Current Journal
Editor's Note - Winter 2019
As this is written, the Trump impeachment process is dominating a deeply divided capital. For those interested in foreign policy, of course, the president’s actions towards Ukraine are more worrisome than Richard Nixon’s Watergate break-in of 1973-74 or Bill Clinton’s sex scandal of 1998.
Symposium — The United States, Israel and Palestine: An Assessment.
James Zogby / Lara Friedman / Shibley Telhami / Jake Walles
The following is an edited transcript of the ninety-eighth in a series of Capitol Hill Conferences convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The meeting was held on October 25, 2019, in the Russell Senate Office Building with Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley moderating.
Interview: The German-Israeli "Special Relationship Preview
Shir Hever
Israel and South Sudan: A Convergence of Interests Preview
Michael B. Bishku
South Sudan, composed originally of 10 states populated by more than 12 million inhabitants of numerous ethnicities and languages and practicing mostly an animist or Christian faith, received its independence from predominantly Arab and Sunni Muslim Sudan on July 9, 2011, becoming the fifty-fourth sovereign country in Africa.
The EU and the Mideast Order: Ideology vs. Power Balancing Preview
Peter Seeberg
Maritime Security in the Persian Gulf Preview
Gawdat Bahgat
Azerbaijan and Iran: A Shift in Geopolitical Gravity Preview
Dmitry Shlapentokh
Russia’s Imprint in Iraqi Kurdistan: Rosneft’s Ascendancy Preview
Tomáš Kaválek and Filip Sommer
The Taliban Regime in Afghanistan: En Route to International Recognition? Preview
Selim Öztürk
An Inglorious Revolution: The Syrian Opposition’s Compromises Preview
Ibrahim Zabad
The 2019 Algerian Protests: A Belated Spring? Preview
Ebtisam Hussein
Solution in Libya: Elections, Mediation and a Victor’s Peace
Irene Costantini
On April 4, 2019, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched a military strike against Tripoli, the Libyan capital and the headquarters of the internationally recognized, UN-sponsored Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez al-Serraj.1The attack was a clear sign of the field marshal’s intention to challenge the GNA through military means, take control of the entire country and impose himself as the undisputed leader of post-2011 Libya.
Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump
In marked contrast to a substantial body of literature on U.S. policies toward Zionism and Israel, very little has been written about the evolving American stances vis-à-vis Palestinian nationalism and the Palestinian Arabs during the past century.
Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed
From the inception of the Palestinian refugee crisis in 1948 to the rise of the second Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yasser Arafat’s leadership in 1969, American policy makers empathized with this human tragedy unfolding in the Middle East.
The Economy of the Gulf States
Matthew Gray offers a broad overview of the historical and current political economy of the Gulf states.
The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Few events in the history of the Middle East have had greater impact than World War I. The bloody fighting devastated the lands of the Ottoman Empire and marked the end of centuries-long political rule that had prevailed across swaths of the Middle East.
Book Review Essay: The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities 1894-1924
This is a provocative title. The accusation of genocide in 1915-16 is common, but was there really a 30-year genocide, implying a steady, continuous campaign with one goal in mind, lasting from the late Ottoman period to the early days of the Turkish republic?