Regional elections are never very exciting political events. Often, however, they are telling of what comes afterwards. Perhaps this is a way of reading France's regional elections in June 2021.
French President Emmanuel Macron's political party (...)
That Benjamin Netanyahu is leaving the prime ministerial office merits a reflection on Israeli politics.
The man is often depicted in stark terms – as the saviour of the Israeli right after the disappearance of its major pillars Menachem Begin, (...)
The war on Gaza rages on. Yet, already important consequences are clear – not only for the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, but also for the strategic scene in the Middle East as a whole.
Seven consequences merit particular attention.
One – Hamas was (...)
The Left has been on retreat despite the difficult economic conditions from before the pandemic and exacerbated by it. And yet ideas such as the expansionist role of the state in the economy, have been rising since the financial crisis and are here (...)
One or two meetings have taken place, likely at the level of heads of intelligence. And the interventions of two capitals in Europe and the Levant have led to the preparation of another meeting in a few weeks.
This is not the beginning of a (...)
By the standards of a prince of the Catholic Church, the words of Maronite Cardinal Mar Bishara Al-Raii were acutely assertive. On the day commemorating the tenth anniversary of his ascension to become the patriarch of Lebanon's Maronite Church, and (...)
If there is a deal between the US and Iran, it will be a new deal. Circumstances in the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean have moved on since the agreement five years ago between the US and other world powers and Iran on how to deal with the (...)
Whether or not the Jo Biden Administration will come to office smoothly, is important, for this will strengthen or weaken the credibility in the basic tenets of America's democracy. But in the bigger picture of what is happening in America, there (...)
The key to answering the question of whether Europe can achieve “strategic autonomy” lies in defining what this means. “Strategic” indicates autonomy in the political objectives Europe pursues, in the ways it pursues them, and in responding to the (...)
French President Emmanuel Macron's remarks on Islam after the beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown offensive cartoons of Muslims' most revered Prophet Mohamed to his students in class, have sparked Muslim outrage, and a hashtag (...)
Edward Said was the most prominent and eloquent voice speaking about the Arab world outside of it. The word “outside” is key, for he consistently chose to live in the West. New York was home, but Northern California, London and Paris were places he (...)
Amidst the different factors causing turbulence in the Eastern Mediterranean, observers ought to know where to look. Five factors merit thinking about, for they will shape the Eastern Mediterranean in the foreseeable future.
IRAN IN SYRIA AND (...)
The US presidential elections are drawing nearer, and the countries of the European Union are rethinking politics now that the Covid-19 has become part of life, especially as important elections in Germany and France are on the horizon.
There is (...)
China and India have already moved from being industrial powerhouses to trying to secure resources, markets and favourable trading conditions across the globe.
China's Belt & Road Initiative, its modern take on the old Silk Roads that once (...)
That Israel is contemplating annexing significant parts of the West Bank says more about Israel these days than about the future of the land itself.
Two points merit attention.
First, there is an increasing imbalance in Israeli decision making (...)
Whether invoked by a neo-conservative in the George W Bush administration or denied by a liberal in Obama's, America is an empire. However, for decades the reach and influence of this empire were checked by the existence of other empires. The 30 (...)
Young, smart, articulate, and beautiful, Samantha Power had a sizeable following. As the US's Ambassador at the United Nations, she used her stardom to give American diplomacy a humane face. It was apt, for she was the personification of the (...)
Conventional wisdom now holds that the era of globalisation has ended, and that the world after the coronavirus will see the return of the strong state. But this misses that countries are different. A large number of states will prove unable to meet (...)
The Egyptian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz sculpted characters not just in his novels but also in the minds of his readers. Cinema also helped him. No Arab novelist has had more films made based on his novels. As a result, his written (...)
Four dilemmas have long dominated Iranian thinking. The first is cultural. Iran was the first major empire that fell to the Islamic forces that emerged from Arabia in the 7th century. The highly sophisticated civilisation embraced the religion that (...)
In the past forty years, Europe has gone through a turning point at the end of every decade.
The first came at the end of the 1970s when Greece, Spain, and Portugal embraced democracy. This evolved the European project from mechanisms of economic (...)
There is a growing view that after seven years of multi-faceted wars, the Eastern Mediterranean is returning to stability.
Four factors lend credibility to this view, but their impact will be merely in the short-term. What will really shape the (...)
There is a growing view that after seven years of multi-faceted wars, the Eastern Mediterranean is returning to stability. Four factors lend credibility to this view, but their impact will be merely in the short-term. What will really shape the (...)
The future of the Arab-Euro relationship, following the first EU-Arab League summit, will boil down to whether both sides see the Mediterranean as a bridge or a barrier between them.
Bridge means enhanced trading, legislative and regulatory (...)
The future of the Arab-Euro relationship, following the first EU-Arab League summit, will boil down to whether both sides see the Mediterranean as a bridge or a barrier between them.
Bridge means enhanced trading, legislative and regulatory (...)