A German-Turkish Revolution
Güven Sak, PhD
29 September 2018
Rapprochement is in the air. I think this newly developing partnership is inevitable. Why? It’s almost like that 1969 hit by Thunderclap Newman, the old British rock band: Call out the instigator
[More]
Clueless in Crisis
Güven Sak, PhD
15 September 2018
It was around 2001. I was at the American University of Beirut, and the discussion was on Turkey’s efforts to stabilize its economy. The currency crisis at the time led Turkey to freely float the lira. Someone asked me how to determine the right time to float a currency. Timing a float? It still strikes me as a strange concept. You can’t plan a time to float your currency, it just happens. No one in their right mind could plan something that big and be responsible for the losses of so many people. But it does happen.
[More]
No UNRWA, no Nakba?
Güven Sak, PhD
08 September 2018
The Trump administration has decided to cut all US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This is the second such step after the contentious decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. UNRWA was created in 1949 to resettle the 700,000 Palestinians who had been displaced to establish an independent state of Israel. Palestinians see May 15, 1948, when modern Israel was founded as “nakba,” the day of catastrophe. Does that mean that when there is no UNRWA, there is no Nakba at all? Is the issue of Palestinian refugees and the return to their homeland now eternally off the table? I don’t think so.
[More]
