In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, Hassan Mneimneh, and Paul Scham provide analysis on recent events including the killing of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, deadly blasts targeting regime-held territory in Syria, Iraq’s intra-Shiite feud, and Avigdor Lieberman’s appointment as Israel’s Defense Minister.
The Potential for Intra-Regional Energy Cooperation
Regional Cooperation Series
This Policy Paper is part of The Middle East Institute’s Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry.
Monday Briefing: Lebanon's Elections, Gaza Unrest, Syria Talks, and Saudi's New Oil Minister
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Paul Scham, Charles Lister, and Jean-François Seznec provide analysis on recent events including Lebanon’s elections, unrest in Gaza, the ongoing Syria talks, and Saudi Arabia’s new oil minister.
U.S. Should Allow International Input in Israel-Palestine
For the first time in almost half a century, the United States has acknowledged that it is “out of ideas” about how to address Israel’s occupation and fulfill a declared American interest in establishing a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
Many used to say that unlike other countries that have an army, Algeria is an army that has a country. As 2016 begins, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika—no mere client of the army—has consolidated his authority and empowered his allies in Africa’s largest nation. However, questions about Algeria’s political and economic stability loom large in the new year.
The White House recently acknowledged that it was out of ideas on how to pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency, raising — for the first time — the prospect that Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is permanent.
Only a few authors have works that can be found on both floors of the Oman Library at The Middle East Institute, and fewer still that have a personal connection to both the institute and the history of the region. The late Ambassador Richard B. Parker can claim this status, having served 31 years in the Foreign Service and as the third editor of The Middle East Journal. He was also a longtime MEI scholar-in-residence.
A recent United Nations report warned that the Gaza Strip might become “uninhabitable” by 2020 for its 1.8 million residents.[1] Serious changes must be implemented as soon as possible to reverse the coastal enclave’s de-development.
Although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been around for generations, it still has the capacity to surprise. Even the experts are confused by the current violence that has been roiling Jerusalem for weeks now. Is this the long-awaited third intifada? What is causing it? Why is it centered in Jerusalem, not the West Bank? Who is leading it, and why are the principal actors teenagers with household knives? In fact, similar questions were asked at the beginning of the two previous intifadas, and of the Palestinian Revolt during the British Mandate. Why now? What for?
