“The Kebabs are ready dad!” Faris yells over his shoulder. His father, busy preparing the bread and tomatoes cannot hear him, so he calls again. “Dad, they are ready!”

Taking matters into his own hands, Faris locates a near-full jerry can of water and drags it across the grassy picnic ground to douse the coals on the barbecue. Faris is only four years old and the jerry can is only slightly shorter than he is. But like most of Jordan’s refugee children he is fast learning to be independent.

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This article appeared in Foreign Brief on August 3rd 2016.

Western coverage of the Syrian conflict has largely overlooked allegations that Israel is backing jihadists fighting in Syria. Middle Eastern leaders have a history of blaming domestic unrest on such conspiracies – particularly when Israel is involved. Although conspiracies of Israeli support for Al Qaeda and ISIS are largely hyperbole, the country’s posture towards the Syrian conflict and its relations with jihadi groups deserve closer inspection. Continue reading →

An edited version of my article on Syria’s partition appeared in Woroni (Australian National University Newspaper) in March 2016 and can be accessed here.

Alex Ray 05.02.2016

In the media war for Syria, half-truths and redacted explanations are par for the course. While most common narratives romanticize the trajectory of the war into pre-assumed moulds, others such as “sectarian war” or “baddies versus baddies” shift blame from outside powers and their part in the conflict and largely onto the people caught up in it. Continue reading →

Notes from a good friend and critical thinker on the hysteria over Russian involvement in Syria:

It can be time consuming to gather evidence to disprove the regime-change lobby’s misinformation on Syria, but this one was easy to nail. Continue reading →