Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
In times of war, constitutional courts frequently fail to defend civil liberties. There is no shortage of examples of this from around the world, often stemming from an impulse to avoid conflict with the national security establishment in order to avoid losing public support. In the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Supreme Court has been no exception.
The Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip has led to a displacement crisis of historic magnitude. According to international assessments, about 1.9 million Palestinians are displaced in Gaza—85 percent of the population. More than a million of them have fled from the northern part of Gaza following Israel’s instructions. The pictures, stories, and videos appearing on social media since the beginning of the war, with Palestinian families fleeing with light luggage, feel to many like a national flashback to the Nakba, an Arabic word that means “catastrophe.”.
A closer look at the impact of domestic and international developments on Algeria’s agenda as the country prepares for a complicated and critical presidential race in December 2024.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and a number of Jordanian banks established the Saudi-Jordanian Investment Fund to channel $3 billion into the Jordanian economy. Two SJIF projects provide relevant case studies of the challenges facing Jordan’s broader efforts to attract more FDI and drive economic development.
As questions about regarding who can take over governance of the war-torn Gaza Strip, Washington and other are pinning their hopes on a revitalized Palestinian Authority. But such “revitalization,” if limited to “strengthening” the PA cabinet and making only minor improvements in governance, will ensure that Gaza will remain a “super camp” and a source of recurring/persistent instability for Palestine and Israel.
Sahar Aziz and Mitchell Plitnick discuss their study “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine Israel Discourse” with MEI’s Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs Program Director Khaled Elgindy.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa orchestrated a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s traditional geostrategic focus, transitioning from geopolitics to geoeconomics. His successor, Gen. Asim Munir, in command of Pakistan’s military for the past year, now faces the challenging task of turning Gen. Bajwa’s unrealized vision into a reality, a goal that requires cultivating positive interdependence and multi-alignment with a diverse range of partners, while also ensuring domestic stability.
At the September G20 meeting, host country India, along with the United States, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), signed a memorandum of understanding, a non-binding commitment to work towards building two separate “corridors”, essentially envisioning a political line that is connected by some new and some existing, or already under construction, physical infrastructure.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and the latter’s ongoing military operation in Gaza have stalled progress in the development of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor and raised questions about its prospects for eventual completion. The IMEC faces multiple viability challenges, but none of them are insurmountable; thus, its participants are unlikely to abandon it.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The international community is focused on “the day after” in Gaza, built on the comforting but illusory assumption that Oct. 7 never happened. In contrast, Israel and Hamas alike are engaged in a zero-sum contest to build a new system created out of blood and fire. When we consider the options for Gaza, the most instructive point of departure is the day before — that is, the evolution of Israeli occupation policies in the half century since the June 1967 war.
In the aftermath of the brutal Hamas terror attack Oct. 7, Israel has launched a ground invasion aimed at “eliminating Hamas.” Many of Israel’s Western allies have expressed concern about this operation given the lack of a clear plan for what will happen in Gaza after Hamas is eliminated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that “Israel will, for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility” of Gaza. President Joe Biden even said publicly on 60 Minutes that the reoccupation of Gaza would be a “big mistake.”