Adel Darwish

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Adel Alexander Darwish
عادل درويش
Born1944
Alexandria, Egypt
NationalityBritish
Other namesAlex Darwin, Alexander T. Darwin, A. Adel A.
Education
London University
Occupation(s)Political journalist, author, historian, broadcaster, political commentator
Years activeAfrica: 1967–1970; Middle East: 1970–2002; Westminster: 2002–present
Employer(s)World Media, Middle East News, The Middle East Magazine, The Tribune
Notable workNumerous books

Adel Alexander Darwish (

Egyptian Arabic: عادل درويش, IPA: [ˈʕæːdel dæɾˈwiːʃ]) is a Westminster-based British political journalist, a veteran Fleet Street
reporter, author, historian, broadcaster, and political commentator. Darwish is currently (since 2002) a parliament lobby correspondent based at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, the Palace of Westminster, specialising in foreign affairs, especially Middle Eastern politics; London University Graduate/Post Graduate 1965/1966–1967.

Darwish is a veteran

The News of The World, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, The YorkShire Post, The Washington Post and The Times, and many international newspapers and publications in North America, Asia and the Middle East, as well as maintaining his online blog and publishing several books.[1] He is currently the political editor of World Media, Middle East News and The Middle East Magazine,[2] and a regular contributor to The Tribune
.

Name

Darwish also writes under the

pen names
Alex Darwin, Alexander T. Darwin and also A. Adel A.

Early life

Darwish was born in

British government
.

After attending British schools in Alexandria, Darwish moved to Britain After the Suez War (between 1956 – 1959) where he studied for A levels then to London University. He graduated in 1966, having also spent four semesters in the academic year 1963-1964[clarification needed] at Alexandria University as part of his study of Middle Eastern history.

After university, Darwish began his journalistic career in Africa, as a correspondent for several British

Black September clashes in Jordan
.

Darwish was also sent to

Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council. There is an amusing well known story in Fleet Street about the occasion when Darwish, along with another Middle East correspondent, John Bulloch, met Saddam Hussein, who invited "her majesty's press corps" to a glass of the Iraqi national drink, which turned out to be a bottle of Black Label Whisky.[3] That evening, Mr Deputy, as Saddam Hussein was known then, out-drank the entire Fleet Street mission to Baghdad.[4] In 1973, Darwish became a Middle East-based correspondent, and went on to cover that year's Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria attacked Israel to recapture land lost in the 1967 Six-Day War
.

Journalistic career

Adel Darwish is currently the Political Editor of the

Middle East Group, based at the Parliamentary Press Gallery [1] at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
in Westminster.

A

Anwar Al Sadat (1981) and his state funeral, and the Gulf War
(1991).

Darwish was the first journalist in the world to

market price if he were to annex Kuwait
.

Strengthening Darwish's position as a leading regional investigative reporter during his time at The Independent (1986–1998), Darwish published numerous

talks between Syria and Israel; the 1988 secret missile deal between Saudi Arabia and China;[6] and the role of the United States Navy and Air Force in supporting Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War and Hussein's long-standing relationship with the United States' Central Intelligence Agency.[7] He was among the first writers to use the term "Islamists" to refer to Islamic extremists employing violence
.

Personally acquainted with most Middle Eastern leaders and statesmen, Darwish also had close ties to British

Foreign Office officials active in the region, known as the Camel Corps. The many obituaries he has written for The Independent, numbering more than 200, give a unique insight into a century of Middle Eastern history and the interaction of the British Empire and the Arab world
.

Darwish worked as a fleet street correspondent and stringer in Jerusalem, Cairo, Tehran, Beirut, Bahrain, and as a roving correspondent in Africa and the Middle East.

For a period of approximately nine months and until December 2008, Darwish was director of the UK-based research organization Just Journalism. He resigned citing disagreements with the organisation's chairwoman and founder, on the issue of neutrality.[8]

As well as The Independent and The Daily Telegraph, Darwish has worked for

Kuwait TV
.

Theatre

As a playwright, Darwish has been involved in British theatre, with some of his plays performed at the

Edinburgh Festival and at the Young Vic and several Fringe theatres in London during the 1970s. Most of his plays are adaptations of poems and short stories
from Africa, especially from Egypt.

Awards

In 2008, Adel Darwish won the Cutting Edge Prize ("for an outstanding new ideas and contribution to peace and understanding via Journalism") from the Next Century Foundation's International Council for Press and Broadcasting media council awards, for his contribution to better understanding both in and towards the Middle East. At the International Media Awards in 2017 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for the positive impact his work has had on coverage of the Middle East.[9]

Publications

  • Darwish, Adel: Alexandria Adieu: A Personal History, (London : Nomad Publishing; London, 2022).
    ISBN 978-1-914325-00-7
  • Alexander, Gregory and Darwish, Adel: Unholy Babylon: The Secret History of Saddam's War, (London: Gollancz; New York:
    ISBN 978-0-312-06531-7
    .
  • Bulloch, John and Darwish, Adel: Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East, (London: Gollancz, 1993).
    ISBN 978-0-575-05533-9
    .
  • Darwin, Alex (pen name): The Edge of War, Kuwait's Underground Resistance, Khafji 1990-1991 (London: Gulf Museum Consultancy Company, 2011).
    ISBN 978-0-95686340-9
  • Darwish, Adel: Halabja: whom does the truth hurt? at openDemocracy.
  • Darwish, Adel:Showdown interview with CNN :[2]
  • Darwish, Adel: Anti-Americanism in the Arabic Language Media in Middle East Review of International Affairs, 7, 4 (December 2003).
  • Darwish, Adel; On reaction to 9/11 in the Middle East:[3][dead link]
  • Water Wars. A lecture given by Darwish to the Geneva Conference on Environment and Quality of Life. (June 1994).
  • Darwish, Adel: Middle East Water Wars, BBC. Updated 30 May 2003. Retrieved 6 December 2008.
  • Darwish, Adel; In the anniversary of Iraq's murder of Observer reporter Farzad Bazoft: [4]

References

  1. ^ a b Darwish, Adel (21 March 2003): Why Saddam has cast himself as the Godfather of Baghdad[dead link], in The Daily Telegraph.
  2. ^ The Middle East Archived 9 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine at IC Publications.
  3. ^ John Bulloch; The Telegraph
  4. ^ Why Saddam has cast himself as the Godfather of Baghdad; The Telegraph
  5. ^ Darwish, Adel (1991): Unholy Babylon: The Secret History of Saddam's War, (London: Gollancz; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).
  6. ^ Saudi Arabia Special Weapons at GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 6 December 2008.
  7. ISBN 978-1-137-48711-7
    .
  8. ^ "Neutrality was very much at the heart of the dispute between myself and the chairwoman of the board (the lady who founded the organisation) as I insisted on neutrality from the start. I wanted the organisation to develop [and] deal with news coverage of the Middle East in general, and become a source of information and a think tank for the media dealing with the Middle East. Therefore when the lady holding the purse of the organisation and I had different agenda and different aims, I resigned as from 31 December 2008. Also, for the same reason, respected columnist Nick Cohen, whom I [had] persuaded to join the Advisory Board, has also resigned, along with Dr Tarek Heggy, a very prominent Egyptian born international thinker." AdelDarwish.com Archived 7 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 10 March 2009
  9. ^ "The Lifetime Achievement Award".
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