The CMF-153: Rebuilding US-GCC confidence through maritime security
Efforts to restore confidence between the U.S. and the Arab Gulf states took a first step with the recent formation of a new naval task force, known as the Combined Maritime Forces-153 (CMF-153), to improve maritime security in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden, including the hotspot of Yemen. Established in mid-April, the new task force intends to target weapons smuggling for Ansar Allah, as the Houthi militias are officially known, as well as human trafficking and the drug trade.
What’s driving Mansour Abbas and Ra’am’s strategy?
The United Arab List (Ra’am) political party and its chairperson, Knesset Member Mansour Abbas, have come under fire recently from Hamas Gaza head Yahya Sinwar and other Palestinian leaders for supporting Israel’s governing coalition, particularly in light of the violence at al-Aqsa Mosque over the past month. What accounts for the party’s position and what is it hoping to achieve?
We cannot ignore Syria’s emergence as a narco-state
Syria has emerged in recent years as a narco-state of regional and possibly global significance. Having destroyed much of the country, crippled the national economy, and reduced itself to pariah status, Syria’s regime and core components of its security apparatus have fronted a secretive industrial complex for the manufacture of a popular amphetamine known as Captagon.
Nowhere to hide: The impact of Israel's digital surveillance regime on the Palestinians
Over the course of 2020 and 2021, groundbreaking investigations revealed in stark detail Israeli authorities’ intensifying use of surveillance and predictive technologies to police and control Palestinians. Subjecting Palestinians to such scrutiny from security and military apparatuses narrows their expressive spaces and plunges them into a state of constant anxiety. This practice also carries out a commercial purpose: Occupied Palestine effectively functions as an open-air laboratory for Israel to test techniques of espionage and surveillance before selling them to repressive regimes around the world.
Last month, members of Congress called on the Biden administration to address the eight-year-long humanitarian crisis at Rukban, a desolate informal displacement camp in the eastern Syria desert, just miles from the U.S.-led coalition base at the al-Tanf garrison (ATG). Since 2015, Syria, Jordan, Russia, and the United States have refrained from claiming responsibility for the camp, resulting in a protracted period of inaction with severe humanitarian consequences.
Why the latest escalation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is unlikely to lead to a repeat of last year’s Gaza war
While the events now taking place in Jerusalem and the West Bank are very similar to those of May 2021, the political contexts are different on all sides. Although Israel carried out an airstrike on April 18 following rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, the situation is unlikely to lead to a repeat of last year’s Gaza war.
What would an Arab-Israeli military alliance mean for Iran?
In recent remarks, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi announced preparations for a potential upcoming military operation, foreshadowing a possible move against Iran. Kochavi’s announcement came shortly after Israel and the foreign ministers of four Arab nations — Morocco, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain — along with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met at the Negev Summit in the Israeli desert to lay the foundation for a strategic military alliance to deter “Iran and its associated militias,” as Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid put it.
Host Alistair Taylor speaks with Khaled Elgindy and Lara Friedman about the release of their recently completed 2022 congressional briefing series on Israel and Palestine: Hot topics in Congress. The eight-part webinar series features an array of Palestinian and Israeli voices, weighing in on some of the most pressing and timely Israel/Palestine-related topics in Congress.
Jordan is walking a diplomatic tightrope on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
In spite of Jordan’s close ties to the United States and Europe, Amman has found itself walking a diplomatic tightrope in the wake of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.
How will the war in Ukraine affect EU-MENA relations?
While most analyses of the war in Ukraine have tended to focus on the intra-European dimension, it is worth exploring the potential consequences of this conflict for the EU’s relations with countries further afield, especially those in the Middle East and North Africa.
مرة أخرى، عرقلة إسرائيلية غير قانونية للم شمل العائلات الفلسطينية
أقر البرلمان الإسرائيلي، في العاشر من آذار مارس الجاري ، مشروع قانون يمنع منح الجنسية للفلسطينيين من الضفة الغربية المحتلة وقطاع غزة المتزوجين من مواطنين إسرائيليين.
Amid efforts to normalize Assad’s regime, the need for a new US Syria policy is clear
The decision by the UAE to host Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Dubai on March 18 has drawn deep consternation across the U.S. government and Congress, as well as in allied capitals in Europe and some in the Middle East.
