Normalization splits the Arab world
On March 28, 2022, the town of Sde Boker in Israel’s Negev region hosted an historic event – a meeting of the top diplomats of four Arab nations with those…
Qatar World Cup offers lessons for human rights struggles
It’s a good time, almost 12 years after the world soccer body, FIFA, awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup hosting rights and five months before the tournament, to evaluate the…
How Iran stands to gain from the war in Ukraine
On June 2 the Dubai-based media outlet, Al-Arabiya News, highlighted the irony of how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has impacted on the Middle East. Citing reports that Russian troops were…
Saudi religious soft power diplomacy eyes Washington and Jerusalem
Geopolitics is written all over Saudi religious soft power efforts. Nowhere more so than when it comes to Israel and Jews because of the growing importance of security cooperation with…
The World Cup and beyond: Thinking strategically about LGBT+ rights
When Egyptian football legend Mohammed Aboutreika came out swinging against homosexuality in late 2021, he touched a raw nerve across the Muslim world. The tit-for-tat between Mr. Aboutreika and supporters…
China and the Middle East: Heading into Choppy Waters
China could be entering choppy Middle Eastern waters. Multiple crises and conflicts will likely shape its relations with the region’s major powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. The laundry…
Erdogan’s charm offensive: a limited success
On June 1 Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, broke off the talks he had initiated with Greece back in January 2021, and canceled the High-Level Strategic Council that they had…
Recognising Israel: Any Asian volunteers?
The question for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not whether either country will recognise Israel but when and who will go first. For the past two years, Saudi Arabia was…
The precarious Yemen truce
The deck of Yemen’s ‘FSO Safer’, which has not been maintained for years The two-month truce between the Yemeni government and the Houthis, brokered by the UN, ended on June…
The India-Gulf Spat: Protagonists in glass houses
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al-Baqr, a man known for his pithy retorts, pretended to quiver in his pants. Hindu nationalists had called for a boycott of the Gulf airline after…