Research & Commentary Results

In less than two decades, a string of offshore discoveries has turned the Eastern Mediterranean into a significant gas-producing region, making Israel an exporter, twice lifting Egypt into the ranks of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, and giving Cyprus finds it has yet to bring to market. This backgrounder explores the potential and challenges of exploiting and managing LNG resources in the region.

A year after world leaders gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to mark the end of the war in Gaza, Israel controls about 70% of the Strip, Hamas retains its arms, and reconstruction has yet to begin. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, record settler violence and settlement expansion are colliding with a Palestinian Authority on the brink of fiscal collapse. Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Associate Fellow Tahani Mustafa to discuss why the Gaza peace plan is deadlocked, an increasingly emboldened Israel in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas’s postponement of Palestinian elections, the Palestinian Authority’s deepening economic crisis, and what role the US could play.

The Trump administration has done more than any of its predecessors to restore sovereignty for a much traumatized nation, Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces’ operations in 2024 against Hezbollah decimated that organization, long the “A Team” in global terror.

Brian sits down with author and Emmy Award-winning journalist Kim Ghattas to talk about her new book, The Best Kind of American, which tells the story of the 1984 assassination of Malcolm Kerr, then president of the American University of Beirut. They discuss her inspiration for the project, what Kerr’s murder revealed about the Middle East at the time, and why his story still resonates four decades later.

The Israeli government’s plan to build 3,401 housing units in the 12-square-kilometer E-1 corridor, between Jerusalem’s municipal boundary and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, would cut the West Bank in two. Israeli officials are under no illusion about the implications. Announcing the plan’s approval in August 2025, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called it a “significant step that practically erases the two-state delusion.”

The war with Iran has not yet resolved the contest between Tehran and Washington, but it has already begun to reshape the Middle East — and nowhere as clearly in the United States’ favor as in Lebanon. The challenges in Lebanon have presented the US with a defining test: whether Washington and its partners have the determination to convert Iran’s material losses into lasting strategic change.

The 20-point plan for Gaza introduced before the war with Iran began has languished, with no meaningful recovery, reconstruction, Hamas disarmament, governance transition, or Israeli withdrawal. The diplomatic pivot back to Gaza in late July and early August suggests that the Iran war’s stubborn persistence may be causing the US and regional actors to seek wins on other fronts.

The American-Israeli campaign against Iran that began in February 2026 resulted in a regional conflict its authors never intended. The war’s chief product is not what the United States and Israel destroyed, though that was significant, but what Iran proved: that it holds a strategic lever over its neighbors, the world economy, and the US.

Turkey has become a major player in Africa, with a particularly strong footprint in the Horn. While economic and energy interests’ matter, one sector now stands at the center of Ankara’s regional activism: defense.

Although it has been a frustrating summer, Lebanon remains on the right track. My observation after a ten-day visit to Beirut and Jerusalem this month is that leaders in both capitals remain strongly committed to a shared objective.

Brian is joined by Hisham Melhem, a prominent journalist known for his interviews with Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and his role as an honest intermediary between Americans and the people of the Middle East. He reflects on his journey from growing up in Lebanon to building a life in America, discusses how the region has transformed over his lifetime, and offers a candid take on where US foreign policy stands today.

Brian is joined by Amb. (ret.) Yael Lempert, Vice President for Outreach at MEI, to discuss her career in diplomacy and the importance of US diplomatic efforts abroad. She shares stories from postings across the Middle East in Baghdad, Cairo, Tripoli, Jerusalem, and Amman and examines how her personal and professional experiences shaped her approach to the work. Together, Brian and Yael discuss the realities of life in the Foreign Service, the core tenets of American diplomacy, and why it matters in today’s Middle East.

In many ways, the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the war in Gaza that preceded it seem transformative. After decades of shadow warfare, Iran and Israel have now attacked each other’s homelands directly. And Israel and the United States have joined forces in a genuinely novel way to wage war against Iran.

This report considers the lack of Palestinian political agency as a driver of regional insecurity that must be resolved before wider conflicts can be settled. The author analyses the conditions that contributed to the destruction of Palestinian political capacity, including Israeli policies, Palestinian shortcomings, and exploitation by Iran, and makes recommendations for an Arab strategic initiative.

A year and a half into Donald Trump’s second administration, the Middle East is far from where the president had hoped or expected it would be.