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Frederick Deknatel

@freddydeknatel.bsky.social
2.9K followers 3.5K following 3.3K posts

Journalist, non-resident fellow at CIP @cipolicy.bsky.social, editor of @Hidden-Cities.com Previously: Founding executive editor, Democracy in Exile @dawnmenaorg.bsky.social; managing editor @wpr.bsky.social; staff editor @foreignaffairs.com

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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Grateful to publish this piece by Alhakam Shaar in @hidden-cities.com on returning to Aleppo after years of exile and war, and what it means to finally see of what was lost and what can still be rebuilt. "We’ll be back. We’re home, after all." www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...
hidden-cities.com
Home Again in Aleppo
On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 20h
The Strait is open!
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 23h
I first met and interviewed @alhakam.bsky.social back in 2016 for a long piece on Aleppo I wrote for the late, great Even Magazine. He was documenting his city's destruction in the hopes of one day rebuilding, despite everything. "You cannot kill hope or vision for the future," he told me.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Grateful to publish this piece by Alhakam Shaar in @hidden-cities.com on returning to Aleppo after years of exile and war, and what it means to finally see of what was lost and what can still be rebuilt. "We’ll be back. We’re home, after all." www.hidden-cities.com/p/home-again...
hidden-cities.com
Home Again in Aleppo
On finally returning to Syria from exile to rebuild what was lost.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Red Sox timed the extensions for both Chad Tracy and Craig Breslow perfectly.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“Parents who once lived under oppressive regimes in Syria and Egypt now repeated a familiar refrain to their kids in the United States,” @rozinaali.bsky.social writes: “The walls have ears.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/b...
nytimes.com
Book Review: ‘Seasons of Fury,’ by Rozina Ali
A new book by Rozina Ali traces the rise of anti-Islamic sentiment in the wake of 9/11, showing how ordinary residents became targets of fear and suspicion.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Why have I come back to writing about war? Once again, memory returns, more insistent than ever. Between doubt and certainty lies the narrative of truth. We must approach language’s shadows and ghosts, we must listen to the voices of the victims." Samar Yazbek in @hidden-cities.com:
hidden-cities.com
Samar Yazbek: Giving Voice to Gaza's Survivors
What happened to the people of Gaza who survived the genocide? Is it even right that we consider them survivors?
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This piece cites four articles with "rubble" in their headlines, then claims their authors "may have never visited Syria." I wrote that FP piece; I lived in Syria for a year before 2011. The Atlantic Council author is Syrian. The two other pieces are reported from Syria, as the bylines make clear.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Their extreme focus on deregulation, on lifting subsidies and so on did not take into account the downtrodden," said Karam Shaar, a Syrian political economist. What could go wrong? www.ft.com/content/5313...
ft.com
Syria’s free-market experiment
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist government has overhauled Assad’s protectionist model and exposed businesses to foreign competition
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Assad's crony capitalism — with convenient state controls for regime loyalists — is out. Sharaa's "embrace of the free market" is in, through extreme deregulation and a mishmash of liberalization and privatization, while other fundamental economic reforms remain frozen. www.ft.com/content/5313...
ft.com
Syria’s free-market experiment
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist government has overhauled Assad’s protectionist model and exposed businesses to foreign competition
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Thanassis Cambanis @tcambanis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The US government repeats some mistakes over and over, hostage to a sefl-imposed knowledge gap. How can researchers tip the balance? Order from Ashes is back from its summer hiatus with @mattduss.bsky.social @nancyokail.bsky.social and yours truly.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Samar Yazbek's Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza, translated by Leri Price, has been longlisted for a National Book Award. Yazbek was also a finalist in 2024 and 2021. @orbooks.bsky.social Read an excerpt from her harrowing book in @hidden-cities.com:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The WSJ story doesn't even bury this lede — it doesn't mention at all how much this oil rebound has cost the US military and how long it can be sustained. www.wsj.com/world/middle...
wsj.com
Middle East Oil Exports Rebound as Iran’s Chokehold on Hormuz Breaks Down
The erosion of Iran’s position comes as the U.S. Navy and Gulf oil producers have become better at fending off or evading Iranian attacks, allowing more tankers to cross the strait.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Major buried lede here, all the way down on graf 18: "While oil is getting out in larger volumes, the U.S. military protection requires significant resources and will be hard to maintain indefinitely." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/b...
nytimes.com
Mideast Oil Exports Rebound Even as Prices Remain Elevated
More tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz as shippers gain confidence, but the global supply of oil is still below demand.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"More than halfway through the film, Yuval Abraham asks one of the subjects if he realized that he was taking part in a genocide... Now he agrees calmly, indeed casually, that yes, he has been taking part in a genocide." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | There Is a Word So Powerful It Need Be Spoken Only Once
The film that makes a powerful statement without ever raising its voice.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Brett McGurk's revisionist history is that the US should have let Israel annihilate Rafah sooner. Unlike Jake Sullivan and other Biden officials whitewashing reputations by claiming they *actually* tried to restrain Israel, or regret not doing more, McGurk has... his own brand.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Wartime redevelopment frameworks, including the Marota City and Basilia City development projects in Damascus, are being repackaged as investment opportunities for the private sector, risking legitimizing past dispossessions." One activists told HRW their land is being offered to Gulf investors:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“Syria's reconstruction is progressing slowly, but without a rights framework, it could leave many Syrians with a raw deal. The legal framework being finalized now will determine whose homes are rebuilt, whose claims are recognized, and whose voices are heard.” www.hrw.org/news/2026/09...
hrw.org
Syria: Reconstruction Deals Lack Critical Rights Framework
The Syrian transitional government is signing billions of dollars in reconstruction deals without a human rights framework that would ensure that rebuilding respects, protects, and fulfills the rights...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Add to the list of Iran war casualties the Trump administration is trying to keep quiet and only divulges after the fact: "Eight U.S. Marines were injured two weeks ago when an Iranian cruise missile attacked the ship they were operating on in the Strait of Hormuz." www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...
nbcnews.com
U.S. Marines injured in recent Iranian attack
The previously unreported attack occurred Sept. 14 when Iran struck a ship U.S. forces were on in the Strait of Hormuz, sources say.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"These are people who were shaped by the arc of post-9/11 policy in the region, and frankly they didn’t look at it with any degree of introspection or reflection.. They all have War on Terror-levels of comfort with civilian casualties." @akbarshahidahmed.bsky.social in @equatormag.bsky.social
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"It is almost impossible to overstate their desire to avoid responsibility." @akbarshahidahmed.bsky.social to @shainin.bsky.social on his "incriminating account of America’s foreign policy establishment, even as Biden’s top staffers are busy whitewashing their reputations elsewhere in the media."
equator.org
Guilty Men • EQUATOR
A new book thoroughly documents America’s complicity in genocide
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The “plan,” to be clear, is to undermine, sabotage, and ultimately try to overturn the election. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
How the Trump Administration’s Election Plan Is Falling Into Place
A Supreme Court decision allowed the use of an immigration database to check voter eligibility, but the federal strategy spans multiple fronts.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
WSJ: The AI build-out is on track to become the biggest economic bet in US history, dwarfing the investments made to fund other huge US infrastructure projects — such as the railroads, the highway system and the plumbing for the internet.” (via Jefferies)
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"In the shells of their homes, the sky is visible from the ground floor because the ceilings have been removed for the metal inside... Mohammad Hamsho, a businessman close to the regime, [is] accused of destroying Jobar to extract its steel. This year Hamsho cut a settlement deal with the new govt."
ft.com
Syria’s unfinished reckoning
Many citizens are desperate to see past crimes punished. Others worry about reigniting violence
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“The challenge is that your average person would feel a sense of reparation when these big names are arrested and tried,” says Zahra al-Barazi of Syria’s National Transitional Justice Commission, “but the person living opposite them who is an informant is actually what creates the bigger issues.”
ft.com
Syria’s unfinished reckoning
Many citizens are desperate to see past crimes punished. Others worry about reigniting violence
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
@edwardluce.bsky.social on the "unusual specter" of Trump as a checked-out, lame-duck president barely into his second term: "At a time of careening global instability, America’s president is simultaneously stoking it and uninterested in doing anything about it." www.ft.com/content/571d...
ft.com
Trump is checking out of his presidency
With no way out of his war with Iran, he is increasingly obsessed with monuments to himself
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Conservative white columnist complains that not enough white writers were longlisted for the National Book Awards. "The National Book Awards are no longer national in any meaningful sense," Bret Stephens cries—declaring non-white writers or their books not really "national" or fully American.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Samar Yazbek's Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza, translated by Leri Price, has been longlisted for a National Book Award. Yazbek was also a finalist in 2024 and 2021. @orbooks.bsky.social Read an excerpt from her harrowing book in @hidden-cities.com:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
What if, for all these years, media outlets had not given Trump free air time and a mic everywhere he went.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
MBS must have buyer's remorse. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/u...
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Scott Nover @scottnover.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
BREAKING: TV pool will not be providing coverage of presidential events until further notice b/c of CNN's ban, pool chair and FOX News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton said. It's effectively a boycott by the fellow members — ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
These pending airstrikes will definitely stop the Houthis, unlike all the other airstrikes before them.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Despite the historical rupture delivered by the astonishing implosion of the Assad regime, the debates in Syria of the 2020s resonated with the same set of challenges earlier generations of Syrians had faced.” Daniel Neep in @hidden-cities.com on Syria’s future echoing with its past:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Despite the historical rupture delivered by the astonishing implosion of the Assad regime, the debates in Syria of the 2020s resonated with the same set of challenges earlier generations of Syrians had faced.” Daniel Neep in @hidden-cities.com on Syria’s future echoing with its past:
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
If Biden or Obama had started a war that led to attacks like these on American bases—and then covered it up for months—the political backlash would eclipse Benghazi. One service member: "We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed." www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pho...
cbsnews.com
New photos show widespread damage at U.S. positions caused by Iranian missile, drone attacks
The images were sent to CBS News by active service members under condition of anonymity.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A strange development considering America’s “total and complete victory” over Iran (April) and the fact that the United States “has total control of the Strait of Hormuz!” (June, July, August, September).
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Alito (and Thomas) would let Trump do anything. As @chrisgeidner.bsky.social notes, Alito "absurdly argued that 'the plaintiff States and the courts bear a substantial share of the blame for the rule’s timing'" because... they dared to sue in the first place. www.lawdork.com/p/breaking-s...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"Commercial fuel stocks around the world have been depleting for more than six months, and strategic crude reserves can’t be tapped much further... Veteran energy advisers say that with no resolution to the Iran war in sight, the situation risks spinning out of control." www.wsj.com/business/ene...
wsj.com
Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here
Trump officials say the oil-market disruption is temporary, but Chevron’s Mike Wirth and others warn global supplies are running low, with no respite in sight.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My 9/11 story is transcribing interviews with WTC evacuees two years later, when I was 18, as an office assistant at Columbia. I heard survivors recount things I never forgot. I wrote here about what what we remember about 9/11 and what “Never Forget” left out. www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...
hidden-cities.com
What ‘Never Forget’ Left Out
In the instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—there were things America wanted to forget.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I did watch the whole segment out of curiosity and the interviews are so softball that it really does borderline propaganda
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My 9/11 story is transcribing interviews with WTC evacuees two years later, when I was 18, as an office assistant at Columbia. I heard survivors recount things I never forgot. I wrote here about what what we remember about 9/11 and what “Never Forget” left out. www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...
hidden-cities.com
What ‘Never Forget’ Left Out
In the instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—there were things America wanted to forget.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
After 9/11, there were things America wanted to forget. @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/what-never...
hidden-cities.com
What ‘Never Forget’ Forgot
The instant, mass memorialization of 9/11 that defined the Bush era—and after—has always left things out.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Well this Peter Baker piece published just hours ago has aged gracefully. I was assured that "the country and its politics have moved on." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/u...
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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 11/09/2026
What I will never forget is Ari Fleisher posting his annual million-tweet tick tock of 9/11 for likes and Twitter followers and then becoming a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
the top headlines in our news media today are about the wonderful new promises of the guy who said "i will fix it on day one" to high gas prices
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Did JD Vance write this?
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Sources say JD Vance is trying to get Pete Hegseth fired, while trying to protect his MAGA brand. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/u...
nytimes.com
Behind the Scenes, Vance Gathered Unvarnished Views of the Iran War
Vice President JD Vance received sobering assessments about the war that did not line up with what he, along with President Trump and other top administration officials, were saying publicly.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Waiting on our Trump checks:
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