Frederick Deknatel
@freddydeknatel.bsky.social
2.3K followers 3.1K following 2.1K posts
Journalist, fellow at Century International, editor of Hidden Cities: https://hiddencities.substack.com/ Previously: Founding executive editor, Democracy in Exile @dawnmenaorg.bsky.social; managing editor @wpr.bsky.social; staff editor @foreignaffairs.com
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freddydeknatel.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to join the Century Foundation as a fellow at Century International, where I'll be writing on Syria's future, from the huge challenges of reconstruction to the prospects for U.S.-Syria ties after Assad. @centuryintl.bsky.social @tcfdotorg.bsky.social
tcf.org/experts/fred...
Frederick Deknatel - The Century Foundation
Frederick Deknatel is a journalist, editor and fellow at Century International, where he writes about Middle Eastern affairs. From 2021 to 2025, he was
tcf.org
Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“The same people who did the killing and financed the killing and justified the killing and turned away from the killing will congratulate themselves on doing the right thing.”

- Omar El Akkad

open.substack.com/pub/hiddenci...
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
🎶 And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin' 🎶
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Hegseth: “I’m proud that today we're signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.”
atrupar.com
BARTIROMO: What is the function of this Qatar facility? People are wondering if this is an airbase. What are they developing in Idaho?

VANCE: This is largely a fake story
Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
justinelliott.bsky.social
Here is our full story that Vance is dismissing, with primary source documents showing Trump cabinet members with multiple primary-residence mortgages

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
I published this essay by Omar El Akkad, adapted from his stunning book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” because he articulates better than anyone the moment we are in.

Read and subscribe to Hidden Cities for more writing like it: hiddencities.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...
Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'
An excerpt from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
hiddencities.substack.com
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“The same people who did the killing and financed the killing and justified the killing and turned away from the killing will congratulate themselves on doing the right thing.”

- Omar El Akkad

open.substack.com/pub/hiddenci...
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
What if… Trump doesn’t have any “dealmaking magic.”
Bloomberg

The fragility of Trump's self-proclaimed dealmaking magic is being laid bare as the China trade truce teeters on the verge of collapse
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Hey, Hidden Cities is already listed as #30 “Rising” in World Politics on Substack (the fastest-growing publications within a category).

Help me pass Council Estate Media and Yascha Mounk in momentum!

Read Omar El Akkad’s bracing essay:

open.substack.com/pub/hiddenci...
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“I can’t think of words to capture the significance that federal judges themselves have to speak out,” said J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge, “because the Supreme Court has given them no choice but to speak out.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...
Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders
www.nytimes.com
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Remarkable reporting, and hugely significant that federal judges are speaking out like this (anonymously).

One thing that seems to go unsaid: judges see the Supreme Court’s shadow docket decisions as arbitrary. They are opaque, unexplained, unreasoned. Antithetical to the entire judicial system.
leahlitman.bsky.social
More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...
Excerpts Excerpts
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Benioff barely lives in San Francisco anymore. Like other tech oligarchs, he spends most his time in Hawaii where he has amassed land like a plantation lord.

So why is he calling on federal troops to occupy the city? To curry favor with Trump, who wants a presidential guard deployed at his whims.
Since the pandemic, he has mostly lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he has bought up numerous parcels of land. He said that he wasn't sure how many days he spends each year in San Francisco, but that he is never in one place for more than a day or two.
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“It’s possible that what I have to say is how to live with defeat, or how to live with despair, or how to champion a lost cause.”

Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s first interview since his release: “there is no opportunity for organising in Egypt and it is too dangerous at the moment.”
‘I deserve to heal’: freed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah on his prison ordeal and next steps
The campaigner, who spent more than a decade in an Egyptian ‘vortex of incarceration’, wants to join his son in the UK while he reflects on the fight for freedom
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“It is not so hard to believe, even during the worst of things, that courage is the more potent contagion. That there are more invested in solidarity than annihilation. That just as it has always been possible to look away, it is always possible to stop looking away.“

Omar El Akkad in Hidden Cities
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Honored to publish this essay by Omar El Akkad adapted from his stunning book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” in Hidden Cities, a new publication that aims to illuminate the world.

Read and subscribe here: open.substack.com/pub/hiddenci...
Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'
An excerpt from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
open.substack.com
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
“It is not so hard to believe, even during the worst of things, that courage is the more potent contagion. That there are more invested in solidarity than annihilation. That just as it has always been possible to look away, it is always possible to stop looking away.“

Omar El Akkad in Hidden Cities
Reposted by Frederick Deknatel
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
"One day there will be no more looking away... One day there will be an accounting."

A powerful excerpt from Omar El Akkad's searing book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," in my new publication, Hidden Cities.

Read and subscribe! hiddencities.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...
Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'
An excerpt from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
hiddencities.substack.com
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Yes but: Wasn't the Nobel, however dubious, really because of Obama's call for eliminating nuclear weapons? That "vision" obviously failed but still seemed somewhat momentous at the time, and was perhaps more significant than simply not being George W. Bush? www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace...
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Albert Speer, a name people are saying more and more.
Model of Adolf Hitler's plan for Berlin formulated under the direction of Albert Speer, looking north toward the Volkshalle at the top of the frame.
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
"When finally there is no other means of preserving self-interest but to act, the powerful will act. The same people who did the killing and financed the killing and justified the killing and turned away from the killing will congratulate themselves on doing the right thing."
One day this will end. In liberation, in peace, or in eradication at a scale so overwhelming it resets history. It’ll end when sanctions pile up high enough, or the political cost of occupation and apartheid proves debilitating. When finally there is no other means of preserving self-interest but to act, the powerful will act. The same people who did the killing and financed the killing and justified the killing and turned away from the killing will congratulate themselves on doing the right thing. It is very important to do the right thing, eventually.

When the time comes to assign blame, most of those to blame will be long gone. There will always be feigned shock at how bad things really were, how we couldn’t have possibly known. There will be those who say it was all the work of a few bad actors, people who misled the rest of us well-meaning folks. Anything to avoid contending with the possibility that all this killing wasn’t the result of a system abused, but a system functioning exactly as intended.
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
"One day there will be no more looking away... One day there will be an accounting."

A powerful excerpt from Omar El Akkad's searing book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," in my new publication, Hidden Cities.

Read and subscribe! hiddencities.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...
Omar El Akkad: 'One Day There Will Be No More Looking Away.'
An excerpt from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
hiddencities.substack.com
freddydeknatel.bsky.social
Meanwhile, the architects of Biden’s Middle East policies have plum positions at Harvard etc and are awaiting the call to advise the next Democrat in the White House and do this all over again.
exum.bsky.social
This week has confirmed my suspicion that Biden’s Middle East policies will look worse, and will be even more embarrassing for Democrats, with the passage of time.