Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Tensions between Islamabad and Kabul continue to rise. While Pakistan has made efforts to smooth over the growing rift, reopening a key border crossing closed following cross-border gunfire that killed a Pakistani security guard and sending its minister of state for foreign affairs on an official visit to the Afghan capital, there are clear signs that Pakistan’s leverage with the Afghan Taliban seems to be slipping fast.
The December 2020 Moroccan-Israeli normalization deal has evolved from a vehicle enabling Morocco to gain long-sought U.S. recognition of its claims on Western Sahara to a broader strategic partnership with Israel. But the relationship further strains relations with neighboring rival Algeria.
Participating in COP27 provided a unique opportunity to view the proceedings firsthand and evaluate the effectiveness of the meeting in advancing critical climate priorities that can alter the alarming trajectory of future climate change.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Over the years, recognition of clear, long-term, and structural developments in how the Jewish Israeli electorate votes has been neglected, glossed over, or lost behind reactions to electoral cycles. And the pro/anti-Netanyahu paradigm — which routinely serves as a crude substitute for “right” versus “left” — has helped delay a reckoning and a fork in the road for a host of constituencies.
Since winning the Israeli elections on Nov. 1, Benjamin Netanyahu leads a bloc that is ideologically homogeneous in ways never before seen, with a majority of religious nationalists and ultra-Orthodox parties set to enter government and likely to work cohesively for the next four years, unlike in the past.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
On Nov. 1, Israel’s democracy was shaken, perhaps as never before. It is not so much that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been returned to power, but that if he does become prime minister again, as seems overwhelmingly likely, it will undoubtedly be with crucial support provided by the “Religious Zionism” party, which includes “Jewish Power,” the vehicle of the veteran neo-Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The Iranian regime is pointing the finger at Israel and the U.S. for allegedly orchestrating the nationwide protests. But while the U.S. and Israel both might have an interest in shaping and aiding the protest movement once it began, this large-scale mobilization of the Iranian public is a result of the regime’s own policies.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Although the Abraham Accords have been the main focus of Arab-Israeli peace-making since they were signed, the Arab Peace Initiative (API), introduced by the late Saudi King Abdullah 20 years ago, remains relevant and may be the better reflection of a path forward for Middle East peace
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
A top priority of the regional order envisioned by the Abraham Accords should be building confidence by sharing cybersecurity tools through the Negev Forum.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.