Journalist. Reporting for NPR in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. former NYT, Christian Science Monitor, Jazeera English, CNN, Reuters in lots of places.
Joined May 2009
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jane arraf retweeted
Caryle Murphy Has Died. She Earned a Pulitzer for Reporting in Kuwait. (and was even braver and more intrepid than I knew but never bragged about it) rip to a true role model nytimes.com/2026/10/25/busin…
jane arraf retweeted
I’ve so much admiration for Lina Attalah and her colleagues in Egypt. They set an example for journalistic courage and independence that all of us can learn from.
CPJ condemns the conviction of Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of the independent Egyptian news outlet @MadaMasr, on charges of running an unlicensed website. We call on Egyptian authorities to reverse the ruling, release the journalist immediately, and end their escalating campaign against independent journalism.
Read CPJ's statement ⤵️
cpj.org/2026/10/cpj-outraged…
jane arraf retweeted
“Muslim women have more rights in Israel than in basically any Muslim country”
Israel ranks 84th on women’s status, tied with Kyrgyzstan, behind the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Albania, Kuwait, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Kosovo.
Women vote and hold office across most of the Muslim world, and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Turkey have all had Muslim female heads of government.
Inside Israel, Muslim women face systemic racism and legal inequality, like the 2018 Nation-State Law and limits on bringing in Palestinian spouses. Millions of Palestinian women under Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza can’t vote at all in Israeli elections.
And in just three years Israel slaughtered more than 38,000 women and girls in Gaza and left 12,000 permanently disabled.
There is no place on earth where it’s less safe to be a Muslim woman than Israel and the places Israel dominates.
jane arraf retweeted
I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this cordinated campaign to delegimatize Muslim Americans - not just as citizens but as humans.
These increasingly hysterical attacks are a prelude to Republicans bringing us to a very, very dark place after the election.
jane arraf retweeted
So you don't view Arab citizens as Israelis? Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Ambassador.
Today is election day in Israel, which is a national holiday. All voting is in person, ID required. No mail-in or absentee ballots. Arabs vote same as Israelis. Contentious process, but it's a democracy-not many of those in this region!
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Arab voters are Israeli citizens. Listing them in contrast to Israelis is misconstruing the facts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citi…
cfr.org/backgrounders/…
jane arraf retweeted
Egypt is escalating its press crackdown. After jailing the entire newsroom of @matsda2sh, a court ordered the closure of @MadaMasr. Losing these brave journalists is a disaster for Egypt. It also means the world will lose much of its visibility on the Arab world's largest nation.
Mada Masr Editor-in-Chief Lina Attalah was fined LE3 million by the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court, which convicted her on charges of managing an unlicensed website, issuing an order for the website’s closure. Attalah was taken into custody after the issue of the ruling.
Tuesday’s session at the ninth circuit of the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court, presided over by judge Mohamed Mubarak, was temporarily suspended for deliberations after Attalah’s defense counsel requested time to review the case file.
After the court returned from deliberations, the judge ordered the courtroom cleared of everyone except Attalah and her defense counsel, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights’ executive director Hossam Bahgat, who was also present, told Mada Masr. The room then filled with plainclothes officers and guards, with a National Security Agency officer in attendance, he added.
The presiding judge and a Supreme State Security Prosecution representative returned to the session and the judge announced that the court has decided to stand by its rejection of all the procedural arguments presented by the defense, including requests to bring in any documentation or hear any witnesses.
The judge then asked the defense team to present its plea. The counsel insisted that it would not submit a plea as long as its requests were unanswered by the court.
The judge then abruptly asked for a lawyer unknown to any member of the defense counsel to be brought in, “in a move that astonished all those present,” said Bahgat, and announced that the court decided to appoint a lawyer for Attalah.
At that point, all members of the defense counsel cried out to reject the court’s appointment of a lawyer when the eight chosen lawyers were present. Attalah herself spoke to say she did not accept the court-appointed lawyer acting on her behalf, an objection the judge refused to have recorded in the session’s minutes.
"In an even more shocking move,” said Bahgat, the judge himself began to log down the requests of the court-appointed lawyer, without the lawyer having said a word. The judge then read out the conviction amid shouts and protests from the defense counsel.
The judge sentenced Attalah to the maximum possible penalty: a LE3 million fine, the closure of Mada Masr’s website and the confiscation of its property.
Security personnel then surrounded Attalah, lifted her off the ground and took her out of the courtroom, where she remains in custody in the courthouse.
jane arraf retweeted
قررت الدائرة التاسعة بمحكمة جنح القاهرة الجديدة، برئاسة المستشار محمد مبارك، معاقبة رئيسة تحرير «مدى مصر»، لينا عطالله، بغرامة قدرها ثلاثة ملايين جنيه، في اتهامها بإدارة موقع بدون ترخيص، وغلق «مدى مصر»، وهو الحكم الذي أعقبه احتجاز عطاالله على يد قوات الأمن.
المدير التنفيذي للمبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية، حسام بهجت، الذي حضر الجلسة، أوضح لـ«مدى مصر» أنه بعد رفع الجلسة إثر تمسك الدفاع بطلبه الحصول على وقت كافٍ للاطلاع على أوراق القضية، أمر القاضي بإخلاء القاعة بالكامل باستثناء «المتهمة» وفريق الدفاع الحاضر عنها، ما تبعه امتلاء القاعة بضباط وحرس بزي مدني، وحضور ضابط «الأمن الوطني».
بعدها، خرج رئيس المحكمة وممثل نيابة أمن الدولة، وأعلن رئيس المحكمة أنها قررت التمسك برفض جميع الدفوع الإجرائية المقدمة من الدفاع، بما في ذلك ضم أي مستندات أو سماع أي شهود، قبل أن يطلب من فريق الدفاع تقديم مرافعته، والذي تمسك بعدم الترافع في ظل عدم الاستجابة للطلبات المقدمة، ليطلب القاضي فجأة إدخال أحد المحامين غير المعلومين لأي من أفراد فريق الدفاع، «وفي تصرف مذهل لجميع الحاضرين» أعلن القاضي أن المحكمة قررت انتداب محامي للدفاع عن المتهمة.
عند تلك النقطة تعالت صيحات جميع أعضاء فريق الدفاع رفضًا لحضور محامي منتدب في ضوء حضور المحامين الأصليين الثمانية، فيما تحدث لينا عطالله نفسها، وأعلنت رفضها حضور هذا المحامي عنها، وهو ما رفض رئيس المحكمة تسجيله في محضر الجلسة.
«وفي تصرف أكثر إثارة للصدمة»، شرع رئيس المحكمة بنفسه في تسجيل طلبات المحامي المنتدب في محضر الجلسة، دون حتى أن ينطق المحامي بكلمة من الأصل، قبل أن يبدأ القاضي في تلاوة حكم الإدانة، وسط صراخ وصيحات اعتراض فريق الدفاع، مقررًا إدانة لينا عطاالله ومعاقبتها بالعقوبة الأقصى، وهي الغرامة بمبلغ ثلاثة ملايين جنيه وغلق موقع «مدى مصر» ومصادرة المُعدات والأجهزة. وبعدها فوجئ الحاضرون بأفراد الأمن يحيطون بلينا عطاالله، ويحملونها من على الأرض إلى خارج القاعة، حيث لا تزال إلى الآن محتجزة.
jane arraf retweeted
As Attalah told me last week, Mada Masr had in fact dillgently sought to obtain licencing and was denied--a tactic to keep independent media like hers in a perpetual grey zone until they are deemed to have overstepped. thetimes.com/article/a4b9e07…
Following an absolute farcical trial that makes a mockery of the rule of law, an Egyptian court has fined @Linaattalah LE 3 million and ordered the closure of @MadaMasr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet, relied on by the world's diplomats, researchers, and scholars.
jane arraf retweeted
Peace is measured not by ceremonies or declarations, but by the realities on the ground.
🇯🇴🇮🇱 Today, we mark 32 years since the signing of the Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty: a historic milestone that laid the foundation for dialogue and cooperation between our two countries.
Especially during challenging times, the strategic treaty remains a cornerstone of regional stability and a solid platform for future mutually beneficial initiatives.
jane arraf retweeted
Isn’t one fortunate, theoretically speaking, to be a journalist? We know you might not agree with us.
Read the full text from Mada Masr
storage.googleapis.com/madam…
jane arraf retweeted
Israeli forces have detained dozens of Syrians from the country’s south, some of them teenage boys taken from farms and family homes. Their families still don’t know where they are being held or why, reports @subhash_anagha for @newlinesmag. newlinesmag.com/reportage/th…
jane arraf retweeted
It's worth noting that the massacres and mass rape in El Fasher, Sudan, claiming tens of thousands of lives, happened with the complicity of the UAE and @Lana_Nusseibeh, now seeking to be the next UN Secretary-General. Empowering mass murder and rape should be disqualifying.
Sudan: One Year on from the Cataclysm of El Fasher. “It is as if a tsunami had hit the city,” said a resident who returned to Sudan’s El Fasher only to find it destroyed and largely abandoned after the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) October 2025 takeover.
hrw.org/news/2026/10/26/suda…
jane arraf retweeted
Everyone needs to know what actually happened in Serbia.
Instead of students just protest against their government, the students organized themselves into a student list and ran in elections against their government—and they have just won.
Dear Serbia, congratulations on your victory; you have just opened a new door in protesting. This is history
jane arraf retweeted
EL-SAYED: I get that the President takes personal offense to my first name. He doesn't mind as much when it's the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity. Doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving them a $400 million private jet. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it's my name.
I don't care how he pronounces my name. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me senator after November.
EL-SAYED: I get that the President takes personal offense to my first name. He doesn't mind as much when it's the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity. Doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving them a $400 million private jet. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it's my name.
I don't care how he pronounces my name. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me senator after November.
jane arraf retweeted
Americans will cast ballots based on issues like affordability. But what's at stake is far, far more -- it's the pillars of the model that led the US to become the world's most powerful country, and it's today's fragile global order. As Bono told me, "everything we love is on the line." A gift link: nytimes.com/2026/10/24/opini…
jane arraf retweeted
“God promised us this land and we will kill anyone who stays”?
That is an ISIS-type ideology.
jane arraf retweeted
Israeli troops have leveled a neighborhood in Hebron, driving out hundreds of families in a war-crime act of collective punishment for a militant attack on an army checkpoint outside the occupied West Bank city. trib.al/CIffmuy
jane arraf retweeted
With regard to Lana Nusseibeh running for UN secretary general.
The RSF has, according to the below BBC report from yesterday, systematically destroyed the healthcare system in Sudan's el-Fasher, where it is also accused of carrying out widespread ethnically-motivated slaughter amounting to acts of genocide.
43 separate attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities were carried out, this data says, from May 2024 to October 2025.
And 55 medical workers were killed, 120 wounded and 10 forcibly disappeared from April 2023 to October 2025.
None of this would be possible without the widely-established support it receives from the UAE.
Yet Nusseibeh is apparently already receiving substantial support in her bid for the job. Before she threw her hat in the ring, she was UAE minister of state for foreign affairs.
If ever we needed proof that the Security Council is not fit for purpose.
jane arraf retweeted
Look where Palestinian society was before the Nakbah.
1929, Jerusalem, Palestine 🇵🇸
The First Palestine Arab Women’s Congress, also known as the First Arab Women’s Congress or the Palestinian Arab Women’s Congress, was a landmark women’s rights conference held in Jerusalem on the 26th of October 1929.
Organized by the Arab Women’s Association of Palestine, the congress marked the association’s inaugural public event and represented the first organized, collective entry of Palestinian women into the political arena.
jane arraf retweeted
Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking.
Eight-year-old Fatima Hisham al-Bayook has succumbed to her injuries after being struck by an Israeli bullet a few days ago east of Deir al-Balah, Gaza.
There had been desperate pleas for her urgent medical evacuation in the hope of saving her life.
After contacting her family, I can also confirm that Fatima’s mother and two younger siblings were killed in an Israeli strike on December 13, 2023.
Her siblings were Leen, a baby less than a year old, and Asaad, just three years old.
Israel’s terror and the systematic destruction of Palestinian families continue to unfold before the eyes of the world.
Remember their names.
