The Middle East Institute will be screening Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult at Georgetown University in Washington, DC on January 12. Get your tickets here!
After the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, I tried and failed to convince Hamas to hand over a key border crossing between Gaza and Israel to the control of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).
Last weekend’s arrests of prominent Saudi government officials and leading businessmen on charges of corruption has sent shockwaves through Saudi society as well as global center of finance and commerce. The developments also impacted Lebanon, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri announcing his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh. MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Jean-Francois Seznec, and Randa Slim join Paul Salem to discuss these developments.
Summary
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Randa Slim, Yousef Munayyer, Charles Lister, Charles Schmitz, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Barzani’s decision to step down from the KRG, the Trump administation’s silent response to Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem , the Armed Syrian Opposition’s attendance of the seventh round of Astana Talks, Saudi foreign minister blaming Iran for lack of progress in peace talks in Yemen, and President Rouhani’s failure to advance the reform cause in Iran.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Randa Slim, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Yousef Munayyer, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to Iran, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s efforts to push for dialogue after the Kurdish independence referendum, the pending indictment of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan, signs of progress in the reconcilliation attempt between Hamas and Fatah, and the Saudi king’s visit to Moscow.
In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Charles Schmitz, Jonathan M. Winer, and Yousef Munayyer provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah’s upcoming visit to Washington, recent clashes in Yemen, the French Foreign Minister’s trip to Libya, and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s discussion on Israel/Palestine.
Israelis and Palestinians tend to be invested in the notion that their conflict is unique in its intractability. But other conflicts have reached a measure of resolution, or at least extended periods of non-violence. Learning from their limited success can offer insights and key policy implications; learning from their failures can provide valuable warnings and lessons. Comparing conflicts can even humanize what’s happening in Israel and the occupied territories.
Jared Kushner was on a Middle East mission last week attempting to do what at least half a dozen U.S. emissaries and special presidential envoys have failed to do for more than two decades: putting the peace process on track toward concluding a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. But there was a marked change in the U.S. tone, as Kushner, accompanied by Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and Deputy N.S.A. Adviser Dina Powell, met with leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt before heading to Israel and the West Bank.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Yousef Munayyer, Paul Salem, Ahmad Majidyar, Alex Vatanka, and Gonul Tol provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the upcoming trip by the U.S. delegation headed by Jared Kushner to Israel/Palestine, Iraq’s anti-ISIS operation in Tal Afar, President Trump’s upcoming announcement on U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, Iran’s efforts to find a role in China’s One Belt, One Road project, and Turkey’s rocky relations with Germany.
Three years ago this summer, on July 8, Israel launched the deadliest attack on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip; the third in less than six years. The war lasted 51 days on end and left in its wake an unprecedented human carnage and caused massive destruction to Gaza’s already frail economy and failing infrastructure. Three years later, Gaza has not recovered. If anything, things have gotten worse; much worse.
Read the full article on Haaretz.
My day job is as a Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Maryland; every fall I teach a large course entitled “Fundamental Questions of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.” A few years ago I was lecturing about the 1973 Yom Kippur War and explained that, as I see it, the war was essentially as a draw, in which Egypt and Israel both lost and won.
