Research & Commentary Results

Less than a year after the U.S. State Department removed the term “occupation” from its 2019 human rights report, and just a few weeks after it stopped referring to the residents of East Jerusalem as Palestinians, the coronavirus has exposed the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories like never before.

The magnitude of voter betrayal is such that Israeli politics will never be the same again.

MEI’s Paul Salem, Khaled Elgindy, and Fatima Abo Alasrar join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the Middle East as nations scramble to contain the spread of COVID-19 and the massive humanitarian and economic toll it could take on already vulnerable populations.

In retaliation for an airstrike that killed 33 Turkish soldiers at the end of February, Ankara launched “Operation Spring Shield” (OSS) against the Syrian regime and the pro-Iranian militias supporting it. Despite being unable to rely on its fleet of F-16s due to Russia’s control of the Syrian airspace over Idlib, Turkey managed to successfully wipe out a large portion of Assad’s army in the area within just a couple of days by making innovative use of drones.

11 scholars and experts from across MEI weigh in with the latest on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.

Israel is fighting two battles at once: one against the coronavirus, which has engulfed the entire world, and another against itself.

Democrats ought to build a moral firewall around Syria policy, establishing a framework for understanding the Syrian conflict and debating policy options.

From Morocco to Afghanistan, the scholars and experts at MEI take a closer look at how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.

This was an inauspicious start for a plan that from the outset was riddled with holes.

In changing the balance of power on the ground and forcing hostilities to a stalemate, Turkey’s military intervention in Idlib had produced its desired effect. On March 5, Vladimir Putin and Erdogan sat together for six hours and announced to the world a comprehensive cease-fire and the establishment of a secure corridor spanning six kilometers on the north and south sides of the M4 highway.

As Syria’s war reaches its ninth anniversary, Russian and U.S. soldiers are increasingly finding themselves face to face — quite literally — in the country’s northeast. A spate of confrontations over the last two months has opened questions about the fate of Syria’s north in the coming year.

Whether or not Gantz succeeds in forming a government, the Joint List has cemented its role as “king makers” in Israeli politics.

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hammered out a deal with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on March 5 to bring an end to the fighting in Idlib in northwestern Syria, he said he was hopeful that the two countries could extend their cooperation to Libya.

Minority communities in south-west Syria have shrunk to a fraction of their pre-2011 size, and the regime’s repressive policies perpetuate a cycle of violence and chaos that prevents their safe return. The regime’s strategy of transforming minority communities into sources of militia fighters has not only led to the deaths of thousands of young Alawite and Shi’a men, but also created sectarian tensions between formerly interconnected communities in south-west Syria. So long as the regime’s policy in the south-west is characterized by violence, the safe and dignified return of displaced Syrians will not be possible. This paper studies current and former minority communities in south-west Syria, the security and economic challenges these groups face, and the manner by which the regime exploits and weaponizes these vulnerable Syrians.

In the past, similar cease-fire agreements ended shortly after they were announced and were followed by more fierce fighting that further consolidated the regime’s control.