المشرق العربي

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Paul Salem, Hafsa Halawa, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, and Gerald Feierstein.

The Israelis and Hezbollah are at it again. Earlier this week, they seem to have skirmished in the Shebaa Farms area. In their latest exchange of fire, or fiery statements, Israel and Hezbollah are continuing a new tradition of contained conflicts — one stretching back five years, when the Israelis stepped up efforts to interdict weapons shipments, destroy infrastructure, and kill Iranian or Iranian-supported officials and fighters in Syria (and indeed Iraq).

In the Palestinian West Bank, a brutal second wave began over a month ago with a more than 20-fold increase in COVID-19 infections, putting an immense strain on the health care system. This strain, however, needs to be understood in the context of the ongoing violence of the Israeli settler colonial regime.

On July 12, the Armenian and the Azerbaijani armed forces started a border skirmish. Fighting went on for several days, leaving at least 16 dead in its wake. Remarkably enough, the two sides are facing off outside the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the usual flashpoint. This time around the flare-up took place well to the north, where Armenia’s Tavush region meets Azerbaijan’s Tovuz district. It is little wonder then that the crisis caught Turkey’s attention.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Mirette F. Mabrouk, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Gonul Tol, Alex Vatanka, and Gerald Feierstein.

The circumstances seem to be right for a genuine rethink of the Syrian political process, but there are few answers to the question that can be heard often in Geneva, Washington, and Brussels these days: “What now?” The Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity has just released a major report, titled “We Are Syria,” that could help to provide the answer to that question: reorient the political process to make the rights of the displaced its foundation, and make the regime and its allies understand that this is the way toward the easing of sanctions and ultimately a sustainable political solution.

Syria’s recent parliamentary elections, held on July 19, set a new precedent for the Assad regime, and there were 10 key differences from the previous elections that have been held since they were first introduced by Hafez al-Assad in 1973.

While it seems as though the immediate threat of Israeli annexation has, for the time being, faded, the incident raises an interesting new set of questions about how this particular battle will continue to play out in an increasingly digitized Middle East and the potential for retaliation by Palestinian and other actors in cyberspace, whether or not such an annexation takes place.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Mirette F. Mabrouk, Robert S. Ford, Nazila Fathi, and Marvin G. Weinbaum provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including rising tensions in Libya, economic turmoil and anti-regime protests in Iran, and the Jordanian high court’s decision to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood.

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On the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Stuxnet computer virus, designed by the U.S. and Israel to target Iran’s nuclear program, the Islamic Republic is facing a new wave of unclaimed acts of sabotage.

HTS launched multiple raids on SBS, forcing its factions to close their military bases and banning the formation of any new factions or operations rooms. In doing so, it has killed two birds with one stone: demarcating new redlines for its rivals and demonstrating its usefulness to its Turkish “partner” and the international community in their war on terrorism.

Over the past decade, the two main pillars of Lebanon’s stability have been the country’s army and its banking sector. Today one of those pillars — the banking sector — has all but fallen and Lebanon is standing on one leg: its army.

The Turkish leader tried to mold a generation of pious followers. Instead, the country’s youth could bring about his final defeat.