Israelis turned out in their highest numbers in decades on October 27 for the country’s first election since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc lost 15 seats and its Knesset majority, but Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc also fell short, leaving Arab parties, with a record 19 seats, potentially decisive in forming the next government. MEI Senior Fellow Natan Sachs joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to unpack the results, the coalition math, and what comes next for Israel’s security policy, the wider region, and US-Israeli relations.
Recent Elections and What They May Mean for the Middle East
Recent elections for the Israeli Knesset and American Congress may make less of a difference in the Middle East than some people think. Elections are significant indicators of national political trends, but do not always translate into changes in national security strategies. That is likely the case now in both nations.
The Coming Debate Over the US Military Presence in the Gulf
The war with Iran is hardly over, but the debate over the shape and nature of the post-conflict American posture in the Gulf region is just beginning. Undoubtedly, how the war ends will affect how the United States adjusts its role. While this debate is still in its early stages, something of a conventional wisdom is already developing in policy circles that could seriously compromise American influence in the Middle East.
Since 1967, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a contested feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ultimate disposition of the settlements and ongoing activity related to their growth have repeatedly defied agreement in negotiations over a resolution to the conflict.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
Panel I: Forging A Viable Political PathModerator: David Rothkopf, Foreign PolicyKhalil al Anani, Middle East Institute Graeme Bannerman, Middle East instituteKarim Haggag, National Defense UniversityTarek Masoud, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
Much of the analysis on the causes for the military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood’s performance, or lack thereof, in domestic affairs. Glaringly absent, however, is an examination of the preeminence of Sinai in the military’s decision to intervene in otherwise civilian political disputes between the burgeoning liberal parties and the veteran Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies.
Gulf Governments Offer Financing for U.S. Strike on Syria
Like pieces fitting together in a jigsaw puzzle, Arab governments – presumably from the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council – offered to finance a U.S. military strike on Syria, according to comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry during testimony September 4 with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In an exchange with Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) on the potential cost of U.S. military action in Syria, Kerry said,
The Lessons of Benghazi: One Year Later, Never More Urgent
The situation in Libya one year after the attack on the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 is chaotic, dysfunctional and disheartening. It remains not as abjectly horrible as it could be—the General National Congress did this summer finally approve a framework (however imperfect) for electing a constitutional assembly, and UN-backed efforts are under way to create an unofficial dialogue of national reconciliation—but these advances paper over ever-deeper failings, many of which were not inevitable.
“Open Doors; Open Minds”—the tagline of the Sheikh Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding (SMCCU), a non-profit organization advocating awareness and understanding among the various cultures that live in Dubai—epitomizes Dubai’s emergence as an international trade and transit hub as well as a place of cultural symbiosis that hosts diverse nationalities from almost all corners of the globe.
Egyptians call their desert country “the protected” (al-mahrousa) in homage to its longevity and the idiosyncratic features that have consistently saved it from destitution: a geostrategic location, Nile-fed farmland, and a stunning array of in situ antiquities. While much has remained unchanged in Egypt since the 2011 uprising, including the authoritarian nature of its government, alarming quantities of the country’s precious agricultural and archeological land have been vanishing to make way for cheaply-built homes of low-income citizens.
When King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and his foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, issued unequivocal pledges of support for Egypt’s military government and its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, their move was widely depicted in the news media as a logical extension of the kingdom’s opposition to revolutionary movements in the Arab world. This simplistic view overlooks the fact that Saudi Arabia has responded differently to different uprisings—it supports the rebels in Syria, helped to crush them in Bahrain—and that aligning itself with Egypt’s new rulers could be a risky strategy.
Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, and the Sharjah Biennale: The Emergence of a Global Art Hub
While visiting Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi frequently over the past 20 years, I couldn’t fail to notice that the three cities have increasingly, inexorably become a metropolitan area, ever merging as they build and develop in each other’s direction.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
