Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted coverage of the Middle East

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• November 15, 2023

No going back: How America and the Middle East can turn the page to a productive future

Only after meeting Arab leaders, did Blinken speak in vague terms about potential humanitarian assistance. This was reflected in Blinken’s insistence that Arab partners with contacts to Hamas use their leverage for the release of all the Israeli captives held in Gaza. A tall order, considering both Israel and the United States have shown no concern for the safety of Palestinian civilians as they publicly commit to crushing Hamas, once and for all. It has also demanded from Arab governments and the Palestinian Authority to unequivocally condemn Hamas. The Biden administration has rejected Arab calls for de-escalation or a ceasefire, rendering the US complicit in present and future Israeli war crimes. The US envoys doubled down on equating Hamas to ISIL (ISIS) to emphasise the brutality of the October 7 attack and make clear that there is no diplomatic solution to pursue, only a military one.

• But the president took it as an opportunity to further consolidate power, arresting protesters, dismissing the prime minister and freezing the parliament.
• Citizens are afraid to criticise the government due to harsh restrictions, and media often self-censors to avoid crackdowns.
• The government has also attacked and intimidated civil society organisations and journalists publicly, contributing to social distrust and tensions.
• Presenting a new approach to understand Islamism and secularism, the research addresses the variables that could affect the outcome of transitional negotiations.
• Operation Protective Edge targeted the rockets and “terror tunnels” of the Islamic Resistance Movement, AKA Hamas, and killed more Palestinians than any previous offensive in the Gaza Strip.
• It has also demanded from Arab governments and the Palestinian Authority to unequivocally condemn Hamas.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. Although these sets of countries have vastly different political and security contexts, citizens of all suffer from many of the same ills. Only in Tunisia, and perhaps a few other places, is there modest hope that the current levels of — and trajectories for — freedom, corruption, and prosperity are promising.

Government and Politics of the Middle East – Oakland Campus

CPI is a composite index used to assess corruption perceptions in the public sector, placing a particular focus on the legislative, political, and economic settings as well as governance processes across countries. CPI uses 13 independent sources of information, mostly expert reports and surveys in each country. To endorse the addition of a country to the CPI, at least three approved sources are required to be met. A country’s score is the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean. Let’s start in Lebanon, where this past week hundreds of thousands of people across the multi-religious country have been demonstrating to protest the government’s failure for decades to provide even the most basic services like water and electricity.

• While the Palestinian Legislative Council is out of session, the executive has seized control of the law-making process.
• It also highlights the mobilizational capacity of Islam, manifest in both efforts to suppress religious movements in the past and the contemporary rise of Islamist movements that range from peaceful service providers to extremist organizations whose violence escapes convenient explanation.
• Its leaders fear the appeal of Isis to disaffected Sunnis – al-Qaida in Iraq was founded by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – but it has the best intelligence service in the Arab world.
• The coalition contract – essentially the three governing parties’ joint statement of intent for their time in power – sets out plans for a highly normative foreign policy approach.

That might have been tolerated in a pre-social media world, but now that ordinary citizens can see the extreme wealth of the elite, and can use social media to organize, extreme income inequality just isn’t stable any longer. Similarly, Iraqis have also been protesting in large numbers against unemployment, ineffective government services, and that regional culprit, corruption. In Iraq, through a similar sectarian system, the rich have been getting richer and the poor, poorer. From sea to shining sea (in this case from the Mediterranean to the Arabian seas), the Arab world — with few exceptions — either sees citizens rising up in protest, citizens who are suffering from government repression, or citizens living through civil war. Although each country is unique, the core complaints across them are some combination of poverty, corruption, and an absence of freedom. As an independent institution, we produce evidence-based research, publications and events on defence, security and international affairs to help build a safer UK and a more secure, equitable and stable world.

‘We lost hope’: ravaged Gaza nears 100 days of war

But, nearly a decade later, elections are still rare in the Middle East, freedom of the press remains largely nonexistent, and political dissent is quickly silenced, often more ruthlessly than before the uprising. The initial optimism that energized the Arab uprisings has largely faded in the face of the region’s entrenched authoritarian power structures. However, 2019 saw widespread protests in Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan, signaling to authoritarian rulers elsewhere in the region that their rule could still be tenuous.

Among its recognitions, the 2022 UN e-Government Development Index ranked the Kingdom 31st worldwide and first in the MENA region for the availability and development of digital government services. The country’s National Transformation Program (NTP) 2022 report also indicated that 97% of all government services are available digitally, with over 6,000 e-government services working across sectors. Beyond news analysis, researchers can access organizations and journals that provide deeper takes. For instance, Insight Turkey is a journal focusing upon Turkish foreign policy and relations. The Institute for Turkish Studies has a wealth of online resources regarding the further study of Turkish politics and society. The Turkey Project of the Brookings Institution likewise has a dense collection of briefings and reports.

The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. TEL AVIV—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to form a national unity government that includes members of the opposition and former military leaders, a move aimed at reassuring a country still reeling from the deadly attack by Hamas militants that killed 1,200 Israelis. Corruption risks in Qatar go far beyond the FIFA World Cup event in 2022, as public access to relevant information on state procurement and government budgeting is highly restricted. While petty corruption offences are regularly punished, independent mechanisms to detect and prevent systemic corruption are severely lacking.

Read more about Middle East Government here.

No going back: How America and the Middle East can turn the page to a productive future Only after meeting Arab leaders, did Blinken speak in vague terms about potential humanitarian assistance. This was reflected in Blinken’s insistence that Arab partners with contacts to Hamas use their leverage for the release of all the Israeli…