Hamas is a Cold War creation and was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (and funded by Israel) in 1987, at the start of the First Intifada, to oppose the secular, nationalist Fatah organization, run by Yasser Arafat. The group is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Read More Here Also Read: The Ghosts of Lebanon
Just in the past 24 months, an astonishing number of armed conflicts have started, renewed, or escalated. Some had been fully frozen, meaning that the sides had not sustained direct combat in years; others were long simmering, meaning that low-level fighting would intermittently erupt. All have now become active. Read More Here.
Although an Israeli-Saudi deal is off the table for now, the incentives that brought Saudi Arabia to consider recognizing Israel have not gone away. Read More Here
Will Israel-Hamas war spiral into a regional conflict? Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar and Syria will be pivotal to war’s trajectory and scale? Read More Here
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is just one of several economic and geopolitical trends darkening the outlook for global growth. But while the immediate future seems bleak and could get bleaker, the good news is that we have the capacity to turn today’s vicious cycles into virtuous ones. Read More Here
The country’s adversaries around the world may sense Washington is stretched too thin. Read More Here
While Hamas’s outrageous acts of terrorism should be condemned unconditionally, one must not confuse what is really at issue in the Holy Land. The choice is not one hardline faction or the other; it is between the fundamentalists on both sides and all those who still believe in the possibility of peaceful co-existence. Read More […]
The starting point for the new Middle East will be an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, not an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh. Read More Here Also Read: Israel’s Intelligence Failure and Hubris Meets Nemesis in Israel
The region’s leaderships are making a set of strategic choices as consequential as the ones their predecessors made earlier, and it has an opportunity to make much better strategic choices than it made in the past, and there are signs it is beginning to do so—but not in every case. Read More Here
Ethnic separatists have recently launched a series of targeted attacks on Chinese citizens living in Pakistan, with the latest murder happening in Karachi on September 28. Read More Here
looking beyond borders 