International Politics of the Middle East

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has released a new interactive study tracking all the confirmed incidents of Iran seizing or attempting to seize vessels, as well as showdowns between Iranian and U.S. Navy vessels. Between January 2021 and July 2023 alone, there were 26 such incidents, ranging from a suicide drone attack on an Israeli-owned tanker to Iranian patrol boats buzzing U.S. naval ships.

The U.S. military has begun slowly building up its presence in the Middle East again in the wake of Iran’s campaign to harass and seize ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz, including in recent months dispatching a Marine Expeditionary Unit, with some 3,000 Marines and sailors, to the Persian Gulf in a bid to deter Iran from expanding its campaign of targeting commercial shipping. The new military buildup shows how it’s much easier for officials in Washington to talk about quitting military entanglements in the Middle East than it is to actually do so.

keeping shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz open remains a top strategic priority for the United States

Paris is hoping Friday’s so-called Med9 summit, attended by the leaders of Malta, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain, will offer a “clear message” that migration requires a response at the European level

EU is poised to agree a revamped Pact on Migration and Asylum, which will seek to relieve pressure on frontline countries such as Italy and Greece by relocating some arrivals to other EU states

Both Meloni and Macron also want to prevent boats departing from North Africa by working more closely with Tunisia, despite questions over the country’s human rights standards and treatment of migrants.

More than 2,500 people have died or gone missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, the UN refugee agency said, while approximately 186,000 people have arrived in European countries during the same period.

of the 186,000 who had crossed the Mediterranean, 83 percent – some 130,000 people – landed in Italy. Other countries where people who had crossed the Mediterranean had landed included Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta.

the land journey from sub-Saharan African countries to sea crossing departure points on the Tunisian and Libyan coasts “remains one of the world’s most dangerous”.

I was finally allowed entry into my indigenous homeland last month, but this was not due to Israel seeing the error of its ways, and deciding to end its discriminatory policies against Palestinian Americans. It was nothing but a temporary stunt to smooth Israel’s path into the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which gives citizens of a select few countries the right to travel to the US, and stay there for 90 days, without a visa.

The fundamental requirement for a country to be admitted into the VWP is reciprocity – a country’s citizens can only get visa-free travel to the US, if their country gives that same right to all American citizens. For decades, Israeli authorities have routinely and arbitrarily denied American citizens of Palestinian descent, and especially those of us residing in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, entry into the country. This contradicts with the VWP’s principle of reciprocity and disqualifies Israel from being admitted into this highly coveted programme.

In a statement on Wednesday, the US Department of Homeland Security said Israel has been designated for the VWP and that Israeli nationals will be able to travel to the US without a visa by November 30. It added that Israel “made updates to its entry policies to meet the VWP requirement to extend reciprocal privileges to all US citizens without regard to national origin, religion, or ethnicity”. There is, of course, no reason to believe Israel would hold its promise and allow Palestinian Americans into the country without any added hurdles and obstacles. As the date for Israel’s entry into the programme nears, there are still countless Palestinian Americans who are being denied entry into their ancestral lands without a meaningful explanation or legal standing.

the Middle East “is one of the least integrated regions in the world in economic terms.”

with an extreme right-wing coalition in power in Israel and Riyadh seeking heavy concessions from Washington, the future of a Palestinian state remains uncertain as ever.

COP28 Director General Majid Al-SuwaidiMajid Al-Suwaidi pushed back against criticism that the Middle East was not meeting climate change goals, saying “transformation in the region has been amazing.” He said the Middle East is “not just talking but actually doing things on the ground.”The main challenge to tackling climate change goals was finance, Suwaidi said. “We need to move from hundreds of billions of dollars to trillions of dollars.”