The term 'cognitive egocentrism' was long ago coined by Richard Landes to describe the phenomenon of projecting one's own assumptions and ideals about the world onto others. I first remember reading Landes' description of cognitive egocentrism in around 2008 or so. More than 15 years later, the notion of cognitive egocentrism remains highly relevant, especially with a considerable amount of discourse about the Palestinian cause since 7 October 2023 (though in many ways that discourse is a continuity of what came before).

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How far can the traditional narratives about the emergence of a particular religion be considered to correspond to historical reality? This sort of question is especially relevant for religions in the more distant past such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

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Of the three villages in the Qalamoun region to the west of Damascus that have preserved the Western Neo-Aramaic language, Maaloula is the most well-known, being a primarily Christian village. It was overrun by insurgent groups in 2013 before subsequently being recaptured by the Syrian army and its allies. As part of my ongoing efforts to document the Western Neo-Aramaic language and also to preserve the historical record, I present here a post documenting the 'martyrs' of Maaloula during the war in Syria (consisting of both military personnel who fought on the government side and civilians) with an introductory text in three languages: Western Neo-Aramaic, Arabic and English.

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By now, it is well-known that Iraq's Hashd Sha'abi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) are principally organised into various brigades that have ordinal numbers and are officially affiliated with the Hashd Sha'abi Commission. In addition to these brigades, various smaller 'regiments' (Arabic: afwaj) have arisen during the course of the Hashd's existence. Many of these regiments reflect more local formations and have often been informally dubbed 'tribal Hashd.' However, a more recent trend in Hashd Brigade organisation has been to consolidate provincial regiments into brigades and attach them directly to the Hashd provincial operations commands. For example, Brigades 59 and 74 reflect consolidation of Hashd regiments in Ninawa province (Brigade 74 being particular to the Sinjar area) and their attachment to the Ninawa province operations command of the Hashd that is presently headed by Khudayr al-Matruhi who is tied to Brigade 21 (Badr).

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As part of its strikes in retaliation for Iran's strikes that were in turn retaliation for the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Israel conducted an attack on Syrian territory: specifically the Izraa area in Deraa province in southern Syria. While there is much punditry speculating on what happens next, there seems to have been little effort to reach out to those living in the vicinity of where the strikes took place and get their perspective on what is happening. This is an unfortunate shortcoming, but the problem is part of a wider pattern of deficiency in coverage. With the hundreds of Israeli strikes on Syria over the years, there has been hardly any outreach by media outlets and analysts to those living in the areas where the strikes have taken place.

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