Since 2011, more than 3.2m Syrians are known to have taken refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and a number of other countries. The real scale of the crisis is likely to be much greater, as not all refugees…
As the dust settles on a series of terrorist attacks in France, people will now look to understand the broader players of this grim drama. From their own statements and from external sources, it appears…
Let’s face it: once a term laden with hope for the Middle East, the idea of an “Arab Spring” has become merely depressing. Assorted humanitarian disasters have followed in its wake – think of the unspeakable…
The mess in the Middle East is forcing states into actions that previously appeared unimaginable. Sworn enemies are suspending or at least compartmentalising grievances. The idea that an American secretary…
Israel’s Knesset has voted to dissolve itself, and a general election is due to be held on March 17 2015. Binyamin Netanyahu’s third government was a fractious one from the start, with many coalition members…
Escalating confrontations in Jerusalem centred on the al-Aqsa Mosque, 1500 more homes to be built in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and a sharp deterioration in Israel’s relations with Jordan have…
The Shia militant group Hezbollah has suggested its fight against Islamic State has given it a common purpose with the West. In an interview with the BBC, Mohammed Fneish, a Lebanese Hezbollah minister…
To explain the disaster befalling Iraq, as well as the rise of Islamic State (IS), you have to go back a century – before modern Iraq even existed. That’s not to discount the shared culpability of Iraq’s…
A specter continues to haunt the Arab world – the specter of regionalism. The idea that illogical national boundaries, drawn by colonial overlords divided what should have been a pan-Arab region has been…
Egypt’s new academic year started in early October amid unprecedented repressive measures by the state against students. On October 11, the morning of the first day of university, police carried out a…
The dreadful events in Iraq and Syria and counter-terrorism raids in Australia have alarmed Australians, including the 500,000-strong Muslim community. These incidents represent a new episode of the “third…
There are two reasons why we should ignore the growing calls in the United States, Canada and Australia for Western “boots on ground” – meaning ground troops – to fight and destroy the Islamic State (IS…
For at least a decade, attempts to understand why some young Muslims living in Western countries turn to violence in the name of religion have raised questions about Western foreign policy in the Middle…
With the August 26 ceasefire between Israeli and Palestinian forces holding, both sides have resumed their relentless pursuit of political advantage. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Palestine…
Since Hassan Rouhani was elected Iran’s president in June 2013, relations between Iran and the United States have significantly improved – though they remain very fragile. To explain why, most analysts…
An “initial gifting package”: the opaque label is wrapped around £1.6m worth of heavy machine guns and half a million rounds of ammunition, which has now reached the Iraqi town of Arbil courtesy of the…
Swamped as we are with media outrage and political rhetoric about asylum seekers “invading” Europe, we tend to forget that the vast majority of displaced people find refuge in countries far beyond EU borders…
US president Barack Obama has yet to work out exactly what America’s strategy is in confronting Islamic State (IS), and has been foolish enough to say so in public. Cue the foreseeable torrent of point-scoring…
With an unmistakable British accent, the now-infamous Islamic State (IS) fighter thought to have killed journalist James Foley has addressed his second message to US president Barack Obama. IS is trying…
Islamic State’s brutal killing of Steven Sotloff, coming on the heels of James Foley’s execution, is intended to shock and appal. It has done just that. But any response to the executions must recognise…