In the light of Eid Al-Fitr at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the continuing bloodshed in Syria comes into focus in my latest Middle East Analysis podcast with the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales - as we discuss the current situation and also look at the plight of the country's Christians.
The Middle East and North Africa area remains a vast and heterogeneous region of turbulence, confusion, hope, dread, reform, stand-off, contradiction, expectation, frustration, life and death.
The G8 summit of world leaders in France in May 2011 announced billions of dollars of 'aid' for the Arab Spring. Yet it was the G8 who armed and financed the dictators of Egypt and Tunisia, who have now been overthrown.
Future economic assistance to Arab states should be linked to respect for freedom and liberty, a senior leader of an Egyptian Christian organisation says.
The Jubilee Debt Campaign has called for all of Egypt and Tunisia’s ‘unjust debts’ to be cancelled unconditionally, ahead of a G8 discussion on north Africa.
There are serious questions to be asked about the unity pact between the two Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas, says Harry Hagopian. But meanwhile the Israeli prime minister remains dwarfed by the real significance of the Arab Spring, and a huge block to progress towards a just peace for all. He is still a tactician at best, with precious little strategic foresight.