• Policy Analysis
    LevantUS Domestic Politics and Elections

    Why the World Shouldn’t Panic About Trump

    Jun 1, 2016Joe Macaron

    “Everything I say right now is a suggestion, I am not the President,” the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Fox News on May 13. However, his …

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantDemocracy and Governance

    Lessons of Israel’s Political Shuffle

    May 20, 2016Yousef Munayyer

    The latest political move by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is significant on many fronts. Yesterday the news was reported that Netanyahu had offere…

  • Policy Analysis
    LebanonDemocracy and Governance

    What Municipal Elections Mean for Lebanon

    May 17, 2016Joe Macaron

    Lebanon is holding this month municipal elections across the country, the first electoral test since the start of the Syrian war. The ruling traditional partie…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantInternational Law

    Navigating Pitfalls and Opportunities: Obama’s Parting Shot on Israel/Palestine

    May 17, 2016Yousef Munayyer

    President Obama, who gave his first interview to Al-Arabiya in 2009 and spoke again few months later in his Cairo address about Palestinian aspirations, is now…

  • Policy Analysis
    Palestine/IsraelConflicts and Conflict Resolution

    The Paris Initiative and US Middle East Policy: Paving the Way for the 4th Intifada – Why justice is the only roadmap to peace

    May 16, 2016Tamara Kharroub

    In the middle of the US presidential election season, France has elected to take the opportunity and break the US monopoly over the Middle East peace process, …

  • Policy Analysis
    IraqDemocracy and Governance

    Defeating ISIL is Not Enough to Save Iraq

    May 10, 2016Joe Macaron

    Two years into the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and amid the persistent downward trend of global oil prices, Iraq is obviously…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantJustice, Equality, and Human Rights

    The Coming Change in US-Israel Relations

    May 10, 2016Yousef Munayyer

    The discussion on Israel at the most recent Democratic presidential debate is but the latest benchmark in progress down a road on which the American people hav…

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantIdentity Politics and Sectarianization

    Freedom of religion as a foundation of Arab democracy: An Arab view of the 2016 report of US Commission on International Religious Freedom

    May 3, 2016Tamara Kharroub

    The onset of the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011 gave hope to millions of people across the Arab world that change is possible and that freedoms, democratic tr…

  • Policy Analysis
    IranRegional Relations and Geopolitics

    Wanted: A US Strategy in the Middle East

    Apr 11, 2016Yousef Munayyer

    In 2006, as Israel and Hezbollah were engaged in what would be a 34­day war, the longest of any Arab­Israeli war since 1948, US Secretary of State Condoleezza …

  • Policy Analysis
    US Domestic Politics and Elections

    The promise of democratic socialism: Bernie Sanders, Palestine, and US policy in the Middle East

    Apr 11, 2016Tamara Kharroub

    Bernard (or Bernie) Sanders is one of two remaining candidates running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2016 US presidential elections. Following …

  • Policy Analysis
    LevantDemocracy and Governance

    The Obama Doctrine from a Middle East Perspective: Orientalism, Inaction, Contradiction, and Lack of Accountability

    Mar 18, 2016Tamara Kharroub

    In a lengthy narrative collection of conversations and interviews with President Obama and others, journalist Jeffry Goldberg’s tedious tale of “The Obama Doct…

  • Policy Analysis
    LebanonIdentity Politics and Sectarianization

    Saudi Arabia Goes on the Offensive against Hezbollah

    Mar 8, 2016Joe Macaron

    Saudi Arabia’s explicit identification of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah as a strategic threat is a tipping point in the underlying tensions between both sides. …