International Politics of the Middle East

At the end of the session, during which Egypt handed the presidency of the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movements to Iran, Egyptian and Iranian presidents held unplanned bilateral talks, at the request of Ahmadinejad. In the 40-minute talks, bilateral relations between the two countries and the Syrian crisis were discussed.

Morsi's performance in Tehran disappointed his Iranian hosts as cruelly as it mocked those who warned that his visit would deliver Egypt into Iran's camp and reveal a radical new Egyptian foreign policy.

"Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity," he said, prompting Syrian officials to walk out of the summit in protest. Sitting directly beside Ahmadinejad, Morsi said: "I am here to announce our full and just support for a free, independent Syria that supports a transition into a democratic system and that respects the will of the Syrian people for freedom and equality at the same time, preventing Syria from going into civil war or going into sectarian divisions."

Morsi's decision to take the opportunity offered by Iran to embrace the Syrian uprising against Assad therefore put the Iranian regime in something of a bind. Morsi refused even to say clearly if relations with Iran will be upgraded, but he has said he will pursue a more balanced foreign policy with many states, including Iran. A leaked memo issued by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance on August 26, which issued strict instructions to the media banned them from publishing: "Any potential devilish comments about issues pertaining to Egypt, Bahrain and Syria." The memo (published on various Iranian opposition websites) effectively censored the media from publishing anything negative about the NAM summit.

Sherif had also received gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds from chief editors in the state media in return for keeping them in their positions

"This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services," read the statement. Unfortunately, said Blizzard, the same sanctions meant it could not give refunds to players in Iran or help them move their account elsewhere. "We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows," it added. Although the block on Wow has been imposed by Blizzard, other reports suggest a wider government ban might have been imposed. Players of Wow and other games, including Guild Wars, said when they had tried to log in they had been redirected to a page saying the connection had been blocked because the games promoted "superstition and mythology". Blizzard said it had no information about Iranian government action against online games.

Coming at a moment of acute hand-wringing in the Western capitals over how an Islamist leadership of the largest Arab state might alter the American-backed regional order, Mr. Morsi’s focus bisects Washington’s customary division of the region, between Western-friendly states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran on the other, said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo.

Mr. Morsi’s specific initiative, in particular, also appears largely harmonious with the stated Western objective of ending the Syrian bloodshed.

I don’t think this is a confrontational foreign policy. It is a regional foreign policy, tacking a regional problem through the capitals of the four most influential regional states, without looking through the prism of Washington and Tel Aviv

"We definitely hope to see President Mursi receive official Israeli representatives in the near future. We want to see him interviewed by the Israeli media. We want to see him visit Jerusalem as a guest of President (Shimon) Peres in Israel," the ultranationalist Lieberman told a legal conference in Tel Aviv.

Nimrod Ben-Zeev of the YaLa-Young Leaders group says 18 members from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq and Kuwait met in Berlin over the weekend.

the group was selected from the most active of YaLa's 162,000 Facebook members

the movement wants to empower Middle Eastern youths to work together to improve their communities. It plans an online university next year

Morsi's first state visit outside the Middle East and Africa since becoming president, underscoring China's importance as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and as a vital source of trade and investment. The visit is also seen as part of a reorientation of Egyptian foreign policy away from a heavy focus on Washington.

China's authoritarian one-party government was decidedly cool toward that movement, criticizing what Chinese state media derided as thuggish "street democracy." Beijing also bitterly condemned the NATO air campaign that brought down dictator Moammar Gadhafi in neighboring Libya and continues to join with Russia in blocking U.N. Security Council actions to force Syrian leader President Bashar Assad from power.

While largely a bystander in Middle Eastern politics, China's economic importance to the region has ballooned amid Europe's economic woes and the sluggish U.S. recovery.

For those on the Palestinian side, the massive concrete wall, double the height of the Berlin Wall, symbolizes the violence of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

various obstacles have prevented convergence in policy discourses and processes across both shores of the Mediterranean

The EU’s emphasis on a security-centered approach in migration management and the prioritization of stability over democracy in the MENA region, have led to widening the Euro-Mediterranean gap.

the promotion of democracy and human rights represented one of the major normative objectives of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration. Still, due to a mix of pragmatic and security-driven considerations, the EU has co-operated with authoritarian regimes that upheld stability in the Arab region and in the Euro-Mediterranean order. The EU has moreover promoted a gradualist path of liberalization in the Arab world which consisted in galvanizing economic reforms and providing support to civil society groups. Ironically enough, this gradualist strategy contributed to maintaining the façade of liberalization that autocratic regimes were eager to advertise

We are ceasing publication for reasons involving fatigue--on a number of fronts. First, there is donor fatigue. Why, donors ask, should we continue to support a Middle East dialogue project that not only has not made peace, but cannot "prove" to our satisfaction--especially at a time of revolution and violence throughout the region--that it has indeed raised the level of civilized discussion? Why fight the Israeli right-wing campaign against European and American state funding and the Palestinian campaign against "normalization"? These last two negative developments also reflect local fatigue. There is no peace process and no prospect of one. Informal "track II" dialogue--bitterlemons might be described as a "virtual" track II--is declining. Here and there, writers from the region who used to favor us with their ideas and articles are now begging off, undoubtedly deterred by the revolutionary rise of intolerant political forces in their countries or neighborhood. Then there is the global economic slowdown. Even countries and philanthropic institutions not suffering from donor fatigue still have to deal with declining budgets for promoting activities like ours. Obviously, the donors have every right to do with their limited funds as they see fit. But they are nearly all tightening their supervision and review procedures to a point where the weight of bureaucracy simply overwhelms efforts to maintain even a totally transparent project like bitterlemons and to solicit additional funds.