Shana Cohen

Renowned curator Rose Issa joins MEI Arts & Culture director Lyne Sneige to discuss Arabicity | Ourouba, the inaugural exhibit of contemporary Middle Eastern art that premiered September 14 at the new MEI Art Gallery, and why an understanding of the region’s arts and culture are important to the policy discourse in Washington.

Saudi Arabia surprised the global oil and gas industry earlier this month by reshuffling its top two energy positions. Long-serving technocrat Khalid al-Falih was ousted as chair of Saudi Aramco one day and as head of the Ministry of Energy the next.

In late July, Lt. Gen. Michael Anker Lollesgaard left Yemen after his six-month term as the second head of the UN Mission in support of the Hodeida Agreement (UNMHA) came to an end. Unlike his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, who departed quietly, Lollesgaard was given a proper sendoff from Sana’a. A senior Houthi commander, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Musheki, even went so far as to describe Lollesgaard as “a conscientious military commander.”

Despite constituting about 20 percent of the Israeli population, Israel’s Palestinian minority does not wield significant political power; throughout Israeli history Palestinian parties have played the role of the permanent opposition. While low Israeli-Palestinian electoral participation and the resulting disproportionate parliamentary representation have hampered political influence, these factors are merely one part of a multi-faceted and multi-causal picture. This report seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the exogenous and endogenous drivers of reduced Palestinian political engagement. It is concerned with the structural obstacles –– primarily put in place and sustained by the Israeli right wing –– that seek to impede Palestinian influence at the polls and in the Knesset.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Ruba Husari, Paul Salem, Gerald Feierstein, Amal Kandeel, Grace Wermenbol, Robert S. Ford, Charles Lister, and Gonul Tol.

Tehran needs a friend. Beijing may be a dangerous one.

Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell, co-directors of MEI’s new Cybersecurity initiative, join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the how the sudden rise of cyber threats has impacted the region, and the legal and technological challenges the international community must continue to grapple with in the years ahead.

Israel’s upcoming election, set for Sept. 17, dragged on through the summer and looked set to be a repeat of its predecessor on April 9, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed by a single Knesset vote to put together a majority coalition. It has indeed been a largely sleepy affair, with the centrist Blue-White party dueling with the Likud for the crucial top spot and most other parties barely budging in the polls. This somnolence ended explosively the week before the election with a series of events whose impact is still unclear.

One important dynamic that is not acknowledged enough is the intensifying competition between Russia and Iran to determine the future shape of Syria and their position in it. While the very real competitive dynamic between Moscow and Tehran will never transition to hostility, it is beginning to have a very real effect on the evolution of major aspects of the crisis — from active conflict theaters, to the structures of the state, control over resources, and the prospect of intra-state conflict on Syrian soil.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a fifth term in April, the first such victory for an Israeli politician. In May, he failed to form a governing coalition, a first for an Israeli politician as well. Snap elections are scheduled for Sept. 17 and, true to form, rivals and observers are saying that surely his era may be nearing an end. Notwithstanding the possible changes that could be witnessed on the local political scene, skeptics are hard-pressed to see how the elections could bring about drastic change for either Israel or the region.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Robert S. Ford, Fatima Abo Alasrar, Jean-François Seznec, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell.

What was President Donald Trump thinking when, on June 24, when he announced a historic revision of U.S. security policy in the Gulf?

As Washington slept, Trump tweeted that “China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world!”

Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Lebanon’s economy. On Aug. 23 Fitch downgraded its credit rating to CCC, meaning both it and Moody’s now rate the country’s bonds as junk. Ten days later, on Sept. 2, Lebanon’s top officials and bankers declared the country was in a state of economic emergency and said emergency measures would be taken.