Geopolitical influence over trade increasingly rests on controlling the systems that make them work. The Middle East illustrates the stakes. US ports, cable corridors, cloud facilities, artificial intelligence (AI) investments, and maritime routes connect regional economies to global commerce while exposing them to external decisions and disruptions. For the United States, the challenge is to translate technological advantage into resilient networks rather than rely on centrality that can itself become a source of vulnerability and coercion.
Bonus Episode: Previewing Israel’s First Post-October 7 Election
Israel is preparing to hold what may be its most consequential election in decades. On October 27, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face his first electoral test since October 7, 2023. In this bonus episode of Middle East Focus, we present the audio from a recent MEI webinar, hosted in Israel on the eve of the vote. Senior Fellow Natan Sachs is joined by Dr. Shira Efron, Distinguished Chair for Israel Policy and senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, and Neri Zilber, veteran journalist and Financial Times correspondent. They explore what’s at stake in this historic election and how different outcomes could reshape Israel’s domestic politics and the wider region.
Israel Was Built on Hope. This Election May Be Our Last Chance to Save It
Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, means “the hope.” Israel is not just another country, but the culmination of a 2,000-year-old dream of national redemption. The rebirth of the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland, just three years after the Holocaust, was a miraculous triumph of hope over all odds.
Today, that hope has been shattered and the elections on October 27 have become the most consequential in Israel’s history.
Since 1967, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a contested feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ultimate disposition of the settlements and ongoing activity related to their growth have repeatedly defied agreement in negotiations over a resolution to the conflict.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
I don’t understand why Iran’s Revolutionary Guards insist on conducting military exercises in the Gulf waters that are as devoid of credibility as they are comical. Because if the goal of these drills is to intimidate or change the calculations of the U.S. Navy, nobody is flinching or losing any sleep in the Bahrain-headquartered U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, or NAVCENT.
If elected, Joe Biden and his administration will face a wide range of foreign policy challenges. Possibly none will be more vexing than what to do about the clerical regime in Iran.
COVID-19 in the West Bank and Gaza: A second wave under military occupation and siege
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.
Are Turkey and Russia bracing for conflict in the South Caucasus?
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.
The coronavirus pandemic that originated in China could not have come at a worse moment for the UAE. Indeed, before its outbreak, relations between the UAE and China were in an excellent place. Underpinned by growing economic exchange, the bilateral partnership holds the promise of turning into a geo-economic and geopolitical one. For Beijing, the UAE is first and foremost a critical hub for re-export to the wider region and ultimately, it is in the domain of maritime trade and around China’s BRI that the partnership has its greatest potential.
Medical tourism is an important form of cooperation in the health sector between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Asia. The increasing flow of patients from the Gulf to Asian for medical treatment in recent years has been underpinned by a feature of GCC countries’ healthcare systems that is unique, namely government sponsorship of overseas medical treatment. This article discusses the immediate impact and possible implications of the Coronavirus pandemic for GCC-Asia health cooperation.
Monday Briefing: GERD talks continue, but political will is still lacking
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.
لماذا يعد رد طهران على اعتراض الولايات المتحدة لطائرة الركاب الإيرانية أكثر من مجرد حملة علاقات عامة
“تهدف السلطات الإيرانية إلى الاستفادة من هذه الحلقة كوسيلة للضغط على دول المنطقة التي توفر قواعد عسكرية للجيش الأمريكي.”
تشعر طهران بقلق شديد من اعتراض طائرة مدنية إيرانية فوق سوريا في 23 من شهر يوليو من طرف طائرتان أمريكيتان من طراز F-15. وما أثار انتباه وسائل الإعلام الغربية هو اتهام إيران للولايات المتحدة بالقيام بأعمال “قرصنة” و”إرهاب” في المجال الجوي السوري.
اتهامات طهران كانت متوقعة وتعد مجرد حلقة أخيرة في سلسلة الاتهامات والاتهامات المضادة بين الولايات المتحدة وإيران.
حلقة 4: الأصوات الأمريكية المسلمة ومعادلة الانتخابات — مع وائل الزيات
خاطب جو بايدن المجتمع المسلم-الأمريكي بشكل مباشر في حملته الانتخابية، في خطوة غير مسبوقة من المرشحين الرئاسيين. هل يرمز ذلك لمرحلة جديدة من العلاقة بين الإدارة الأمريكية والمجتمع المسلم الأمريكي؟
هل كانت وعود جو بايدن كافية بالنسبة للمسلمين الأمريكيين؟ ما الذي أغفله؟
ما هي أولويات العرب والمسلمين الأمريكيين في الولايات المتحدة على الصعيد السياسي؟ ما هي متطلباتهم الأساسية والقضايا التي تؤثر على حياتهم اليومية؟
Syria’s 2020 parliamentary elections: The worst joke yet
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.
Azerbaijan-Armenia clashes put an end to cautious optimism
On July 12, military clashes broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, quickly escalating into the single deadliest incident since the “four-day war” of April 2016. While violent outbreaks between the two sides are common, they usually occur on the Line of Contact around Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territories. This time, however, fighting erupted along the internationally recognized Armenia-Azerbaijan border, far away from the actual conflict zone. With heavy use of artillery, drones, cyberattacks and disinformation – causing at least 17 combined casualties, including a well-known Azerbaijani army general – the violence risked spiraling into a major war.
Linking the past to the future: Economic diversification and tourism in Oman
Oman’s new ruler, Sultan Haitham, only has a short timeframe in which to aggressively diversify the country’s economy and reduce its dependency on hydrocarbon exports. This already difficult task is further complicated by the twin challenges of the global coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices, both of which limit the government’s fiscal room for maneuver. One obvious sector that Oman should consider expanding rapidly is its tourism industry.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
