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It is a recent tradition among occupants of the White House, as they head out of office, to play a few practical jokes on their successors. The Clinton administration jesters, for instance, removed all the Ws from White House keyboards before handing over the keys to George W. Bush’s transition...
The Abraham Accord is a grand title well in keeping with the Trump presidency’s taste for overstatement and misdirection. But the expectation that other Arab states would fall into line with the United Arab Emirates and quickly normalize relations with Israel has fallen well short of the mark....
As the El Al flight 971 touched down in Abu Dhabi, a number of people looking at the aircraft wondered about the significance of the message it carried. The number for what both sides claimed to be Israel’s first-ever commercial flight to the UAE was the dialing code for the Emirates, with the...
Over three years have passed since Mohammed bin Salman became the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The challenges he has faced throughout this time have been too colossal for a 35-year-old leader to accommodate. Yet the prince has sought to give the impression of a strong social reformer. Indeed,...
The European Union and its member states have presented an approach to the ongoing conflict in Yemen that has lacked both coordination and coherence. The situation in Yemen, which was the poorest Arab country already before the eruption of a civil war in 2014, has been described by the Secretary...
The news that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is considering suspending ties with the UAE over its deal to recognize Israel reinforces the battle lines of the Middle East. The announcement nevertheless comes as little surprise. The Palestinian cause seems destined to be eternally used by...
Less than two weeks after his hit team murdered and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as the world was still trying to make sense of that heinous crime, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was busy sending another, almost identical hit team to assassinate Saad...
On August 13, the United Arab Emirates agreed in principle to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for suspending the annexation of portions of the West Bank. This US-brokered deal reflects years of growing ties between Israel and Gulf states that have long rested just below the surface of...
In late June, the United Arab Emirates asked Somalia to enter the conflict in Yemen in return for financial incentives and the reopening of a medical facility. Somalia’s instant rejection partially resulted from the strained Mogadishu-Abu Dhabi relationship. Why did the UAE initially make the...
Gary Grappo, the chairman of Fair Observer, has commented in these columns on the deal between Israel and the UAE that has shocked many in the Arab and Muslim world. As a former US diplomat, Grappo expresses his satisfaction, or perhaps simply his relief, at the idea “that Arab states will no...
In 2016, Alan Lichtman departed from conventional wisdom to predict a Donald Trump victory in that year’s presidential election. The political scientist was following something he called the “13 keys to the White House.” Using this relatively straightforward metric, Lichtman had correctly...
