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Palestine

The Strategic Cost of Palestinian Powerlessness
  • Report
  • The Strategic Cost of Palestinian Powerlessness

    This report considers the lack of Palestinian political agency as a driver of regional insecurity that must be resolved before wider conflicts can be settled. The author analyses the conditions that contributed to the destruction of Palestinian political capacity, including Israeli policies, Palestinian shortcomings, and exploitation by Iran, and makes recommendations for an Arab strategic initiative.

    Trump’s Family Business Deals Risk Further Undermining the Credibility of US Middle East Policy
  • Analysis
  • Trump’s Family Business Deals Risk Further Undermining the Credibility of US Middle East Policy

    President Trump’s family businesses are once again in the spotlight as a new financial disclosure showed they earned $2 billion in income in 2025 — a dramatic increase on the year before, with much of it coming from Gulf entities, raising emoluments concerns. Mounting perceptions of corruption, combined with unresolved crises in Iran and Israel-Palestine, are eroding trust among key partners in the Middle East. With the 2026 midterms approaching, these entanglements could represent a major political vulnerability and further undermine America’s already-strained standing in the region.

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    The nascent Israeli government: The thread that binds?
    Photo by RONEN ZVULUN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
  • Analysis
  • The nascent Israeli government: The thread that binds?

    There is only one thread holding together the unprecedentedly disparate parties that will establish and support the nascent Israeli government announced on the night of June 2, an hour before the midnight deadline. That thread is, of course, a shared loathing for Benjamin Netanyahu. Whether that thread will even get the new government past its first hurdle, which is a vote of confidence in the Knesset, much less to its theoretical four years, is an open question. Until recently no one could have imagined such a political monstrosity might be conceived, let alone gestated, but there’s a decent chance this government will get off the ground.

    June 4, 2021

    مجلس حقوق الإنسان التابع للأمم المتحدة يوافق على لجنة غزة لتقصي الحقائق
  • Commentary
  • مجلس حقوق الإنسان التابع للأمم المتحدة يوافق على لجنة غزة لتقصي الحقائق

    “إن استعداد مجلس حقوق الإنسان لإنشاء لجنة دائمة ذات تفويض شامل يشير إلى مدى التغيير في التصورات الدولية للصراع الإسرائيلي الفلسطيني في السنوات القليلة الماضية”.

    June 2, 2021

    Palestinian cultural resistance: Art in the face of violence
  • Analysis
  • Palestinian cultural resistance: Art in the face of violence

    Singer Kamilya Jubran, founding member of the iconic Palestinian band Sabreen, once famously sang, “We’ve tried resistance, we’ve tried confrontation, we’ve tried intifada, we’ve tried peace. What else is left to us?” The answer of course, that hung in the air of her breathtaking vocals, was “to sing.”

    May 25, 2021

    Greece and Cyprus can play a modest role in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace
  • Analysis
  • Greece and Cyprus can play a modest role in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace

    In March 2021, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum held its first meeting as a recognized international organization. Delegations from member countries – including Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and Palestine – gathered in Cairo to organize a regional gas market. The forum is a unique space that offers a platform for dialogue between European and Middle Eastern countries. Furthermore, it is rare that Israeli and Palestinian delegations cooperate on the international stage. Yet, as the inaugural meeting demonstrated, the conflict is never too far away. When the delegates voted on whether to grant the United Arab Emirates observer status in the forum – a privilege given to the United States and European Union – Palestine vetoed, a clear demonstration of Ramallah’s frustration with the normalization process that started a few months ago.

    May 21, 2021

    Amid the escalating violence in Israel and Palestine, can the EU move from words to deeds?
    Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
  • Analysis
  • Amid the escalating violence in Israel and Palestine, can the EU move from words to deeds?

    While riots and even violent military clashes between Israel and the Palestinians are unfortunately nothing new, and the conflict itself has been of interest to the international community for many decades, the recent, sudden escalation in violence has come as a surprise to many outside observers. This has forced individual states and international organizations to take a stance on what’s happening, including the EU. For the EU, the Middle East conflict is one of the greatest challenges in the immediate neighborhood and a major factor hindering the implementation of its European Neighborhood Policy in the eastern Mediterranean.

    May 20, 2021

    Israeli repression links the violence in Gaza and Jerusalem
    Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
  • Commentary
  • Israeli repression links the violence in Gaza and Jerusalem

    Even as it pays lip service to a two-state solution, the international community—particularly the United States—has largely acquiesced to the Israeli-imposed status quo in Gaza and East Jerusalem by exempting both areas from the political and diplomatic process.

    May 14, 2021

    Read the Middle East Journal

    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.