A Knowledge Center on the Middle East and the Arab World in Europe

Europe and the Middle East, and more broadly the Arab world, share centuries of exchanges, tensions, and cross-influences. Yet, misunderstandings, stereotypes, and biased readings remain omnipresent, fueling identity divisions and cultural withdrawal.

Ashteret intends to bridge this gap by creating a true transregional knowledge center, anchored in Europe but focused on the plurality of Arab and Middle Eastern societies.

Our objectives are multiple:

  • Explain the specificities of the Middle East, within an Arab world both united by common elements (Arabic language, Islamic heritages) and marked by great historical, religious, ethnic, and political diversity.
  • Present the regional mosaic in its complexity: from Lebanon to the Maghreb, from Palestine to the Gulf, integrating Jewish, Christian, Kurdish, Berber, Shia, Sunni, secular, or mystical histories.
  • Offer adapted pedagogical tools: training, conferences, publications, articles, maps, podcasts, to better understand contemporary challenges (geopolitical, religious, cultural, social).
  • Foster exchanges between researchers, intellectuals, artists, and institutions from the Middle East, the Arab world, and the diasporas, to break down silos of knowledge and initiate new dialogues.
  • Create open spaces for meetings and debates, where people can think together without reducing the complexity of subjects to identity-based or geopolitical slogans.
  • Raise public awareness about erroneous perceptions, simplistic or Islam-centric discourses, while highlighting the cultural, philosophical, and intellectual contributions of Middle Eastern societies to global thought.

This knowledge center is neither a closed academic observatory nor an activist platform: it is a space for transmission and mutual understanding, where one thinks against caricatures and speaks to better connect.

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