This week, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, citing Qatar’s apparent failure to heed the terms of a security agreement made at a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting late last year. The two issues in […]
(Originally published in Politico) Time was, American presidents had Egyptian leaders at their beck and call. Hosni Mubarak was once obliged to get up at the crack of dawn for a photo op with President Bill Clinton, scheduled with U.S. prime-time TV […]
(This was first published by the European Council on Foreign Relations on its website) The Egyptian authorities hoped that the constitutional referendum would draw a line under the question of the legitimacy of the July 3 regime and they are showing all […]
If Sisi gives in to temptation and runs for president, the July 3 regime may not last. If he does not, he gives it a chance. If he runs, the July 3 regime continues to define itself as a new beginning, undermining the transformative […]
(This article was first published by the European Council on Foreign Relations) The semantic battle over Egypt’s upheavals of the past three years have been as fierce as the conflict on the ground: was it a revolution or an uprising, was it […]
(This article was first published by the European Council on Foreign Relations on its website) One of the most intriguing turns of the post-uprising scene in Egypt has been the emergence of the Salafi movement – as a political force, as a rival to […]
(This article was written for the European Council on Foreign Relations and appeared on its website) Egypt’s government is ratcheting up pressure to the maximum to persuade Egyptians to take part in the referendum on the post-coup constitution and to vote yes. […]
A recent conference on “Israel and the changing Middle East”, organised by the Anglo-Israel Association (with a few other sponsors) offered a fascinating insight into the concerns of Zionist Israelis and their views of the historical conflict with Arab Palestinians at this point – […]
The Arabic text of Hamad bin Khalifa’s speech from 25 June on standing down as emir of Qatar and the speech of his successor Tamim, delivered the next day – a useful reference tool perhaps. Tweet
Hazem Kandil, a political sociologist at the University of Cambridge, outlined in a lecture in Oxford last week his view of the movement as a politically naïve cult acting on an innovative understanding (discordant within the Islamic tradition) of religious determinism – the idea that God […]