Rebecca Anne Proctor

Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani described the country’s September 20 parliamentary election as a source of “pride” and asserted that the country has now “inaugurated a new era.” While the parliamentary space for opposition voices slightly increased, Jordan’s 2016 elections largely preserved the country’s status quo and maintained the tribal-Palestinian divide.

The article was first published on NPR.

The last surviving leader of Israel’s founding generation, Shimon Peres was a three-time prime minister, the architect of the country’s secretive nuclear program and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians.

Few expected the 2016 municipal elections in Lebanon to create any momentum that would reinvigorate civil society in order to attempt to overcome Beirut’s challenges. Traditionally, the municipal elections in post-war Lebanon are a stage-managed affair in which the electoral pie is split between a coalition of traditional Beiruti families and national parties along with a confessional parity between Christians and Muslims. However, the rise of the municipal campaign Beirut Madinati (Beirut, My City) breathed much needed fresh air, and with it hope and enthusiasm, into a social structure that is stratified and filled with anxiety and fear.

This is an excerpt of an article published by The National Interest. For the full article, please click here.

Addressing Egypt’s economic woes remains a matter of urgency for the stability of the government and the country as a whole. Egypt’s economic recovery plan, which was spearheaded by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2015, promised an improvement in living standards and social justice in the Middle East’s most populous nation. More than two years since the president assumed power, living standards have yet to see much improvement.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Ruba Husari, Charles Lister, and Charles Schmitz provide analysis on events including OPEC’s upcoming meeting to discuss production rates and a potentil freeze, Russia’s bombardment of Aleppo following the collapse of the latest cease-fire, and the worsening humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

OPEC to Mull Oil Freeze
Ruba Husari, MEI Scholar

MEI Board Chair Richard A. Clarke and Board Member Rand Beers have joined seven other high-ranking former U.S. national security officials in signing an open letter to the president and members of Congress expressing their deep concerns over the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which is expected to return to Congress following a presidential veto.

This essay addresses Tunisia’s contentious social movements and argues that these highly political campaigns are an extension of the long-standing grievances that the spirit and goals of the Revolution epitomized to many. Now, as before and during the Revolution, such protests signify an important rupture with Tunisia’s technocratic politics-as-usual and underscore the fact that prescriptive economic solutions and promises made by current and past governments are not suitable measures to address this primary and fundamental form of political discontent. In highlighting the political dimension of informal engagement and contention, this essay stresses that Tunisia’s contentious political movements are necessary for the country’s democratic consolidation.

Read the full article in Foreign Policy

Leila Sansour is an acclaimed filmmaker, best known for “Jeremy Hardy versus the Israeli Army.” She returned to her hometown Bethlehem to document the detrimental effect of the wall on the city and its people. She discusses her latest film, Open Bethlehem.

The following interview was edited for style and clarity.

MEI: Tell me about the genesis of this film and project, and your inspiration for it?

Any Middle East observer would find a question about the basic posture of Israel vs. ISIS a practical no brainer. Such an observer would confidently state that these two entities are staunch enemies, currently engaged in multiple types of warfare and destined to continue on that path. For Israel, according to this intuitive rational, ISIS is but another link in a long chain of terror entities sworn to its destruction, much like Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and many others. For ISIS, the narrative would continue to claim, Israel is a natural primary target.

The International Monetary Fund announced in July that it has approved a three-year, $5.34 billion loan for Iraq under the Stand-By Arrangement facility, which it said was focused on “implementing economic and financial policies to help the country cope with lower oil prices and ensure debt sustainability.” The promised financial assistance was made conditional on—among other things—Baghdad settling all debts to international oil companies (IOCs) without adding new debts.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Robert S. Ford, Charles Lister, Alex Vatanka, and David Mack provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Obama’s upcoming final speech to the UN General Assembly, the Syrian collapsed ceasefire, the buildup to an eventual Mosul offensive, Rouhani’s trip to Latin America, and Libya’s oil exports.