MEI experts Paul Salem, Randa Slim, and Bilal Saab join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the massive uprising that has swept across Lebanon since last weekend, including what’s driving the protests, how the government has responded so far, and where things may go from here.
Lebanon’s current uprising, larger than the Cedar Revolution and rooted in long-held socio-economic grievances, has united protestors across the country in calls for fundamental political change. And this time, Shiites have joined the struggle. This is not a good outcome for Hezbollah — nothing threatens it more than discord within the Shi’a community — and it now finds itself in uncharted territory.
Reports of a secret war being waged by Hamas against Salafi-jihadist groups in the Gaza Strip are indicative of increasing challenges to the former’s security control within the enclave. Hamas’ current approach to violent Salafist cells in Gaza is equally demonstrative of an ongoing warming of relations between Cairo and Hamas, and one that has afforded Hamas international legitimacy and an ease in border restrictions.
Deep political, familial, and religious ties have allowed Druze communities across the Levant to remain largely unified against external threats, but eight years of violence in Syria and a coordinated campaign by the regime and its allies now threaten to destabilize regional Druze politics and erode the sect’s political and military power. An Iranian-backed campaign by Hezbollah to incite inter-Druze violence in Lebanon has curtailed this unity, laying the groundwork for Hezbollah to expand into Syria’s Suwayda province with impunity.
If the crowds continue to take to the streets, Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation seems inevitable, but what comes next is a big question mark.
The news of Donald Trump’s sellout to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit Israel like a lightning storm. Trump has managed to do the unthinkable: unite all Israelis around a geopolitical cause.
Something had to give. Decades of corruption and criminal mismanagement by Lebanon’s ruling elites — the same clique who have governed the country since its independence in 1943 — have finally led to an economic implosion and a social explosion.
On Sept. 16, the presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey met in Ankara to discuss the resolution of the Syrian civil war. In all three countries, the Ankara summit was hailed as a major success, as negotiations on the formation of a Syrian constitutional committee concluded and progress was made toward resolving other outstanding challenges, such as the future of northeastern Syria and the ongoing struggle for Idlib.
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was cast another political lifeline. Reuven Rivlin, the Israeli president, gave Netanyahu the first chance to form a coalition government; formally, he has 28 days to do so. Netanyahu’s task will prove difficult.
For the first time in a decade, the upcoming UNGA will be held in the absence of the outgoing Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Eran Etzion, Gonul Tol, Amal Kandeel, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell.
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.
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.
