Research Workshops - Project on Middle East Political Science The POMEPS Spring Virtual Research Workshop convenes online discussions of groups of three thematically linked journal article-length papers focusing on topics/cases in the MENA region. To provide fee...

Only a few days left to apply for the Spring 2026 POMEPS Virtual Research Workshops! The deadline to apply is October 15, 2025. For more information on how to apply, visit:
pomeps.org/call-for-app...

There is, as of right now, no coverage of this protest on the WaPo website or in their @washingtonpost.com feed.

So, if you (you reading this) want people to SEE this protest, you must share it.

Letter of Support for the Serbian Student Movement We invite scholars of democracy worldwide to stand in solidarity with the students of Serbia in their struggle for fundamental rights and democratic renewal. By signing this letter, you express your s...

Democracy colleagues,

@StanfordCDDRL is launching a new Democracy Action Lab (DAL) next October

To bridge the gap between scholarship and practitioners

The student movement in Serbia needs international academic solidarity now

Please share and sign

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Call for Applications: Spring 2026 Virtual Research Workshops - Project on Middle East Political Science The POMEPS Spring Virtual Research Workshop convenes online discussions of groups of three thematically linked journal article-length papers focusing on topics/cases in the MENA region. To provide fee...

Announcing a call for applications for the Spring 2026 POMEPS Virtual Research Workshops! The deadline to apply is October 15, 2025. For more information on how to apply, visit:
pomeps.org/call-for-app...

How Viktor Orbán Wins | Journal of Democracy The case of Hungary shows how autocrats can rig elections legally, using legislative majorities to change the law and neutralize the opposition at every turn, no matter what strategy they adopt.

But it was too late. To understand what happened, you *must* read @kimlanelaw.bsky.social's @jodemocracy.bsky.social article ▼▼

In fact, just drop what you're doing and read it now.

I’m very excited to share that my paper “Cleavage theory meets civil society: A framework and research agenda” with @eborbath.bsky.social & Swen Hutter has now been published online in ‪@wepsocial.bsky.social‬ (w/ open access funding thanks to @wzb.bsky.social‬!)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Congratulations!! ❤️👏

متشكر جدا يا صديق. يا رب تكون بخير 🙏

YouTube video by Jadaliyya Israel’s Aggression Against Iran w/ Sina T., Negar R., Mouin R., Bassam H. & Naveed M.

There's a lot more to this rich discussion, which featured
Sinaa Toossi, Negar Razavi, Naveed Mansoori, Mouin Rabbani, and Bassam Haddad: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu-L...

But their course of action is limited by their dependence on the US-Israeli axis—an axis that has become much more “revisionist” and less accommodating of these states’ pro-stability and risk-averse orientations.

6) The conservative Arab states—Saudi, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, and others—are left in a vulnerable position. A regional war (and a militarily aggressive Iran) would threaten their stability and economic and domestic interests in significant ways...

5) The White House will inevitably contend with an isolationist faction within the president’s own “MAGA coalition” -- a faction that is strongly opposed to fighting a war in the Middle East or sponsoring yet another Israeli war.

4) So far, the Trump administration, aside from its political and military support for Israel, has exercised numerous contortions to avoid getting involved directly in a military conflict with Iran.

Within that context, Iran (& the 'resistance axis' more generally) is seen as a critical obstacle to the realization of the said vision.

Equally importantly, many analyses have glossed over civilian causalities and Israel’s attacks against heavily populated areas.

..one involving the annexation of the West Bank, the forced expulsion of large swaths of Palestinians from Gaza, and the institutionalization of an Apartheid regime in all the territories controlled by Israel...

3) U.S. media’s portrayal of Israel’s strikes as “preemptive” is inaccurate for many reasons. Among them is the idea that the attack is linked to a broader effort to lay the groundwork for an expansionist project that Israel’s right-wing government has long been trying to pursue—

2) The discussion suggests that Israel’s actions are not directly geared toward dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, but rather undermining the regime’s credibility in the hope that it would encourage an uprising that could bring about regime change in the country.

Trump and his team likely assumed (possibly miscalculated) that the attacks would force Iran into accepting a “better deal,” not realizing that Netanyahu’s end game was drawing the US into direct war with Iran.

Instead, they paint a picture wherein Netanyahu employed military action to undermine US-Iran talks and foreclose the possibility of a negotiated deal...

1) The discussion casts doubt on the theory that the Trump administration was purposely using negotiations to “dupe” Tehran and distract it from an imminent Israeli attack. That theory, speakers argued, gives Trump too much credit...

The recording is worth watching in full. But here some of the takeaways I found particularly useful:

My colleagues at @jadaliyya.bsky.social just organized an incredibly enlightening and eye-opening discussion on Israel’s strikes against Iran and the exchange of hostilities that ensued shortly after. 🧵

Authenticity and national loyalty: the intellectual roots of Islamist-leftist affective polarisation in post-2013 Egypt This article examines how the evolution of ideational conflicts between Islamist and leftist intellectual advocates over the past four decades has shaped the dominant discourse and narrative throug...

New analysis from @wazirelkif.bsky.social contextualizes Egypt's contemporary culture wars in a longer history of intellectual conflict between Islamist and leftist intellectual advocates that stretches back decades.

🇪🇬 READ MORE: ow.ly/nzuC50Vh2Jo

Authenticity and national loyalty: the intellectual roots of Islamist-leftist affective polarisation in post-2013 Egypt This article examines how the evolution of ideational conflicts between Islamist and leftist intellectual advocates over the past four decades has shaped the dominant discourse and narrative throug...

Read it in full here: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/S5RP5...

This history and its trajectory, the article explains, were largely the product of internal debates within leftist movements on how to project an authentic Egyptian identity in the face of attacks (sometimes intellectual, other times physical) by Islamist groups.

The article explains how the fateful political clashes between Islamist and leftist currents in post-Mubarak Egypt were shaped by a decades-long history of contention over questions of authenticity and national loyalty.

Authenticity and national loyalty: the intellectual roots of Islamist-leftist affective polarisation in post-2013 Egypt This article examines how the evolution of ideational conflicts between Islamist and leftist intellectual advocates over the past four decades has shaped the dominant discourse and narrative throug...

My article "Authenticity and national loyalty: the intellectual roots of Islamist-leftist affective polarisation in post-2013 Egypt" was just published in the Journal of North African Studies

My Monday op-ed in @indianexpress.com about Trump’s ‘Gaza-a-Lago’ proposal indianexpress.com/article/opin...