... status-quo or will it be forced to review and to revise its positions towards Israel, Palestinians, Iran and its main partners in the Arab world? Let us have a look at the most important pieces of the rich and diverse Middle East mosaic, namely—on Israel, Palestine, Iran and the Arab Gulf states.
Israel
The Russian-Israeli relations started experiencing problems long before the US 2024 elections. In particular, the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 had a significant ...
... history erupted. It was provoked by an oil embargo imposed by members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), as well as Egypt and Syria. The embargo was targeted against the United States and its allies who were assisting Israel in the Doomsday War. The member-states of this Organization used economic tools to influence Israel's allies and support Egypt and Syria in the conflict with Israel. Such actions notably contrasted with the state of Iranian-Israeli relations, which ...
A vertical rather than horizontal escalation can be expected, involving other actors in the war
In the autumn of 2024, the situation in the Middle East sharply escalated. Sporadic exchanges between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel, which had been observed since the October 7, 2023, attacks, evolved into active hostilities. On September 17–18, 2024, pagers and other means of communication belonging to Hezbollah members were detonated inside Lebanon. Israel then launched ...
... comprehensive confrontation on all fronts between Israel and the axis of resistance.
[1] The resistance axis: is a political term used primarily in the Middle East and means the implicit strategic alliance (political and military) that primarily opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This axis includes: Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, as well as the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, also the Houthi Ansar Allah movement in Yemen.
Salam AL Rabadi
... on Israel and its allies following the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Efforts to further promote the Abraham Accords between Israel and the conservative Arab monarchies continued, albeit fading from the public eye. The only consistent supporters of Palestine were the stubborn Yemeni Houthis, who have attacked foreign ships in the Red Sea. However, it was Egypt—not Israel—that suffered the most from these attacks, losing nearly half of its revenues from the Suez Canal.
Regional Trends in the Middle East: Political and Economic Dynamics. RIAC Report
Reasons for restraint
Although the trigger of a major regional ...
... Coordinator Ivan Bocharov.
Vladimir Mikhailovich, not so long ago a delegation from MGIMO University visited Jerusalem and Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Could you please tell us about the current situation in Israel and Palestine.
Aleksandr Aksenenok:
Palestinian Statehood after October 7: Any Odds of Success?
It is difficult to give an unbiased assessment of the situation in Israel and Palestine as a whole. In terms of security, while there are outbreaks of violence ...
The debate over the post-war arrangements in Gaza is unlikely to put an end to the controversy about a possible U.S. presence “on the ground.”
Israel’s Operation Arnon to free a group of hostages from the Gaza Strip has brought back into focus just how deeply the U.S. military is involved in the eight-month-long escalation of the conflict. The bloody infiltration into the Nuseirat refugee ...
Trump’s hard negotiations is best for Palestinian and Israeli future
President Joe Biden finds himself in the corner of the sandbox when the mainstream media calls him out for his dithering on the anti-Semitic demonstrations across universities in America by politically conflating Islamophobia on the same ...
... in northern Galilee. The most internationally significant attacks by the Yemeni Houthis against commercial vessels in the Red Sea were massive indeed, but these attacks could not directly affect the course of Operation Iron Swords.
Consequences for Palestine and Israel
If anyone expected that the escalation with Israel would somehow contribute to the consolidation of the Palestinian society, they should be disappointed. Divisions within Palestine persist along many lines: Hamas and Fatah, radicals and technocrats,...
... escalation, with some governments blaming the terrorist sortie of the Qassam Brigades militants from Hamas’ Al-Aqsa Flood (known as Toofan in Arabic) on October 7, 2023, while others—the abnormal situation of the decades-long occupation and blockade of Palestine by Israel,
mentioned
by UN Secretary General A. Guterres in October 2023. Yet they are all united in extremely negative
assessments
of the humanitarian consequences of the Iron Swords operation by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. The final document ...
