Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
A version of this article was originally published on the Substack “Thinking Middle East.”
The Iranian strike against Israel was a first of its kind. Its mere occurrence sets a precedent that will have a long-term impact and require Israel to weigh new considerations when planning future military operations against Iranian assets.
For the last few months, people around the world have been closely following the ongoing brutality of the war in Gaza. Pictures of Palestinians fleeing south and looking for relatives under the rubble, videos of children searching for food and water — these and more have been circulating on social media and news networks every day since October 7.
As the war in Gaza approaches its seventh month, the settler movement has been raging its own separate war against none other than the Israeli military itself. While Israeli society is still healing from the devastation of Oct. 7 and tens of thousands of Israelis are displaced from their homes near the Gaza Strip and the northern border, the settlers have launched campaigns against the Head of the Central Command, advocated for resettling Gaza, and escalated tensions with the Israeli military.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The March 22 terror attack in Russia, on the outskirts of Moscow, which killed 139 people has brought attention back to the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Notwithstanding the Kremlin’s proclivity to link the attackers to Ukraine and not ISKP, the group’s involvement in the attack is clear from its claim and the evidence that has emerged in the aftermath.
On March 5-7, 2024, the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) hosted the annual Arab Forum for Sustainable Development (AFSD). The inclusion of a special session on “Collaborative Futures: Strategic Foresight for Sustainable Development in a World of Crisis” is another example of the growing attention to foresight-driven analysis and decision-making among leaders in the Arab world.
The Second War for Palestine has continued longer than any Israel-Palestinian conflict since Israel’s establishment. Neither Gamal Abdel Nasser’s army nor Hafez al-Assad’s tanks fought as long as the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades still battling in Gaza.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
In his new book, Steve Coll casts doubt on whether Iraqi intelligence had actually tried to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush in Kuwait in April 1993. If the Kuwait plot were a fabrication, it would fit yet another brick in the wall of many well documented falsehoods and misunderstandings that led to the US invasion. Unfortunately for that allegation, the plot was very likely to have been quite real.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.