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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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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 9h
The NYT and others will cover this as “Trump Renews Calls for Federal Immigration Surge in Minnesota.”
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 10h
“This is what international law, and first and foremost the international laws of war, are trying to enforce. But the last few days prove that we have learned nothing.” And the years since. @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/it-didnt-s...
hidden-cities.com
It Didn't Start on October 7
There is still no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 10h
As Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard wrote in the aftermath of Oct 7, days into Israel destroying Gaza: “If there is anything that the history of humanity, scarred by atrocities, should teach us, it is that no crime can justify another. Nor can any crime mitigate the severity of another.”
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 19h
The growing Trump-Republika Srpska circle of corruption. Trumpworld is putting the Balkan enclave on the map! www.ft.com/content/c163...
ft.com
Daughter of Trump’s chief of staff works at firm that lobbies for Republika Srpska
Susie Wiles’s daughter is latest White House-linked adviser to the Russian-aligned Balkan entity
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21h
"A 2025 investigation by the Syria Justice and Accountability Center identified two suspected grave sites linked to people who died in detention at Mezzeh, where it said more than 1,150 detainees died, some by execution and others from torture." www.reuters.com/world/middle...
reuters.com
Syrian private airport plans spark outcry over mass graves, land rights
Syrian government plans to turn a former military airport in Damascus into a hub for private jets are raising alarm among rights groups and residents who say redevelopment could disturb suspected mass...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21h
"To construct a business airport on a site that may contain mass graves, without a thorough prior investigation, without site protection, without searching for the missing and their remains, without preserving evidence, is an act of extreme recklessness and ​disregard," said journalist Amer Matar.
reuters.com
Syrian private airport plans spark outcry over mass graves, land rights
Syrian government plans to turn a former military airport in Damascus into a hub for private jets are raising alarm among rights groups and residents who say redevelopment could disturb suspected mass...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21h
"The project is emerging as a test of how Syria’s new authorities balance a drive to attract investment and redevelop state assets with two unresolved legacies of Assad’s family rule: the fate of tens of thousands of missing Syrians and property rights clouded by decades of expropriation."
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 21h
A startling image of how much the new Syrian government is pushing for foreign investment at all costs: It is planning to turn Mezzeh military airport—a notorious intelligence branch, detention center, and execution site during the war—into a hub for private jets. www.reuters.com/world/middle...
reuters.com
Syrian private airport plans spark outcry over mass graves, land rights
Syrian government plans to turn a former military airport in Damascus into a hub for private jets are raising alarm among rights groups and residents who say redevelopment could disturb suspected mass...
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 23h
It was a short call, Carlberg said: All the poet would say was she
was "in Iceland," where she was
"listening to the wind."
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The "SI" thing is was intended to provoke this exact sort of sniveling response from the courtiers, to train the oligarchs to humiliate themselves for Trump so they'll do it again later when it really matters.
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Congratulations Samar Yazbek, a finalist (again!) for the National Book Award for translated literature. Read an excerpt from her harrowing, vital book "Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza" in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
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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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“If there is anything that the history of humanity, scarred by atrocities, should teach us, it is that no crime can justify another. Nor can any crime mitigate the severity of another.” Michael Sfard, writing in the days after October 7, an all too prescient warning of what was to come in Gaza:
hidden-cities.com
It Didn't Start on October 7
There is still no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“If there is anything that the history of humanity, scarred by atrocities, should teach us, it is that no crime can justify another. Nor can any crime mitigate the severity of another.” Michael Sfard, writing in the days after October 7, an all too prescient warning of what was to come in Gaza:
hidden-cities.com
It Didn't Start on October 7
There is still no solution to the conflict in Israel-Palestine that is not based on respecting everyone’s human rights.
042
Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Honored to publish this essay by one of Syria's great writers, 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? Where does human pain go when justice is absent?” www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Congratulations Samar Yazbek, a finalist (again!) for the National Book Award for translated literature. Read an excerpt from her harrowing, vital book "Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza" in @hidden-cities.com www.hidden-cities.com/p/samar-yazb...
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 · 05/10/2026
"Western governments who loudly denounced Assad-era expropriation schemes—which they feared would impede refugee returns—have been publicly silent as those very same projects continue under new leadership." peoplesplanet.substack.com/p/syria-reco...
peoplesplanet.substack.com
Syria, self-made: The fight against expropriation
Syrians are renegotiating their relationship to power.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Great piece by Alex Simon on what little reconstruction entails in Syria today: "a disjointed array of urban redevelopment schemes, from the Damascus suburbs to Homs to Raqqa," many of which "pick up directly where the Assad regime left off." But Syrians are organizing and pushing back.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
What's more, these checks are only going to 30 states, most of them Republican-led states. abcnews.com/Health/trump...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
“At the same time that Gaza induces vertigo, a feeling of chaos and emptiness, it becomes for countless powerless people the essential condition of political and ethical consciousness in the 21st century - just as World War I was for a generation in the West.” -Pankaj Mishra, The World After Gaza
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Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Hidden Cities @hidden-cities.com · 02/10/2026
@alhakam.bsky.social on returning to Aleppo and his beloved Old City after exile, to save the family home wrecked by war but still standing. “I still have a home here—in Aleppo, in Syria—even if it’s a skeleton that we are slowly putting flesh back on.” 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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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 · 01/10/2026
The Strait is open!
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
evenmagazine.com/aleppo-syria...
evenmagazine.com
Cinderblocks, by Frederick Deknatel — Even Magazine
Reconstruction is war by other means. Even before the horrific bombardment of Syria’s largest city, the battle to control its future had already begun
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
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
"In early 2026, I returned to Aleppo once more, this time determined to stay home at any cost. Maybe al-Hazzazeh could become that home." @alhakam.bsky.social 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
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
I have some bad news for you: Editors love shorthand, especially evocative words that easily fit in a headline — like rubble, ruins, ashes, etc — which can indeed quickly become a cliche.
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For all the war's devastation, of course Syria is not a blank slate. Sharaa's reconstruction agenda is both a neoliberal fantasy and a holdover of some reviled Assad-era plans. But this piece would be more convincing if it had bothered to check some obvious reporting bylines and author bios.
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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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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
Yes, exactly. And a stalemate between cheap Iranian drones and billions in US military deployments doesn't exactly favor the US.
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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
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
haaretz.com
Rafah is gone. Razed to the ground. It's not the only city decimated by the Israeli army
On the eve of the war, the Rafah metropolitan area in Gaza had a population of 275,000. Jabalya refugee camp had 56,000 residents. Beit Lahia had 108,000. Today, those are little more than ruins. The ...
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Frederick Deknatel @freddydeknatel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is what "Israel's operation in Rafah" did, entirely enabled by American bombs and support. Haaretz: "The proportion of structures that have been eradicated in Rafah and in Jabalya refugee camp is higher than what was destroyed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
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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
"Both projects are managed by Damascus Cham Holding, a company established under Assad and now operating under the transitional government." 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
"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
www.equator.org/articles/bid...
equator.org
Guilty Men • EQUATOR
A new book thoroughly documents America’s complicity in genocide
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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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