Policy Analysis

A detailed public opinion poll from last month shows that most West Bank and Gaza Palestinians approve of Jordan’s King Abdullah, look to his country for help, and want it to play a major role in their future–though just a small minority favor a future confederation with Jordan. On other

While divisive, former Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked is a force to be reckoned with. Since 2012, when she joined the religious, right-wing Jewish Home party as its first secular member, Shaked has positioned herself as a champion for conservative causes and developed a reputation for tenacity, hawkishness, and

The international community was caught off-guard by the almost miraculous, peaceful, youth-driven revolution in Sudan, which successfully triggered the overthrow of a brutal dictator. A country so-often overlooked by the rest of the world suddenly dominated news outlets, took over social media, and grabbed the attention of governments around the

Palestinian public opinion clearly distinguishes between perceived rights and realities. Results from a new poll conducted June 27-July 15 show very mixed views on long-term peace issues among Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The “two-state solution” has lost majority support. Yet if that option were available

Interest in the issue of terrorist repatriation has returned to the forefront of media coverage in recent weeks, especially after Iraq tried and sentenced to death eleven French nationals who had joined ISIS, causing an eruption of angry official and popular reactions in France. The legal challenges of repatriation and

In mid-July 2019, a group of leaders and dignitaries in Hadramout, Southern Yemen held a consultative meeting to discuss the security situation, public services, and oil production in the Hadramout region. Hadramout is the largest governorate in terms of area and holds 80 percent of Yemen’s oil reserves, making it

The latest survey conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion, June 27-July 15, 2019, indisputably confirms this highly counter-intuitive finding from other recent polls: on many issues related to Israel, the two million Palestinians in Gaza actually voice significantly more moderate opinions than do the roughly equal Palestinian population

A new poll by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion, taken June 27-July 19, indicates that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza oppose their leaderships’ preemptive rejection of the Trump administration’s peace plan—despite widespread popular disapproval of the current U.S. president. The survey also shows a

Since February 22, Algeria has been witnessing what has been described as the largest political movement since its independence in 1962. Over the past four months, this popular movement has been able to force changes that most political analysts previously thought to be unachievable in a country such as Algeria

The reign of terror that ISIS conducted in their self-proclaimed caliphate shocked the world’s conscious to the point that sworn enemies marshaled their resources to defeat the threat. Yet as Kelley E. Currie, senior State Department appointee and representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, stated at a

Egypt and Turkey are the two largest countries in the eastern Mediterranean; along with Iran, they make up nearly half of the total population of the Middle East. The two states also possess what are considered the two strongest conventional military powers in the Middle East. Moreover, Cairo and Ankara

On July 2, the Turkish army reportedly shelled Kurdish forces in the Northern Aleppo region of Tel Rifaat, following a similar incident in mid-June where the Turkish Defense Ministry reported killing ten Kurdish soldiers in retaliation for the death of a Turkish soldier. These recent intermittent skirmishes reflect how Tel

A delegation of the American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL) just returned from a trip to Lebanon, where it met with over a hundred representatives of government, business, civil society, and academia while also visiting a Syrian refugee settlement in the Bekaa Valley. During the trip, I and other members

In a time where the balance of the Middle East is in flux, regional leaders and the international community alike should be closely following the relationship between Turkey and Iran. While the relationship between Teheran and Ankara has historically been troubled, mutual interests have sprouted newfound cooperation between the two

At the end of June, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used a combination of leaks and statements to communicate that it was beginning to fold its large military intervention in support of the internationally-recognized—if rather undeserving—government of Yemen. With the UAE only just having signaled its intention to drawdown in

For many decades, successive Iranian regimes have perpetrated injustices against non-Persian peoples who make up approximately half of the country’s population. Indeed, the Islamic Republic chose to follow in the footsteps of the Shah in terms of promoting Persian ethnic supremacism. Since its inception, the regime has enacted a number

After months of back and forth, the leading parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)—the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—are engaged in negotiations to finalize the cabinet, which must be completed by July 12. Yet as the shape of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s

In Algeria, a recent crackdown by Algeria’s transitional government has caused a number of prominent senior officials from the Bouteflika era to face charges from the Sidi M'hamed central court in Algiers, mostly related to corruption. While systemic corruption was one of the issues that fueled Algeria’s recent protest movement

From September 2015, Russia’s military intervention into the Syrian civil war succeeded in turning the conflict’s momentum from the opposition back to the Syrian government. However, in the past few years Russia has simultaneously undertaken a quieter intervention in the Syrian conflict through humanitarian institutions. While there has been a

The current blackout fits the regime's wider pattern of attempting to guarantee its survival by restricting access to information.