Palestine

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.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region including Kazakhstan’s upcoming “Astana talks” on Syria, Jared Kushner’s planned visit to the Middle East, the shift in US-Pakistan relations, and Abbas’ announcement that the Palestinian Authority will halt all signed agreements with Israel, featuring Charles Lister, Gerald Feierstein, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Khaled Elgindy.

Many analysts have been dismissive of the plan’s prospects, but for Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, there’s at least one major reason to line up with Washington on the issue: Iran.

With the increased influence of right-wing populism and evangelicalism, Mahmoud Abbas has seen the region’s historic commitment to the Palestinian cause wane. These internal changes, along with a pivot toward Washington, have, in turn, aided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in making further inroads on the South American continent.

The idea of establishing a Levant Union — one not unlike the European Union (EU), but composed of the Levantine states of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, and by extension, Egypt and Cyprus — is one that ought to be explored. Such an arrangement would offer untapped potential for trade, supported by the growing trend toward greater regionalization, fueled by the rise in protectionism, increasing multipolarity, and corporate regionalization.

A reliable supply of freshwater is a prerequisite for sustainable socioeconomic development, as well as for sociopolitical stability and human prosperity, especially in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. The Middle East and North Africa’s freshwater resources are under immense pressures and are facing significant risks to their sustainability due to overexploitation, climate change, and interstate competition over their use that extends beyond the region’s boundaries.

The Trump administration’s economic workshop in Bahrain produced some noteworthy moments that reflected recent changes in Israeli-Gulf relations, but it fell well short of its original declared intent. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian officials attended, and it did not conclude with any tangible steps to advance the peace process.

Part survey show, part historical document, the latest exhibition at the Palestinian Museum just outside of Ramallah, “Intimate Terrains: Representations of a Disappearing Landscape,” covers work from the 1930s until today. The show explores how representations of landscape evolved over time via a selection of iconic, rarely seen works, and special commissions by artists from Palestine and its diaspora, encompassing painting, photography, installation, video and film, natural media, sculpture, and even an “intervention” in the museum’s gardens.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Guney Yildiz, Nathan Stock, Elizabeth Dent, and Eran Etzion provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including this week’s Bahrain “workshop” on Palestine’s economic development, an opposition victory in Istanbul’s rerun election, the release of a portion of the Trump administration’s Israel-Palestine peace plan, the fracturing of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, and Tuesday’s trilateral meeting between the U.S., Israel, and Russia.

In May, the European Council adopted the 2018 iteration of the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World. Promoting human rights has long been a priority for the EU, but in practice the bloc is selective about the human rights violations its analyzes, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

The Trump administration’s upcoming conference in Bahrain, scheduled for June 25-26, under the pretext of boosting the Palestinian economy, has put Jordan in an unenviable position. Forced to choose, Amman seems to have opted to follow Washington’s wishes over those of its overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian domestic audience.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Gerald Feierstein, Zubair Iqbal, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Mirette F. Mabrouk, Robert S. Ford, and Rauf Mammadov provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran with Iraq caught in between, Jared Kushner’s economic development plan for Palestinians, the IMF’s bailout deal with Pakistan, political turmoil ahead of the Afghan presidential election, developments in the Egyptian media landscape following recent constitutional amendments, debate over how to approach elections in Algeria, and the impact of US-Iran tensions on the oil market.

The Trump administration is preparing to present the “Deal of the Century,” proposing an outline for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Very little is known about the plan so far. However, it is important to discuss the context and the conditions under which it has been formulated, and to highlight some basic elements that are required for a third party to promote a peace plan — which are absent in this case.

In the days before his recent election victory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the prospect of Israel’s formal annexation of the West Bank settlement areas where close to half a million Israelis reside. For more than half a century Israeli governments of all parties and constellations have been enthusiastic partners in policies of occupation and settlement of territories conquered in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.