George Ajjan is an international political strategist and commentator.

In addition to advising candidates as a campaign strategist on a global basis, Mr. Ajjan is often sought out as a television pundit, hired by Sky News to offer prime-time commentary both from London and New York studios for the 2008 US Presidential election.

Mr. Ajjan was born and raised in the state of New Jersey and graduated from The Johns Hopkins University in 1998. After 3 years of management experience at Procter & Gamble, he earned an MBA from the London Business School in 2003.

Since his congressional run in 2004, he has played an active role in US campaigns, assisting candidates at the local, county, state, and federal levels. Internationally, Mr. Ajjan has led numerous projects spanning Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Explore this website and his full bio to learn more about George Ajjan.
 

28.6.06

George, Tony, Jacques, אהוד and بشار

Nidal al-Mughrabi, writing for Reuters, reported today on the expanding conflict over a captured Israeli soldier.
Israel also turned up the heat on Syria, sending warplanes low over one of President Bashar al-Assad's palaces to warn him against backing militants who kidnapped the soldier, the Israeli army said. Bashar was there at the time, Israeli media said.
However, later in the article it refers to the Syrian President as "Assad".

Generally speaking, media use surnames when pertaining to heads of state. The most notable exception in recent memory is former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein al-Majd al-Tikriti, whom the media, both Arabic and English, regularly identified as "Saddam". Although this was arguably as much the result of his own self-imposed personality cult as anyone's outside attempt to de-legitimize the man. I do recall occasional attempts to professionalize this matter, reading the NY Times refer to "Mr. Hussein", which never seemed to fit.

Likewise in Syria, but to a much lesser extent, there exists a certain familiarity with the President, expressed by references to "Dr. Bashar", for example.

But with respect to today's piece, I find it highly unlikely that Reuters would ever publish an article discussing the inhabitants of Presidential residences in the US, UK, France, or Israel referring to George, Tony, Jacques, or Ehud.