Palestinians from Fatah (yellow flags) and Hamas (green flags) celebrated the reconciliation agreement between the factions in 2011, but little progress in the region has been made since.
EPA/Mohammed Saber
Recently, Musheer al-Masri, a Hamas member and spokesperson, blamed his Palestinian political rivals Fatah yet again for hindering the implementation of the Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement. The agreement…
Benjamin Netanyahu will remain Israel’s prime minister, but the rise of centrist parties have made his choices for coalition partners far more difficult.
EPA/Oliver Weiken
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bruising victory in Israel’s election was costly.
The hawkish atmosphere over electing members of the 19th Knesset saw the highest voter turnout since 1999 and some…
Increased sanctions against Iran could weaken more than its national currency, the Rial.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Bob Carr’s announcement yesterday that Australia would increase sanctions against Iran will be greeted with praise from some quarters. There is a growing understanding among analysts, diplomats and leaders…
Palestinians gather around what is left of a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike this week.
EPA/Ali Ali
Gaza, ostracised, enclosed and pummelled, is being levelled – again. Israel’s case against Hamas, expressed both via air strikes and a social media war, is one of self-defence. Article 51 of the United…
Iranian students demonstrate in Tehran to mark the 33rd anniversary of US Embassy takeover.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
The re-election of Barack Obama to a second term will have significant ramifications for an America struggling with economic and social difficulties. But will it have the same impact on residents of the…
President Barack Obama, pictured here with Chinese President Hu Jintao, will continue to ‘pivot’ to Asia.
EPA/Alex Wong
Sitting in New York, in the aftermath of an American election dominated by a domestic agenda, it is easy to lose sight of both the pressing external problems that the US continues to face, and the impact…
Australian Syrians protest in Hyde Park, Sydney, in February calling for the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down immediately.
AAP Image/Lauren Farrow
In Syria, the optimism which accompanied the Arab Spring uprising has faded into the reality of a bloody sectarian civil war. Recent media reports have highlighted the involvement of foreign fighters in…
Syrian government forces during an operation in Aleppo.
SANA
The exchange of artillery fire between Turkish and Syrian forces over the past few days has seen a renewed focus on the possibility of an escalating war between Damascus and Ankara.
It seems that not…
President Obama’s charm offensive in the Middle East has been overtaken by the Arab Spring and growing instability in the region.
EPA/Khaled El Fiqi
When Barack Obama and Mitt Romney commenced their presidential campaigns, Middle East policy was not a top issue. But the Middle East has a propensity to thrust itself on US politics.
True to form, the…
Mitt Romney’s comments about Israel parroted the US Zionist lobby.
EPA/Abir Sultan
How should the world react when a supposedly democratic state can’t acknowledge a 40-year-old occupation?
When US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel during a visit…
Residents inspect their damaged house after a bomb explosion in Baquba, Iraq.
EPA/Ali Mohammed
When US President Obama announced the end of America’s involvement in Iraq, he deliberately did not claim victory.
But he did say, when welcoming the last contingent of combat troops home in October last…
Many Syrians prefer the stability of the Assad regime to the chaos they saw after dictators were deposed in Libya and Iraq.
EPA/Youssef Badawi
The stench of hypocrisy is a hard one to wash out for the West in the Middle East.
We shook Gadaffi’s hand and pretended we liked his outfits when he coughed up for Lockerbie and we snuggled with Mubarak…
Looking at the earth from above can reveal incredible secrets.
delayed gratification
Archaeology is the study of the remains of the past but has long been predatory on the sciences and their ever-growing technologies. I was brought up as a student in 1970s Britain, when we learned of the…
How can we stop people putting themselves in peril?
AAP/Josh Jerga
Last weekend, an overcrowded fishing boat sank off the coast of Indonesia with more than 200 asylum seekers on board.
In Australia, the political blame game started soon after with both sides trying to…
Egypt takes its first steps towards democracy but it’s not in the way many were hoping for.
EPA/Amel Pain
After the overthrowing of dictator Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has had its first round of parliamentary elections, with two parties dominating the vote – the moderate Muslim Brotherhood and the religious conservative…
Nicholas Sarkozy is a master of the political insult.
EPA/Kerim Okten/Pool
So Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been called a liar in a conversation that was released on the web.
I’m not talking about the chat between Nicholas Sarkozy and Barack Obama. Rather, I…
President Obama and French leader Nicolas Sarkozy were caught speaking of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in unflattering terms at the G20 summit.
AAP/Stefan Rousseau
The recent Cannes G20 meeting was ostensibly about saving Europe from falling into economic oblivion.
But a frank exchange between US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, caught…
People in Libya are desperate for change and the new government will have to manage expectations carefully.
AFP/Abdullah Doma
The relegation of Moammar Gaddafi to the meat-locker of history is a significant exorcism of Libya’s past.
Whether it would have been better for him to face trial is a moot point. It’s doubtful that too…
Gilad Shalit speaks to his family following his release from captivity after five years.
AFP/IDF
When Gilad Shalit was dragged away in a cross-border raid in June 2006, it’s doubtful he or his captors would have imagined five years’ of negotiations lay ahead.
Nor in their most fevered imaginings…
Coptic Christians have long been discriminated against in Egypt, but the violence against them, and the government response to it, signals concerns for democracy in the country.
EPA/Mohamed Omar
The violence in Egypt involving Coptic demonstrators, military units and unidentified thugs shocked the country and rang alarms about prospects for transition to democracy.
Egypt is going through a revolution…
Peace and stability will be crucial for Libya’s post-revolution development.
AAP
With the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s autocratic regime, the transitional government in Libya is prompting hopes for a new era of democracy in the country.
While a swift transition to democracy is certainly…
Syrian troops withdraw from the city of Hama where they were quelling pro-democracy protests.
AFP/STR
The United States has stepped up sanctions against Syria, targeting President Bashar al-Assad’s financial resources. Syria claims to have withdrawn its troops from the city of Hama, which has played a…
Palestinian medics attend to an elderly woman in the shadow of the Israeli wall.
AAP
The United Nations is set to vote on recognising Palestine as an independent state next month.
What the chances of the Palestinian initiative succeeding? What implications would recognition of Palestinian…
Syrian President Assad addresses the nation earlier this week.
AAP
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad made a major speech earlier this week promising major reforms in the way his country is governed in an attempt to end protests rocking the Middle Eastern country.
However…
Israelis have a right to live in peace. But Israel has no ‘right to exist.’
AAP/Gali Tibbon
Since the 1970s, Israel’s leaders have insisted that their Palestinian interlocutors acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist” as a pre-condition for negotiations on a settlement of the conflict.
Amongst…
President Obama is spending his post-bin Laden political capital in the Middle East.
AAP
President Barack Obama has made a number of speeches focusing on events in the Middle East in recent weeks.
Obama used a landmark speech regarding the uprisings in the Arab world to call on Israel to…
Obama has outlined American foreign policy in the Middle East.
AAP
President Barack Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa yesterday is being considered a landmark event in US foreign policy.
Made in the wake of the so-called Arab spring and the killing of…
Revolutions encourage people to see the world through different eyes.
AFP/STR
The lives of millions of people in the Arab-speaking world are changing. Often for the first time, women and men have jumped, danced, kissed strangers and sung in the streets. There is talk of dignity…
Facebook is a key tool for the modern revolutionary.
AAP
Facebook, with more than 500 million members, has now reached superpower status. If Facebook were a country, its supporters often say, its population would rank behind only China and India.
But there…
The works of a great writer precipitated the astonishing events in Egypt in February.
EPA/Misam Saleh
We are living in extraordinary times. People are using social media to campaign for freedom from their governments, but their ideas are built on a much more powerful medium: literature.
Protests have…
Protests have swept the Middle East in recent weeks.
AAP
The protests that have swept the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt from power, and brought much of the region to a halt as massive crowds take to the streets to demand political change, have been spectacular…
