Egypt's Economic Decay and its Implications
In the summer of 2013, Major-General Abdel Fatah el Sisi overthrew the Egyptian government and promised the people a renaissance. Instead, Egypt is decaying. The country has always been poor, but Egypt is now in the worst economic shape in a generation. Poverty and income inequality remain stubbornly high as Egyptians grapple with record inflation […]
Another View of the Diplomacy of Prime Minister Golda Meir
The Yom Kippur War of 50 years ago remains a watershed event in the Middle East. It marked the end of an era, which Uri Misgav recently called the 25-year Arab-Israeli war (1948-73), and opened an era in which Israel, in a slow and long process, is being accepted by her Arab neighbors. That process […]
Mr. Erdoğan in New York: A Transactional Foreign Policy Should be Repaid in Kind
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in New York this week for the UN General Assembly and side meetings with world leaders. Before going, he voiced his frustration with the Biden administration’s decision to directly link the sale to Turkey of upgraded F-16 fighters (which require congressional approval) to Ankara’s ability to ratify Sweden’s accession […]
Ecuador’s Security Woes Amid a Sudden Election
Formerly peaceful Ecuador has been rocked by violence during its current presidential elections. In August, Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate and vocal critic of corruption, was assassinated as he left a campaign rally in the country’s capital, Quito. Several local politicians have also been murdered during the campaign period. The first round of August 20 resulted […]
Looking Beyond the War: Planning for Ukraine’s Reconstruction
The outcome of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the provisions of a final settlement are as yet unknown. Ukraine may prevail in pushing Russia back to the 1991 borders, as President Zelenskyy intends. The conflict might result in a settlement with a divided Ukraine, both countries exhausted from the effort. It could grind on for years […]
A Joint American-Israeli Redline on Iran’s Nuclear Program
A central element of the new film Oppenheimer is time. The time needed to design and construct the ultimate weapon is marked through the steady accumulation of marbles in a fishbowl and a wine glass, which represent the growing stockpiles of uranium and plutonium that ultimately fueled the devices dropped seventy-eight years ago on Hiroshima […]
How Israel’s Supreme Court Can Strengthen Democracy Without Overruling the Knesset
On September 12, Israel’s Supreme Court will convene in an atmosphere of heightened political tension to listen to petitions asking it to strike down a recently-passed Knesset law. No decision from the Court is expected imminently as Israel enters a month of High Holy Days. But political compromise proposals by the Prime Minister and others […]
Recent African Coups:
End of Françafrique, Need for US Leadership
End of Françafrique, Need for US Leadership
Since 2020, six African countries have experienced a total of eight coups d’état. With the exception of Gabon, all occurred in the Sahel, the semi-arid band stretching across the continent between the Sahara Desert to the north and the tropical savannah to the south. The conventional narrative of “Africa Rising,” which had only recently replaced […]
What China Wants in Africa
Africa struggles to climb American policymakers’ priority list, but it has no such problem with China. For three decades, the Chinese government has expended immense energy courting African countries. With only two exceptions over the last thirty years, the Chinese foreign minister has made Africa his first overseas destination every year. Other senior Chinese officials […]
The Druze in Israel: A Silent Minority Begins to Speak Out
Protests in Israel are nothing new, but those on the Golan Heights this June were different. The government, as part of its clean energy program, had designated the Golan Heights for wind turbine projects. When construction began in June, the Druze on the Golan erupted in mass protests, attracting support from their coreligionists in the […]
Unexpected Hope For Democracy in Guatemala
The second round of presidential elections in Guatemala on August 20 produced a surprising victor: center-left opposition politician Bernardo Arévalo, who had polled just 11 percent in the first round in June. Guatemalans have voted for change, but with a four-month presidential transition ahead, the election results will not be really final until inauguration day on […]
Was Groupthink Responsible for Israel’s Surprise in the 1973 War, Or Is That Just Another Faulty Assumption?
With the approach of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, it’s time to revisit one of its ongoing scandals in Israel, the claim that the government’s surprise at the start of the war was caused by a set of assumptions, based on intelligence assessments, called in Hebrew the “konzepzia.” >> Inside […]
