Analysis

A movement of Israelis who resist the new Netanyahu government is crystallizing and taking initial steps to push back against democratic erosion. It will need to evolve quickly and effectively to make an impact and could benefit from some international helping hands along the way.

When the Iranian government faces intense Western criticism, such as over its brutal suppression of the protest movement and its recent executions, it frequently resorts to specific actions, one of which is hostage-taking. Nevertheless, perhaps the most important “hostage” Tehran counts on to influence the positions of Western powers is not their imprisoned citizens, but rather Iran’s nuclear program.

A little over two weeks ago, the defense and intelligence chiefs of Turkey and Syria met face-to-face in Moscow — the first such meeting in over a decade. On the surface, this latest flurry of engagement with Assad’s regime is a major development. Were Turkey to decisively shift its Syria policy, the effects would be dramatic. Beyond the hype and speculation, Turkey’s decision to participate in the Moscow meetings is not altogether surprising and it does not represent a wholesale policy reversal. What has changed more recently is Turkey’s impending elections — and with them Erdoğan’s political calculations.

Gulf states are collectively investing billions of dollars in developing renewable energy. Yet climate change patterns in neighboring regions, combined with rising average temperatures, could eventually trigger more serious climate migration problems for the Gulf countries themselves.

The Gulf states are often overlooked as indirect beneficiaries of the Russia-Europe energy war. In what ways and to what extent have they leveraged it? Are these benefits sustainable?

The challenge of developing export strategies for the offshore natural gas resources concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean predates the Russo-Ukrainian war. Yet over the course of 2022, Europe’s intensifying energy crisis created a new and more immediate incentive to solve those export challenges, despite a great deal of work still to be done.

Six and a half years ago, international governments and organizations successfully negotiated the “Grand Bargain,” an agreement that the largest international non-governmental organizations would allocate 25% of their humanitarian funding to small NGOs. Nowhere was the deal more hotly anticipated than Jordan, where the Syrian refugee crisis compounded existing problems of workforce participation and water scarcity.

While cryptocurrency may offer Iran the opportunity to bypass sanctions and boost trade, it is by no means a panacea for such outcomes and comes with a host of obstacles, such as price volatility, economic uncertainty, energy consumption, and evolving regulation.

Listening to students and young professionals is instrumental in understanding the Ukrainian perspective. A series of interviews, conducted in summer 2022, centered around their identity as Ukrainians, how the war is impacting their lives, and how they viewed Russia and the West before and after Feb. 24, 2022. The participants in these interviews have only known an independent Ukraine, and their negative feelings toward Russia will not improve anytime soon.

A series of damaging Iranian hacks of Albania’s critical digital infrastructure over the summer pushed Tirana to break off bilateral diplomatic relations. Iran has regularly responded to sanctions or perceived provocations through cyberattack campaigns, as was visible in the case of Albania, guilty in the Iranian authorities’ eyes for the accommodations it has given to the anti-regime group MEK .

Cost estimates for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction already exceed many hundreds of billions of dollars. Given the Western world’s slowing economic prospects, Ukrainian elites admit that China looks increasingly likely to have a role in helping finance and rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure. But Chinese involvement comes with economic and security risks.

The latest U.N. IPCC report details the alarming changes that Mediterranean countries will experience in the coming decades due to climate change, highlighting three critical areas — warming and droughts, declining ecosystems, as well as socioeconomic and public health risks.

Ten of the most important or far-reaching events and trends that dominated the MENA region in 2022.

As Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine turned into protracted positional and attrition warfare, often speculative reports emerged about the imminent reduction of the Russian military presence in Syria. Several factors may explain the changes in the Russian military presence in Syria and its future.

With COP27 concluded, we asked experts from across MEI, some of whom attended the meeting, to offer their perspectives on the developments that came out of the conference and what it means moving forward, especially for the Middle East and North Africa.