Since the ousting of Bashar Al-Assad, Syria’s transitional government has been racing to project an image of renewal. Nearly every week brings announcements of investment deals, unveiled at high-profile press conferences and televised ceremonies. From glittering real estate ventures to energy and transport projects, these deals are meant to signal …

Israel’s attempted assassination of the Hamas political leadership in Doha, Qatar, has shaken the Gulf region, which hitherto believed that Qatar’s status as a US ally and official mediator in the Gaza war shielded it from such an attack. Considering this willingness to attack Hamas in Qatar, Israel could conceivably …

The so-called “Gaza Riviera” plan is less a vision of the future than an obituary written in the language of luxury. Wrapped in glossy renderings and marketed as a leap into progress, it is in fact the culmination of years of deliberate devastation – a scheme to erase Palestinians in …

Egypt is pushing for the formation of a NATO-like Arab military alliance in the wake of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar last week. For many regional states, Tel Aviv’s unprecedented military action in Doha signalled that no country is off limits to Israeli aggression. The 9 September attacks …

Previously marginal revanchist intellectuals have been producing grandiose ideological theorisations, that are now at the core of state-sanctioned narratives legitimising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is however little evidence that the “hawks” can effectively constrain the Kremlin’s policy choices With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a new set of keywords entered …

Across the Arab world, a bitter contradiction has emerged. In the streets of Cairo, Beirut and Rabat, crowds still chant passionately for Gaza and the Palestinian cause. Yet behind the marble halls of power, many Arab rulers have grown conspicuously quiet. The Palestinian cause, once the beating heart of pan-Arab …

On any given day during the long war in Gaza, a Biden administration official could be expected to assert any of the following: a cease-fire was around the corner, the United States was working tirelessly to achieve one, it cared equally about the Israelis and the Palestinians, a historic Saudi-Israeli …

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As America Drifts Away From Its Allies, a Less Peaceful World Awaits It has become commonplace to speak of living in a “post-Western world.” Commentators typically invoke the phrase to herald the emergence of non-Western powers—most obviously China, but also Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and the Gulf states, among others. …

Nine months after the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad was toppled by a rebel offensive, Syria faces a litany of new challenges. The country, which is now being led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is contending with recurring violent sectarian clashes, successive Israeli strikes into Syrian territory, and …