Research & Commentary Results

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.

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.

Multiple signs point to a crisis of confidence in Afghanistan. Ever since the publication of a sensational report alleging that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers, there has been an intense debate about the possibility of peace in Afghanistan following the U.S. exit.

After the fall of ISIS in 2019, many relatives of fighters who were detained or killed, including 10,000 families of foreign fighters, were housed in camps like Roj and al-Hol in territory controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Like any closed society, the foreigners’ annex in al-Hol has its own dynamic and life there is much more complicated than is often portrayed.

With the impending U.S.-supported annexation of West Bank territory, Palestinians living in these designated areas stand to lose not only their long-held aspirations for an independent state, but further eradication of their presence — a “spacio-cide” — in support of an Israeli-envisaged demographic and political vision.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Dara Conduit, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Mark Heller, Syed Mohammad Ali, Gonul Tol, and Guled Ahmed.

Today’s landscape is dramatically different from that to which we awoke on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s a complex mix of foreign and domestic forces influenced by economic and social conditions that breed extremism which ebbs and flows across physical and cyber space often defined by great power competition. While terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS have innovated and adapted, U.S. counterterrorism strategy has remained unchanged, fighting yesterday’s war while neglecting present day threats as well as those over the near horizon. America is long overdue to update its counterterrorism strategy and, perhaps more importantly, how we measure success.

Despite the mixed signals from Israeli and U.S. officials, some form of annexation in the coming weeks or months may be inevitable.

It is in Syria where ISIS’s future appears most secure, and its insurgency has demonstrated particular strength in territory controlled by the regime.

Leaders of Arab Gulf regimes now decry the attempt to implement the vision of the Israeli Right, which aims to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. But it is exactly the policies of the Arab Gulf regimes, through their normalization of ties with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, that directly contributed to the rise of the Israeli Right and made this annexation more likely.

Counterterrorism strategies can be made more effective by incorporating deradicalization and rehabilitation measures. Deradicalization is a key element of Malaysia’s counterterrorism and violent extremism strategy. This article discusses the Malaysian Government’s multi-stage deradicalization process.

A somewhat surprising assortment of organizations and interest groups are lining up to oppose annexation, alongside the usual opponents.

When the video emerged of a Minneapolis policeman pressing his knee on the neck of George Floyd as he lay on the ground, Palestinians were surprised by the image — the technique was all too familiar. But while hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the killing of George Floyd, an African-American male, by police across the U.S. and around the world, the response among Israelis and American Jews to violence against Palestinians is quite different. Many liberal Jewish leaders and thinkers who have spoken out forcefully against the killing of Floyd are silent when it comes to the atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers.

It has been more than a year since the fall of Baghouz. Eleven Malaysians have returned from Syria under the Malaysian government’s offer, conditional upon compliance with checks and enforcement, and a one-month rehabilitation program. Since then, the authorities are optimistic that more will be able to return. However, the anticipation of more returnees raises questions about Malaysia’s readiness to receive incoming batches of Malaysia Islamic State (IS) fighters. Given Malaysia’s lack of experience dealing with battle-hardened terrorists and questions about the efficacy of existing deradicalization efforts, can these structures tackle issues that Malaysia has never faced?

The May 20 announcement is something of a watershed, in which Palestinian decision-makers appear to have chosen to leave behind the professionalism of President Abbas and instead adopt the Fatah revolutionary way of making strategic decisions and then implementing them on an ad hoc basis while making adjustments along the way.