The arts help create a safe space for exploration of potentially difficult issues. The Middle East is the birthplace of our civilization. It is where Judaism, Christianity and Islam-three faiths with much in common-originate. The Middle East is also the primary resource for our energy needs and where we have many strategic partners, from Turkey and Israel to Saudi Arabia.

Samir Twair, Syrian activist, journalist and correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, spoke at the Levantine Center on Sunday, November 6, 2011, about the history of and current situation in Syria.

The talk was one in the series "Progressive Conversations on Israel/Palestine and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East," sponsored jointly by the Levantine Center, LA Jews for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Friends of Sabeel Los Angeles and Orange County.

The other day, a big wig in the Moroccan blogosphere asked in one of his articles: what has changed in our lives? This question reflects the preoccupation of Moroccan society as a whole with the adoption of the new constitution, which passed on July 2nd, 2011 with a 98% approval rate. The referendum woke up the whole country from an era of political quietism, thus raising people's hopes and expectations for a better tomorrow. Two months have passed since then, and for many, it is now time for assessment, following the popular saying "a good dinner frees its scent as of the early afternoon."

For decades or perhaps even centuries, disparate societies around the globe have been growing more and more intertwined. A single world culture is emerging; or at least the history of the world as told in different places is merging into the single history of us all.

Hisham Matar's timely novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, arrives as the Middle East is rising, alight, its people chanting and fighting their way to justice—knocking down their dictators, one by one. As we watch brutal regimes cling to power by clawing into the flesh and spirits of their people, Matar tells the story of a boy whose father is abducted in an act of political brutality.

Disappearing fathers, a recurring theme in Matar's work, draws parallels from his own story. Matar's father, Jaballa, a prominent Libyan dissident living with his family in exile in Cairo, was abducted from his home in 1990. He was imprisoned in the notorious Abu Sleem jail in Tripoli. Save for a few letters, the last one from 1996, there has been very little information on his father's status. Until this day, Matar does not know his father's fate.

In a letter titled "Ruh Jedida: A New Spirit for 2011," published on the Mideast web site 972mag.com, young Jewish descendants of the Arab and Islamic world living in Israel posted the following letter to their peers in the Middle East and North Africa on April 24, 2011.

We, as the descendents of the Jewish communities of the Arab and Muslim world, the Middle East and the Maghreb, and as the second and third generation of Mizrahi Jews in Israel, are watching with great excitement and curiosity the major role that the men and women of our generation are playing so courageously in the demonstrations for freedom and change across the Arab world. We identify with you and are extremely hopeful for the future of the revolutions that have already succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt. We are equally pained and worried at the great loss of life in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and many other places in the region.

Springtime in the Arab world is looking bleaker now that despots in Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen and reactionary elements in Egypt have gained an upper hand against the pro-democracy protesters who have inspired the world. And the Internet, hailed sometimes in excess as a potent tool for these movements, has itself come under increasing fire from these and other autocratic states seeking to crush popular dissent.

June, 2006. Over a month since Mansur left, and I'm doing my best to help his son. As a favor, I call Sami at least once a week to see how he is doing, and I drive him on errands whenever he asks. I met Mansur and his wife Karima a quarter century ago through a University of Minnesota host family program, and celebrated with them in 1982 when their son, Sami, was born.

T. E. LawrenceWho has time to read during a revolution? Certainly nobody at Tahrir Square and nobody picking up the pieces in Tunisia or busy in Libya, or in Yemen trying to evaluate government statements of long-term support versus immediate need. I'd say we're the ones with time to read and maybe we should. This may be the best time ever to pull out writers both classic and new who address Middle Eastern history. We can peruse the messages they've left the people that we see rebounding now in terms of revolutionary change.

Arab revolutions...

I have not yet been able to digest the magnitude of what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and is happening now Iran, Syria, Yemen, and other Arab countries. As an Egyptian-American VJ and media artist whose work concerns the Arab world, the revolutions of 2011 have deeply impacted me professionally, artistically, and personally. There is something extremely poignant for Egyptians living outside of Egypt at this exact moment in history. Most of us who emigrated from Egypt often did so for the same reasons that incited millions to rise and cause revolutions. Perhaps there is lingering guilt that stays with the emigrant for not having stuck it out--on top of repercussions of Diaspora accumulated over decades. Still, there is no doubt that all Arabs living in and outside of the region have been extremely inspired and mobilized by the collective power of the people in the region. I keep hearing, repeatedly: the time is now.