The once united Arab world is more divided today than at anytime since the implementation of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 whereby the French and British imperial governments decided to split the majority of the Arab world into spheres of influence to be shared by western Europe’s foremost colonial aggressors. In the middle of the …
Israel and the US are in a race against time with Gaza. The conundrum is stark: how to continue isolating the tiny coastal enclave from the outside world and from the West Bank – to sabotage any danger of a Palestinian state emerging – without stoking a mass revolt from Gaza's two million Palestinians? In …
Continue reading Sisi Holds Key to Trump’s Sinai Plan for Palestinians
The defeat of the Egyptian national football team by their Saudi Arabian counterparts in the 2018 World Cup can be viewed as a metaphor for the triumph of the Saudis over Egypt after an intense and sometimes deadly political rivalry played out during the rule of the charismatic and secular-orientated Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. …
Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister unexpectedly extended olive branches to regional rivals Eritrea and Egypt. The first of Premier Ahmed’s two interconnected moves over the weekend was his announcement that Ethiopia will unilaterally comply with a 2002 international court ruling that the contested town of Badme at the center of his country’s 1998-2000 war with neighboring …
Continue reading Ethiopia’s Olive Branches to Eritrea & Egypt will Change Regional Geopolitics
Now that the DPRK, a former signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which later withdrew has agreed to a full de-nuclearisation process, it is time to focus on other nations that possess nuclear weapons that have yet to sign the NPT. Of all the world’s nuclear powers only “Israel”, India …
Continue reading The World Must Work to Peacefully De-nuclearise the “Israeli” Regime
For five days, Jordanians took to the streets to protests measures by the government to increase taxes. Demonstrators also demanded access and improvements to city services, the lack of which compounds the high rate of unemployment to which Jordan’s population is subjected. In the largest protests the country has seen since 2011, Jordanians unseated prime …
Continue reading The Arab World and the Struggle Against Austerity
About 80 kilometers off the coast of Haifa in Israel, a string of rigs, platforms and pipelines now work day and night, extracting natural gas from one of the largest reservoirs in the Eastern Mediterranean. This resource, known as the Tamar Field, now powers businesses and homes throughout Israel. It has helped the country approach …
Continue reading Will Saudi Arabia be the Answer to Israel’s Gas Conundrums?
The art of the deal, when practiced for 2,500 years, does lead to the palace of wisdom. I had hardly set foot in Tehran when a diplomat broke the news: “Trump? We’re not worried. He’s a bazaari (merchant trader)” – implying a political compromise will eventually be reached. The Iranian government’s response to the Trump …
The White House has had a hot new idea – to leave Syria but also stay there at the same time by deploying an Arab contingent to US military bases, primarily from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). So to Arabize one of the bloodiest wars of our time in keeping with the bitter memory …
