Research & Commentary Results

The impacts of climate change on Egypt’s agriculture are likely to be substantial, and will affect the millions of Egyptian women reliant on this economic activity for their livelihoods. The agricultural sector employs a large percentage of Egypt’s working women, a sector known for its low and unstable earnings. Millions of rural Egyptian women working in agriculture already suffer from poverty, and climate change will make matters worse.

The view from El Gouna, the luxury Red Sea resort constructed in the late 1980s by Egyptian business tycoon Samih Sawiris, can be misleading. The plush yachts, pricey food menus and grand parties present an alternative reality to the financially-strapped, religiously conservative one of the capital. In other words, El Gouna is not Egypt. The industry’s muted, skeptic reaction to the establishment of an international film festival in Hurghada’s most affluent town this year was thus quite expected.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Randa Slim, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Yousef Munayyer, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to Iran, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s efforts to push for dialogue after the Kurdish independence referendum, the pending indictment of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan, signs of progress in the reconcilliation attempt between Hamas and Fatah, and the Saudi king’s visit to Moscow.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Robert S. Ford, Alex Vatanka, and Bilal Y. Saab provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the Iraqi military’s new operation to take back the town of Hawija from ISIS, the operation by the Syrian regime and U.S.-backed forces in Deir Ezzor, the Pakistani foreign minister’s visit to Iran, and the resumption of U.S. and Egyptian war games after being suspended since the 2011.

In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Charles Schmitz, Jonathan M. Winer, and Yousef Munayyer provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah’s upcoming visit to Washington, recent clashes in Yemen, the French Foreign Minister’s trip to Libya, and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s discussion on Israel/Palestine.

Israelis and Palestinians tend to be invested in the notion that their conflict is unique in its intractability. But other conflicts have reached a measure of resolution, or at least extended periods of non-violence. Learning from their limited success can offer insights and key policy implications; learning from their failures can provide valuable warnings and lessons. Comparing conflicts can even humanize what’s happening in Israel and the occupied territories.

Jared Kushner was on a Middle East mission last week attempting to do what at least half a dozen U.S. emissaries and special presidential envoys have failed to do for more than two decades: putting the peace process on track toward concluding a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. But there was a marked change in the U.S. tone, as Kushner, accompanied by Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and Deputy N.S.A. Adviser Dina Powell, met with leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt before heading to Israel and the West Bank.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Gerald Feierstein, Randa Slim, Bilal Y. Saab, and Jean-François Seznec provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including tensions between Washington and Cairo over Egypt’s excessive authoritarian crackdown, Russia’s attempt to help mediate the G.C.C. crisis, the likely postponement of the Kurdish independence referendum, the performance of the Lebanese Army in anti-ISIS operations, and the Iraqi oil minister’s trip to Moscow to discuss oil production cuts.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Yousef Munayyer, Paul Salem, Ahmad Majidyar, Alex Vatanka, and Gonul Tol provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the upcoming trip by the U.S. delegation headed by Jared Kushner to Israel/Palestine, Iraq’s anti-ISIS operation in Tal Afar, President Trump’s upcoming announcement on U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, Iran’s efforts to find a role in China’s One Belt, One Road project, and Turkey’s rocky relations with Germany.

Egypt’s modern leaders may lack the means of their forebears when it comes to raising awe-inspiring monuments, but they still find impressive ways to promote the image of a confident nation. Widely touted “mega-projects,” like the Biblioteca Alexandrina, the “new” Suez Canal, and “New Cairo,” a skyscraper-studded capital city slated to replace the embattled 1400-year-old one, all come adorned with hyperbolic attributes and historic implications for all mankind.

One of the most revealing moments of the recently concluded Ramadan TV season occurred in the new Egyptian series, Don’t Turn Off the Sun. A newly-wedded young wife finds out that her husband is having an affair with his male friend; a liaison that ultimately leads to the dissolution of their marriage. The most telling aspect of what was potentially perceived as a provocative move from the series’ makers was the fact that it didn’t stir any controversy at all.

Three years ago this summer, on July 8, Israel launched the deadliest attack on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip; the third in less than six years. The war lasted 51 days on end and left in its wake an unprecedented human carnage and caused massive destruction to Gaza’s already frail economy and failing infrastructure. Three years later, Gaza has not recovered. If anything, things have gotten worse; much worse.

Read the full article on Haaretz. 

My day job is as a Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland; every fall I teach a large course entitled “Fundamental Questions of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.”  A few years ago I was lecturing about the 1973 Yom Kippur War and explained that, as I see it, the war was essentially as a draw, in which Egypt and Israel both lost and won.

Jerusalem’s Old City is a tinderbox that could  set off a regional conflagration. This is a demonstrably true statement: when Ariel Sharon, then an opposition politician, stood surrounded by security guards on the steps in front of the Dome of the Rock in September 2000, and proclaimed that it would remain in Israeli hands forever, the consequence of his populist blustering was the Second Intifada.

The Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative is losing its value in the wake of Egypt’s decision to return the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, and the latter’s participation as a security guarantor of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

Last month, the Egyptian parliament, bucking widespread public and institutional opposition, acknowledged Saudi sovereignty over the islands.

Most attention has focused on the dispute over sovereignty, which has been under Egyptian administration for more than half a century. But the real significance of the deal lies elsewhere.