Never in the modern history of the Middle East have so many countries experienced such intense, often violent, domestic conflict or political paralysis. The ongoing wars or severe ideological confrontations in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan and Bahrain

Credible press reports and recent hints by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas indicate that Abbas will soon unveil a new diplomatic initiative aimed at achieving Palestinian statehood, and the end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. As is usually t

The dramatic expansion of the territory controlled by the “Islamic State” (IS) in Syria and Iraq in the last few months has generated a historic moment of reckoning in several arenas in those two countries which mirror similar trends across the entire region. These r

Rare in world history do we have a case like the state of Iraq today, which now captures all the worst aspects of indigenous, regional and global political failures, but in history represented the pinnacle of human achievements in art, culture, poetry, learning, architecture, ind

The 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire that went into effect in Gaza and Israel Friday morning — for half an hour, before collapsing into total war — should remind us what is needed to quickly shift the focus of discussion and analysis about the Israel-Palestine conflict

What does Israel expect to achieve by attacking Gaza with a large land force, following 10 days of attacking from the air and suffering Palestinian counter-attacks by far less effective small rockets?

Any analyst or citizen of the countries of the Middle East quickly becomes dizzy these days in trying to find the start of a thread of ideas that could help explain the now cataclysmic chain of developments in Iraq and Syria, Lebanon, Palestine-Israel, Egypt, Libya, Kurdistan and

The last two weeks of attacks by Israelis and Palestinians and street clashes in Jerusalem have raised questions about whether Palestinians will launch a third Intifada to shake off the Israeli occupation.

US President Barack Obama’s latest request to Congress to provide $500 million in equipment and training to “appropriately vetted” moderate Syrian opposition forces will provoke a lively debate on two issues: on whether this is too little, too late to influence