Middle East

Palestinian politics is approaching a potentially extraordinary moment. With legislative elections scheduled for November 28, 2026, forces that spent years fighting one another may now find themselves sharing the same electoral list. Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, is seeking the broadest possible political coalition. …

The emerging Mecca Alliance could become one of the most consequential attempts in years to reshape the security architecture of the Muslim world. What began as closer strategic coordination among Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is increasingly raising a larger question: who else belongs inside this new framework, …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh The emerging Mecca Defense Alliance is beginning to raise a question that may prove more consequential than its original formation: where does it go from here, and who gets to come inside? Statements by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan following the first ministerial meeting of …

Samuel Geddes Trump’s desperate bid to crush Iran’s economy without military escalation places the US’ sanctions regime against Iran, Russia, China and all its other adversaries at existential risk. So far, 2026 has been the most sobering year in living memory for the American self-image. Having at long …

Hadi Elis  The Puppeteer of the Middle East: Britain’s Legacy of Sabotage Against the Kurds Standfirst: From WWI chemical weapons to the recent betrayal of Rojava, Britain has consistently worked to deny Kurdish self-determination, using Turkey as its willing proxy. Since World War I, Britain has systematically manipulated …

US President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States will retaliate against Iran following missile and drone attacks on American forces in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “We’re going to hit them hard. There will be a response,” Trump told Fox News. He noted that …

By Dan Steinbock Gaza showed the genocidal face of Israel’s expulsive strategy. In the West Bank, the same objective is realized with incremental escalation. The ultimate goal is the same – the final expulsion of the Palestinians. Today, the West Bank is a nightmare of vicious settlement expansion, …

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and more than a dozen other world leaders are gathering in Kyrgyzstan on Monday for a two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional bloc increasingly positioned as a counterweight to Western influence. The group is marking its …

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of practicing deception and duplicity, describing him as a “serpent.” Araghchi stated that Netanyahu openly boasts in Hebrew about having deceived the US administration and pushed it into waging a war on Iran on behalf of …