The scale of rebuilding needed after the Gaza war, in addition to the difficult political questions involved, will require close international coordination as well as innovative, future-informed thinking.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Since Oct. 7, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been at the center of international attention. This is in stark contrast to the situation in recent years, when the issue has been sidelined in the international discourse and the question of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has almost disappeared from the diplomatic agenda.
Since Oct. 7, humanitarian aid has been entering the Gaza Strip via land and air. Following US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on March 7, aid is also likely to enter via the sea, under an emergency US mission to establish a temporary pier on the Gaza coast that can receive large shipments of food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.
One of the first things the Taliban did after capturing power in August 2021 was to abolish the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs and re-establish the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The environment within which Afghan girls and women had found avenues of employment, education, and empowerment over the previous two decades had been lost. Many families now had to deal with acute poverty, mental health issues, and even suicides.
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.
On 13 December 2023, following discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, US President Joe Biden rejected congressional calls to stop or condition US military assistance to the Jewish state.
“We’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel in the process. Not a single thing,” he said at the time.
A month earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris said the United States “(was) not going to create any conditions on the support (it) was giving Israel to defend itself.”
On this week’s episode Tamkinet Karim, Syed Mohammad Ali, and Alistair Taylor discuss the results of Pakistan’s Feb. 8 elections and where things might be headed moving forward. Over the past two years, Pakistan has gone through a particularly turbulent period, following the removal of Imran Khan’s government in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 — a time marked by political instability, intense polarization, a worsening economic crisis, and growing threats to internal security.
Contrary to what many political observers predicted, Pakistan’s general election on Feb. 8 delivered many surprises and ushered in an even higher level of political uncertainty than what already prevailed. And with the current formation of the new coalition government, an end to political volatility doesn’t seem to be in sight.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Even though it is one of the world’s lowest emitters of greenhouse gases, Afghanistan is among the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change and severe weather conditions. Recent economic and humanitarian challenges, compounded by a political crisis of legitimacy and governance, exacerbate the situation, limiting the country’s ability to mitigate climate-induced fragility and build long-term resilience.
The ongoing catastrophe in Gaza is driving a surge in sympathy for Palestinians in the Western world that could mark a turning point in how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is engaged with moving forward. Changing attitudes among younger generations are primarily responsible for this shift, driven in part by a post-Black Lives Matter outlook and narrative that has simplified and distilled the conflict.
If the Knesset expels lawmaker Ofer Cassif, it will represent the national legislature’s first use of the Suspension Law and signal a sharp curtailing of legal space for non-Zionist players in Israeli politics.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.