Israel and Saudi Arabia are moving towards a historic US-brokered deal to normalise diplomatic ties, the White House said on Friday. US President Joe Biden hopes to score an election-year diplomatic victory by securing recognition of the Jewish state by Saudi Arabia next year. “All sides have hammered out, I Read more…
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted some of Israel’s most senior security officials for a meeting at his office on Sunday which excluded national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir. This was not the first time that the hard right nationalist Ben Gvir, whose brief includes authority over the police, has not been Read more…
Ahead of Labour’s annual conference next week, LFI has released its latest policy pamphlet: Britain and the Middle East: Priorities for the Next Labour Government exclusively in the Guardian today. Priorities for the next Labour government Britain and the Middle East: Priorities for the Next Labour Government offers 26 policy recommendations to a wide Read more…
The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, visited Syria last week to oversee a joint military drill, according to Iranian media reports. Ghaani, who was appointed following a US drone strike against his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, reportedly met senior Syrian officials in Read more…
Israeli security forces on Sunday arrested eight Palestinian students suspected of planning an imminent terror attack. The students, from Birzeit University near Ramallah, were arrested following an investigation into Hamas cells in Palestinian education institutions, the IDF said. The students were allegedly recruited by Hamas operatives in Gaza, and had Read more…
Last Friday saw Iran display what it claimed was the “longest-range drone in the world” during a military parade that also featured a number of banners threatening Israel. The drone, one of several unnamed aerial vehicles and missiles presented at an event marking the start of Iran’s war with Iraq between Read more…
As the UN General Assembly convened last week, longstanding speculation around the potential for a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia has reached a fever pitch. What happened On Wednesday, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman claimed in an interview with Fox News that “every day we get closer” to his Read more…
US secretary of state Antony Blinken claimed last week that any potential normalisation agreement between the Saudis and Israel would have to include steps towards a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Blinken stressed his view that if the Israel-Saudi normalisation process is “to move forward, the Palestinian piece is going Read more…
The UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, reported that terror groups in the West Bank are currently better armed than the Palestinian Authority security forces. He told the World Summit of Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya that there is a “very significant uptick in the availability of very Read more…
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly meet Turkey’s recently re-elected president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the UN General Assembly. The two leaders were due to meet in July, but Netanyahu postponed his visit after undergoing surgery to have a pacemaker implanted. The visit would have been the first by Read more…
One year on from the death in Iranian police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Iran remains an international pariah posing threats on numerous fronts. What happened Crackdown Meanwhile… International actionIn the absence of a revived nuclear deal with Iran – an ambition Joe Biden campaigned on in 2020, but which has been Read more…
A rift is beginning to open within the coalition government. The non-haredi parties, Likud, Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit, are facing serious threats from the Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), that would end the coalition government and lead to an election being called. The disagreement is over Read more…