Research & Commentary Results

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.

Amb. Robin Raphel and MEI’s Marvin Weinbaum join guest host Jerry Feierstein to discuss the latest round of negotiations between the US and the Taliban and lay out their competing views on whether there is greater cause for optimism or pessimism as the US seeks to withdraw its troops after nearly twenty years in Afghanistan.

MEI scholar Lawrence Pintak speaks to Sardar Masood Khan, the president of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, about India’s early August annexation of the semi-autonomous territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Randa Slim, Alex Vatanka, and Gonul Tol.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Randa Slim, Gerald Feierstein, Alex Vatanka, Robert S. Ford, and Michael Sexton.

Israel has reportedly expanded its operations against Iran in the Middle East. In July, Israeli and foreign media attributed airstrikes on Iranian targets near Baghdad to Israel. Last week, U.S. officials confirmed that Israel was responsible for the attacks, which mark the first such air raids on Iraq since 1981, when Tel Aviv destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor.

On Aug. 12, an explosion took place inside an ammunition warehouse in the al-Saqr military base in southern Baghdad, triggering hundreds of mortars and rockets to fire off in all directions throughout urban, populated areas. One person was killed and 29 wounded, as munitions and debris scattered as far as 5 kilometers away.

While some changes may be in the offing, for now most signs suggest that regional leaders should expect neither new opportunities, nor new challenges, but more likely a broad continuity of existing EU policy toward the region.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a destabilizing element in an already volatile Middle East. The Palestinians are too weak to wrest their independence from Israel. But as long as their right to self-determination is denied, they are likely to engage in regular violence targeting Israel. Absent outside intervention, Israel is powerful enough that it can suppress Palestinian demands for freedom — but it is not able to completely pacify the Palestinians. Thus, the conflict continues, punctuated every few years by rounds of more significant violence.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Arif Rafiq, Ibrahim Jalal, Michael Sexton and Eliza Campbell, and Alex Vatanka.

The current Rashida Tlaib/Ilhan Omar debacle has received more attention from every quarter than virtually anything other than a war. All the usual suspects have weighed in with (mostly) predictable comments, generally in the context of the long-running “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. The two domestic political contexts are often mentioned only in passing. With all respect to those who have tried to take a longer or strategic view, I would suggest that it really boils down to the political calculations of just two men, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Much has been written about the ongoing direct peace talks between U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad and an Afghan Taliban delegation headed by Mullah Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai in Doha, Qatar. This article takes a closer look at the challenges to negotiating with the Afghan Taliban and lays out six reasons why the prospects for peace in Afghanistan still seem bleak.

Autonomy is normally given to a specific cultural or national group as part of a political agreement. For Palestinians, the idea that autonomy is the goal of talks is unhelpful because they already have autonomy.

The news came eight months after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to the Omani capital for surprise talks with Sultan Qaboos in October 2018, and four months after Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah met with Netanyahu in Poland during the Trump administration’s “Peace and Security in the Middle East” summit.