Alex Shams – Alex Shams

Lebanon Reporting

‘They Hit Everyone and Anyone’: From Lebanon, residents share what life has been like since Israel launched its attack.

October 2, 2024 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Oct 2, 2024 in New York Magazine. As told to Alex Shams. On September 17, Israel launched a military assault in Lebanon. It began with attacks that

Iran Opinion

Iran Braces for Uncertainty After President Raisi’s Death

July 16, 2024 by Alex Shams

Published on June 9, 2024 on Truthout. Besides crushing dissent, the former leader did little of note. Could a new president be different? When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter went

Opinion Palestine USA

Universities should defend students’ right to free speech, not aid their repression

May 1, 2024 by Alex Shams

Originally published in the Chicago Tribune on May 1, 2024. In mid-April, the University of Southern California banned the school valedictorian from giving a commencement address for the first time in its

Iran Reporting

They Risked Their Lives for Freedom in Iran. Now They Fear Israel’s Bombs.

April 29, 2024 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Truthout on April 29, 2024. Having survived waves of domestic repression, protesters in Iran are now in the crosshairs of Israeli bombs. In fall 2022, they were

Palestine Reporting

How Jesus’s Hometown Is Coping With War at Christmas

December 24, 2023 by Alex Shams

Originally published on The New Republic on Dec. 24, 2023. Bethlehem is usually brimming with cheer—and tourists—this time of year. But the war in Gaza has turned it into a

Israel Opinion Palestine

Israel Needs a Plan in Gaza. Don’t Look to the West Bank for Ideas

November 22, 2023 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Newsweek on Nov. 20, 2023. One of Elias Deis’ first childhood memories is running from soldiers opening fire on his neighbors. It was 1989. The First Intifada

Arab World Palestine Reporting

‘They Don’t Want People to Know We Exist’: Palestinians across the West Bank describe what life has been like since October 7

November 10, 2023 by Alex Shams

Originally published in New York Magazine on Nov. 10, 2023. Over the last month, Israel launched an assault across the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack, in

Iran Reporting

‘We Have to Know When to Hope and When to Be Hopeless’: How six Iranians feel about the Woman Life Freedom movement, one year later

September 16, 2023 by Alex Shams

First published in New York Magazine on Sept. 16, 2023. As told to Alex Shams. One year has passed since protests first broke out across Iran following the killing of

Iran Reporting

How Bazaar: The surprising way a Japanese soap opera shaped the Iranian secondhand economy

September 1, 2023 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Mildew Magazine, Sep 2023, based on an article in Ajam Media Collective.

Iran

Woman, Life, Liberty: A Movement In Its Context

August 26, 2023 by Alex Shams

Presentation in Spanish on August 29, 2023 at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, about the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran to mark its one year anniversary, as part