Near East Policy Forum

  • The Language of Landscapes in Palestine and Australia

    Earlier this year, in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump asserted the US would not only take over Gaza but transform it into what he described as the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’. His comments have been roundly criticised as tantamount to a violation of the Geneva convention, which…

    Zoe Davies

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    IDF soldiers march along a road passing a civilian.
  • Hope and risk in Qatar’s investment environment

    Hope and risk in Qatar’s investment environment

    Launched in June 2017, the so-called ‘blockade’ of Qatar by the ‘Anti-Terror Quartet’—comprising Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt—appeared to finally come to an end on 5 January 2021. Ostensibly agreeing at the 41st annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council to forgo their thirteen original demands—which were mostly aimed at curtailing…

    Christopher Davidson, European Centre for International Affairs

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  • Looking south: Central Asia and Afghanistan

    Looking south: Central Asia and Afghanistan

    After nearly two decades, the current manifestation of conflict in Afghanistan may be coming to an end. The United States and representatives of the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 that ostensibly sets the terms for the US military departure from Afghanistan. In principle, it also creates conditions for the reconciliation negotiations between the…

    Roger Kangas, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies USA

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  • Sectarianism a la Libanaise

    Sectarianism a la Libanaise

    In a small multi-sectarian country, such as Lebanon, highlighting religious and sectarian factors appear to be the most appealing and logical explanation to political and eocnomic woes. In reality, Lebanese sectarian diversity paved the way to a ruling class that took advantage of the national economic structure to pursue its own interests, leading to the…

    Laura Sayah, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

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  • The Ethio-Sudan boundary: what’s next?

    The Ethio-Sudan boundary: what’s next?

    Ethiopia and Sudan share a boundary of over 1,600 km, series of negotiations and treaties between the colonial powers of Britain and Italy with the Ethiopian government. The people of Ethiopia and Sudan have had good relations for generations, but the demarcation of the boundary has remained a bone of contention between them due to…

    Mulatu Wubneh, East Carolina University

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  • Syrians in Lebanon: A Mobility Crisis

    Syrians in Lebanon: A Mobility Crisis

    Covid-19 stopped the motion of many around the world. A drastic decline in airline passengers grounded planes. Cars used for commuting to work sat parked with nearly full gas tanks. Demand for public transit plummeted. But for some of the one and a half million Syrians living in Lebanon, the pandemic’s exacerbation of an already…

    Kristin V. Monroe, University of Kentucky

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  • Qatar-UAE as rivals in the Horn of Africa

    Qatar-UAE as rivals in the Horn of Africa

    One effect of the rift between Qatar and its GCC neighbours Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE has been the exportation of this division since 2017. Emirati and Saudi allies Eritrea, Comoros, Mauritania, and Senegal in the Red Sea severed diplomatic ties with Qatar at the beginning of the crisis, and cross-regional divisions only became…

    Courtney Freer, London School of Economics

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  • Security as strategy? Israeli Arab Gulf states alignment

    Security as strategy? Israeli Arab Gulf states alignment

    A few months after the Abraham accords were signed between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE, the Pentagon announced the transfer of command oversight of Israel from the US European Command (EUCOM) to its key military command outpost in the Gulf, CENTCOM. While the transition may be seen to pave the way for an overt regional…

    Nasser Khdour

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  • Uzbekistan’s economic challenges under President Mirziyoyev

    Uzbekistan’s economic challenges under President Mirziyoyev

    For 25 years after independence in 1991, Uzbekistan was ruled by the former First Secretary of the Uzbek Soviet Republic, Islam Karimov. Karimov’s rule was characterized by ruthless political leadership and gradual economic reform. While some commentators lauded the economic achievements under Karimov, a more common view was that the economy had underperformed in improving…

    Richard Pomfret, University of Adelaide

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  • Third restart? Kyrgyzstan’s latest ‘revolution’

    Third restart? Kyrgyzstan’s latest ‘revolution’

    Protesting parties were a diverse crowd, from the liberal Reforma, to the market-liberal BirBol, the liberal-socialist Ata-Meken, the conservative Mekenchil, the radical Chon Kazat, the religious Yiman Nuru, and others in between. The ideological leanings of Kyrgyz political parties tend to be mostly declarative and matters of convenience than of conviction, but still, their general…

    Emilbek Dzhuraev, Kyrgyzstan

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  • Iran in a Shifting US Foreign Policy

    Iran in a Shifting US Foreign Policy

    Following Biden’s election as President of the United States, many officials who served under the Obama administration returned to senior positions. With them, they brought familiar approaches to the same pressing issues which continue to plague the Middle East. Iran sees this as a golden opportunity for rapprochement with the U.S, but on its own…

    Bassam Barabandi

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