Middle Orient

The dramatic, earth-shattering events in Palestine starting on October 7 have taken many people by surprise. However, attentive observers are not. Few expected that Palestinian fighters would be parachuting into southern Israel on October 7; that instead of capturing a single Israeli soldier – as done in 2006 – hundreds …

Large-scale violence has erupted again between Palestinians and Israel, prompting a fresh round of analyses. Most of the international media is evaluating the war through the lens of business and political allegiances. In such interpretations, the current conflict is cut off from its historical setting. According to most media reports, …

Analysts see the reappointment of Lebanon’s army commander, Joseph Aoun, as a stabilizing influence that is key to keeping Lebanon relatively peaceful at a time of border skirmishes with Israel. It is not clear, though, whether he can keep Lebanon out of a conflict with Israel and avoid a growing …

Qatar seems to be the “go-to guy” for almost anything important going on in the last few months, especially over the last weeks. The influence of the Emir Tamim Bin Hadad Al-Thani has grown completely out of proportion, and for a good reason: Qatar invests heavily in the Western world, …

The combat arena: The IDF forces continued to attack terrorist targets in a number of central locations in the Gaza Strip, among them Daraj and Tufah in the northern Gaza Strip, the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, where the …

Biden Must Take Risks, Talk Straight, and Act Boldly Wars in the Middle East rarely end cleanly. Some observers, however, have expressed the hope that the Israel-Hamas war could upend a dangerous status quo and eventually lead to more stability in the region. The war is often compared to the …

Key Takeaways: Hamas and other Palestinian militias are exploiting the Israeli hostages they are holding to ensure that Hamas and its partners are involved in any negotiations about the future of the Gaza Strip. Hamas having a role in the future of the strip is incompatible with Israel’s stated war …

Driving from Israel to the West Bank is like stepping through the looking glass. The world is almost identical, but subtly altered. Scenery deceives; palm trees line the centre of a boulevard, but they are short and stubby. The same off-white buildings that populate Jerusalem dominate Ramallah, but they are …

President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. servicemembers were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier …

By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons. “They [UNRWA] teach …