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Turkey’s fourth drilling ship set sail today as the country continues to pursue its offshore energy exploration.  The Abdulhamid Han will conduct a two-month mission in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The ship is considered the strongest of the country’s fleet, the official Anadolu Agency reported. 

Turkey sent a drilling ship to parts of the Mediterranean Sea claimed by Greece in 2018 and began conducting exploration in maritime territory claimed by Cyprus in 2019. Turkey halted the activities ahead of dialogue with Greece that began in early 2021.  Turkey's dialogue with Greece ended in May of this year, and now tensions are on the rise again. Leaders of both states exchanged subtle threats in June. 

In June, Egyptian military leaders met with their Greek and Cypriot counterparts to discuss military cooperation. In May, the United Arab Emirates and Greece signed a $4.2 billion investment agreement. Last December, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett hosted Greek and Cypriot leaders for a meeting on their security alliance. 

Why it matters: Turkey has been conducting energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and western Black Sea. Ankara's activities in the eastern Mediterranean have been a source of major contention between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey over conflicting territorial claims.  The tensions reached a high point last October when Turkish forces turned back a Cypriot research vessel for allegedly entering Turkish territory. Yet, revival of the exploratory talks between Ankara and Athens last year offered a diplomatic offramp to the escalation. In March, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, following third round of talks between the two parties on Feb. 22

Abdelaziz Salame, the highest political leader of the Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo, has issued a statement online where he claims to speak for 13 different rebel factions. You can see the video or read it in Arabic here. The statement is titled “communiqué number one” – making it slightly ominous right off the bat – and what it purports to do is to gut Western strategy on Syria and put an end to the exiled opposition.

All military and civilian forces should unify their ranks in an “Islamic framwork” which is based on “the rule of sharia and making it the sole source of legislation”. The undersigned feel that they can only be represented by those who lived and sacrificed for the revolution. Therefore, they say, they are not represented by the exile groups. They go on to specify that this applies to the National Coalition and the planned exile government of Ahmed Touma, stressing that these groups “do not represent them” and they “do not recognize them”. In closing, the undersigned call on everyone to unite and avoid conflict, and so on, and so on.

if the statement proves to accurately represent the groups mentioned and they do not immediately fall apart again, it is a very big deal. It represents the rebellion of a large part of the “mainstream FSA” against its purported political leadership, and openly aligns these factions with more hardline Islamist forces.

he advances remain well short of the rights enjoyed by Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the region

Palestinians in Lebanon will still be unable to work in the public sector or in professions such as medicine, law or engineering, where membership of Lebanese syndicates is compulsory. They will also continue to be denied access to Lebanese state medical or educational facilities

Some of the youngsters who throng the camps are fourth-generation offspring whose great-grandparents fled what is now northern Israel in 1948.

disinterested

It will be held under the auspices of an American president who was publicly humiliated by Israel’s prime minister on the issue that is at the center of the Israel-Palestine dispute — Israel’s continuing seizure and colonization of Arab land

Peace is a pattern of stability acceptable to those with the capacity to disturb it by violence. It is almost impossible to impose. It cannot become a reality, still less be sustained, if those who must accept it are excluded from it. This reality directs our attention to who is not at this gathering in Washington and what must be done to remedy the problems these absences create.

by its own reckoning, the attack has resurrected Hamas as a political player in the West Bank. In its attacks on settlers on two consecutive nights in different parts of the West Bank, Hamas demonstrated its reach despite a three-year, US-backed PA military campaign and exposed the fallacy of the PA’s claims to have established security control in the West Bank. “It’s not muqawama (resistance) against Israel,” says ‘Adnan Dumayri, a Fatah Revolutionary Council member and PA security force general. “It’s muqawama against Abbas.”  It also enabled the Islamists to catch seeping popular disaffection across the political spectrum toward a process of negotiations that appeared to Palestinians to be leading into a blind alley of continued Israeli control. Should Abbas fail to negotiate a halt to settlement growth, Hamas in its armed attacks against settlers would emerge from its three-year political wasteland to offer Palestinians an alternative. In contrast to the international media, where the attack was roundly condemned, in Palestine the attack earned plaudits not only from Hamas’ core constituency, but also from a broad swathe of Fatah and secular activists, including some senior actors, disillusioned by 19 years of negotiations based on an ever flimsier framework. Unlike the Annapolis process or the “road map,” the twin Bush administration initiatives that the Obama administration chose to ditch, the current negotiations lack any terms of reference or agreed-upon script. Palestinians ask why Abbas agreed to meet Netanyahu given that none of the Arab targets required to turn proximity talks into direct ones were reached prior to the Obama administration’s announcement of the meeting. When American elder statesman George Mitchell presented the parties with 16 identical questions on the core issues requiring yes or no answers, Israel responded to each with a question of its own. In his August 31 press briefing before the White House meeting, Mitchell again declined to specify if Israel had agreed even to extend its (partially honored) settlement freeze past the September 26 expiration date.

To maintain stability, the president’s men have resorted to an increasingly oppressive hand. The PA’s security forces suppress not only Islamist unrest but general dissent -- in late August disrupting a meeting called to protest the resumption of negotiations. Detainees emerge from prisons testifying to interrogators drilling through kneecaps. For all of Fayyad’s claims to have built institutions, in his bid to maintain power and prevent a vote of no confidence, he has neutered the most important, the Palestinian Legislative Council, Palestine’s prime expression of sovereignty. Local elections, designed to showcase the West Bank as the more democratic half of the Palestinian polity, were annulled after its main faction, Fatah, lost confidence in its ability to win, even though Hamas had declared a boycott

demographically, Israel is shifting further to the right. Far from shocking Israel into a reality check, the killing of nine civilians from Turkey, a purported ally, in international waters generated an outpouring of self-righteousness. Internationally isolated, Israeli Jews shared the feeling that “the whole world is against us,” and in a surge of patriotism redoubled their support for their government. According to a poll conducted a week after the Gaza flotilla incident, 78 percent of Israeli Jews backed Netanyahu’s policy. Support from Israel’s fastest-growing population sectors, the ultra-Orthodox and national-religious camps, topped 90 percent. The simultaneous news of vast natural gas finds off the coast only underscored these national-religious Jews’ sense of divine protection: They had lost one treasure at sea, gentile approval, and been blessed with another. More trusting in God than Obama, Netanyahu’s government is not configured to sign let alone implement a two-state settlement. For all the external hopes that Kadima leader Tzipi Livni might join the ruling coalition, the prospects for a shake-up in Israel’s political map look at least an election away. Even then, without the emergence of a new, more left-leaning religious force, possibly led by the former ultra-Orthodox leader Aryeh Deri, the nationalist coalition looks set to retain power. Fearful of upsetting his national-religious base, Netanyahu -- always alert to instances of Palestinian incitement -- shied away from condemning Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of Shas, the coalition’s fourth largest party, who on the eve of the Washington parley called on God to kill Abbas and similarly evil Palestinians. Provided he retains the confidence of his nationalist camp, domestically Netanyahu looks secure.

Lebanese troops have deactivated four rockets ready to be fired at Israel

The Lebanese military said three of the rockets were set with timers and left in a half-built house in Hula village, where Tuesday's attack was launched.

It was the fourth time rockets have been fired over the border this year.

In these 15 years, we went from an era where mainstream media dominated the narrative, to an era where social media dominates it. This isn’t a time when the mainstream sees the online as a playful mechanism of democratized media (or an opportunity to present their brands as participatory), but a time when the mainstream is chasing down leads from what circulates online. And the region’s people now have the power to shape the narrative (whether we’ve fully realized it or not).

Internet user growth in the region has gone up by 6,091.9% between 2000 and 2015

Arabic is now the fourth biggest language on the Web after English, Chinese and Spanish

As ties with the Obama White House deteriorated, ruling circles in Gulf capitals became increasingly muscular in pursuing their own regional interests. This was, in part, a reaction by Saudi and Emirati officials to Qatar’s assertive approach to the uprisings in North Africa and Syria between 2011 and 2013

The second phase of the Gulf states’ regional assertiveness (after Qatar’s activist approach in 2011 and 2012) played out in Libya, Yemen, the Gulf and Egypt. Saudi Arabia and the UAE funneled tens of billions of dollars in financial aid and investment in infrastructure designed to kickstart the ailing Egyptian economy. The UAE coordinated closely with Egypt and Russia to triangulate support for the Libyan strongman, Khalifa Haftar, as he battled Islamist militias in eastern Libya, carving out a largely autonomous sphere of influence separate from the internationally backed political process in Tripoli. The Saudis and Emiratis, together with the Bahrainis, withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar in March 2014 and accused Doha of interfering in the domestic affairs of its regional neighbors.

On the international stage, King Salman of Saudi Arabia made clear his displeasure with the Obama administration by canceling his planned attendance of the US-GCC summit at Camp David in May 2015. Six weeks earlier, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had launched Operation Decisive Storm in Yemen. The Yemen war was designed to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi, ousted in 2014 by the tactical alliance of Iran-allied Houthi rebels and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s armed loyalists. Launched just five days before the initial deadline (later extended to July 2015) in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1, the decision to take military action to counter and roll back perceived Iranian influence in Yemen represented a Saudi-led rebuke to the Obama administration’s belief that it was possible to separate the nuclear issue from Iran’s meddling in regional affairs.

Sheikh Tamim’s visit to Washington comes as the pace of Afghan peace talks hosted by Qatar has quickened significantly and generated real hopes of a breakthrough in attempts to end one of the “forever wars” that President Trump inherited when he took office in January 2017. For nearly a decade, the Qatari government has allowed the Taliban to operate a political office in Doha at the request of U.S. officials who recognized the utility of having an address where peace negotiators could contact Taliban intermediaries

Talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators began in October 2018 and increased incrementally so that, by the sixth round of dialogue in May 2019, the focus was on a lasting ceasefire, troop withdrawal, guarantees against terrorism, and an eventual political settlement with the Afghan government.

If the uptick in diplomatic activity in Doha can be sustained, it may put President Trump within distance of a breakthrough that eluded both Bush and Obama and an agreement the self-proclaimed dealmaker could embrace as the signature foreign policy success of his presidency so far.

Even though the 2011 revolution was motivated in large part by socio-economic concerns, the governments that have held office since then have been unable to improve the situation. Growth has remained low, and unemployment is high: 15 percent of the population is without work, and the rate for those with a university degree is over 30 percent. Inequality between the more prosperous coastal region and the deprived interior of the country remains striking. Around half of all workers are employed in the informal economy. Many young Tunisians lack any prospect of being able to afford a home or a car, or of being secure enough to start a family.

Faced with increasing debt and deficit levels and shrinking foreign currency reserves, Tunisia agreed a loan of $2.9 billion with the International Monetary Fund in 2016. The IMF called on Tunisia to cut public spending, overhaul its collection of taxes to raise government revenue, and allow the currency to depreciate. The IMF argues that it has been fairly flexible so far in enforcing public spending cuts, but it is now stepping up its pressure on the Tunisian authorities.

Wages in the public sector account for 15 percent of GDP (up from 10 percent in 2010), so it is hardly surprising that the government is now trying to limit spending in this area. Yet it is doing this at a time when inflation (worsened by the deflation of the Tunisian dinar that the IMF has promoted) and subsidy cuts have already had a severe impact on people’s purchasing power.

friends of General Haftar say he is doubling down on the civil war he started six years ago. His year-long siege of Tripoli, seat of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), has intensified of late. Groups loyal to him have messed with the city’s power and water supplies. The LNA’s shells have hit hospitals. “It’s hard to believe it’s not deliberate,” says a diplomat. In the east General Haftar is trying to consolidate his power. On April 27th he claimed a “popular mandate” for his LNA and placed the region under military rule.

for the first time in a while, General Haftar is on the back foot. Militias aligned with the GNA and backed by Turkey have regained a string of cities connecting Tripoli to the Tunisian border. They have hemmed the LNA inside al-Watiya air base, its headquarters for western operations, and are besieging Tarhuna, one of its strongholds (see map). The loss of these positions could doom General Haftar’s campaign in the west and lead to Libya’s partition.

Until recently General Haftar had the edge, thanks to covert backing from Egypt, France, Russia and the United Arab Emirates

the relationships that New Delhi so carefully crafted over the past five years—drawing on the efforts of the previous government—are now at substantial risk. Domestic developments targeting its 200 million Muslims are beginning to unravel India’s diplomatic feat

In a rare public move, Princess Hend al-Qassimi of the UAE has been expressing her dissatisfaction with a rising Islamophobia among Indians. “I miss the peaceful India,” she tweeted on May 4. And that came after she directly highlighted a tweet from an Indian living in the UAE as “openly racist and discriminatory,” reminding her followers that the punishment for hate speech could be a fine and even expulsion.

Through its so-called Think West policy, India had built robust bonds with the UAE and Saudi Arabia while maintaining its long-standing relationship with Iran and elevating ties with Israel. In August 2015, Modi became the first Indian prime minister in 34 years to travel to the UAE and visited the Emirates again in 2018 and 2019. During his last visit, he received the Order of Zayed, the UAE’s highest civil decoration, in recognition of his role in improving ties between the two countries. Modi also traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Iran in a calibrated outreach to the Gulf region’s powers. All these trips were reciprocated by visits of Gulf dignitaries to New Delhi during the same time period.

Saudi and Iranian security officials have been holding secret talks since January without any U.S. involvement—a bit of news that has led some to bemoan a decline in American power as President Biden seeks to withdraw from the Middle East. But in fact, this is good news, both for the United States and for the prospects of calm in the region.

The secret talks were first reported last month in the Financial Times. The British news site Amwad.media has since reported that five such meetings have been held, beginning as far back as January, and that some of these sessions have also included officials from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, on topics ranging from the war in Yemen to security in Syria and Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 2016. Their leaders and diplomats have practically hissed war threats at one another since before then. In other words, even if the talks don’t produce many tangible results, we are witnessing a monumental political shift.

Israel's defence minister has approved plans for the building of a new illegal settlement in the heart of the flashpoint city of Hebron, drawing sharp criticism from Palestinian officials.

Naftali Bennett had instructed departments responsible for the occupied West Bank "to notify the Hebron municipality of planning a new Jewish neighbourhood in the wholesale market complex"

The market area is on Hebron's once-bustling Shuhada Street, the Old City's main commercial artery. It has been shut down by the Israeli army since 1994, forcing many businesses to close.

Iran is likely to seek out Russia and China to purchase advanced weapons systems such as tanks and fighter jets when a United Nations arms embargo against the country expires next year, a senior defense intelligence official said today, amid rising tensions in the Middle East. In a report released on Tuesday that unveils the Defense Department’s public assessment of Iran’s military capabilities, the Pentagon’s top intelligence agency expressed concern that “modern conventional capabilities” will be available to Tehran when the UN embargo expires in 2020, allowing the country to become “a more traditional military force.

An influx of Russian and Chinese weapons would provide a boost to Iran’s increasingly dated arsenal of fighter jets and armor that includes equipment that dates to the 1970s, which has forced Tehran to lean heavily on ballistic missiles. Once the embargo ends, Iran’s air force is likely to seek fourth-generation fighters such as the Russian Su-30

The US Defense Intelligence Agency's warning comes as the United States has taken increased steps to cut down on military tensions in the Gulf after the Pentagon blamed Iran for drone and cruise missile strikes on an Aramco refining facility in Abqaiq in September. Earlier this month, the Defense Department opened a center for maritime patrols in the Gulf in Bahrain, home of the US Fifth Fleet. The USS Abraham Lincoln transited the region on Nov. 19, the first time an aircraft carrier has come through the region in months.