A guide to Middle East politics in 2014 Middle East and north Africa

An Iranian cloud provider was accused of providing infrastructure services to APT34 in August. We should begin by at least trying to avoid deploying our own soldiers in a way that props up the least democratic countries. And we should use our military aid in a way that encourages countries to do more to respect basic rights and fight corruption — and not allow our assistance to support repression. Our military is already deployed in some challenging places from where we may not want to extricate ourselves for geostrategic and counterterrorism reasons. But we can and should always nudge for incremental reform no matter the resistance.

This has critical implications for the Middle East as the region seeks to become an inflection point for the new digital order and a key arbiter in building the global digital architecture. MEI’s Center for Strategy and Emerging Technology studies how emerging technologies are impacting the region, analyzes the rise of new tech powers, and seeks to open up opportunities for new tech cooperation between the U.S. and leading regional actors. This exciting new edition of the successful textbook for students of Middle Eastern politics provides a highly relevant and comprehensive introduction to the complexities of a region in constant flux. Combining a thematic framework for examining patterns of politics with individual chapters dedicated to specific countries, the book places the very latest developments and long-standing issues within an historical context. This third edition extends its analysis to post-2015 developments in the region, as well as expanding the range of pedagogical features on offer. Some of these polling organizations have responded to these claims and defended their results as correctly showing the current[when?

Chapter 2: The Context of Political Life: Geography, Economics, and Social Forces

Anti-corruption legislation may also be abused to target critics and whistleblowers. Some key activities include, improving regulations on sustainable hunting and fishing and equipping environmental police and increasing the capacity of police, women groups, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to enforce these laws. Enhancing the traditional knowledge of Marsh Arab women is also critical, through capacity-building trainings to increase their economic opportunities, whilst improving climate change adaptation of the Marshlands.

In addition, international organizations have maintained close contact with Yemeni actors in reporting on the ongoing conflict. The best source for data on the Yemeni war at the close of the 2010s, including interventions and airstrikes by outside actors, is the Yemen Data Project. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provides a useful site on Yemeni developments. Finally, the Yemen Peace Project is an advocacy organization delivering information about the war. The Arab Spring destroyed a recalcitrant dictatorship in Egypt, but the tumult that followed was unprecedented, as Egyptians voted several times in the most democratic elections in history before a military coup returned the country in July 2013 to authoritarianism.

Chapter 5: Republic of Tunisia

The president further consolidated power, dismissing the prime minister and freezing the parliament. Of note, just 11.2 per cent of voters turned out in the parliamentary elections which were held in December. The new parliament will be extremely weak and unable to tackle critical issues to support democracy and anti-corruption efforts.

Arabic, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language such as Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans. There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa.

Global Affairs

And we can deploy our diplomats with the vision that our actions should seek to advance freedom, fight corruption, and end poverty. And even if governments are resistant to this approach, it doesn’t mean that a smart foreign policy can’t find ways to make some progress on those three key areas. It isn’t as if we are going to shutter our embassies and go home; we have to use them for good. The flip side of this, though, is that things won’t always turn out how we want them to. For example, on the democracy front, when countries do hold elections, we must learn to live with the results, whether we like them or not; that doesn’t mean we need to be friends with governments we despise.

The analogy with ISIL goes a long way to providing Israel with carte blanche to wage a “long and painful war” against Gaza. By August, the hackers had used a tool to scan for vulnerabilities, including the Log4j bug, on other machines on the network. Dick O’Brien, principal intelligence analyst on the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, told Recorded Future News that there were several new tools involved in the intrusion, including three new pieces of malware. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the bottom half earn one of lowest proportions of income at the world, at 8% and 9% respectively. Now let’s turn to Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, where the situation is very different than Iraq and Lebanon, but whose citizens still suffer from varying degrees of the similar problems of stagnant wages and lack of democracy. As we continue working to renew our societies and institutions, many in Africa and the Middle East are still grappling with the devastating socio-economic consequences the pandemic brought.

Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa

Individual strongmen rule the majority of governments with near-absolute power, quashing civil liberties, free and fair elections, and any other perceived check to their power. In countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, monarchs including kings and sheikhs rule for decades, often passing along power from father to son. In fact, the Middle East is home to eight of the world’s ten remaining absolute monarchies. And in countries like Egypt and Syria, generals and strongmen use the military and repressive security services to maintain their authoritarian regimes.

Case studies of Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia reveal that different Muslim-majority populations have settled upon divergent frameworks of expressing and protecting their creeds and institutions; such diversity is integral to understanding the texture of social life. MEI’s Syria Program seeks to provide insightful and grounded research and analysis on all things Syria in order to better inform a wide range of audiences and to help sustain and shape a more meaningful policy-oriented discussion. Drawing on the expertise of over a dozen renowned scholars, the Syria Program covers all aspects of Syria and its ongoing crises – from political, economic, legal, social, ethnic and religious dynamics, to conflict, insurgency and terrorism and the country’s history and possible futures. Historically Iranians were ruled by an absolute monarchy for several thousand years, at least since the time of the Achaemenid Empire (550 B.C.E.) until the Constitutional Revolution in the early 20th century. The Constitutional Revolution in 1906 replaced the absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy.

CPI 2019: Middle East And North Africa

The century between 1820 and 1920 saw the Ottoman Empire shrink from encompassing the entirety of the Levant and Egypt, the Balkans, and significant portions of the coastal Maghreb and Arabian Peninsula, to less than half of the modern state of Turkey. During this period, nationalist movements began in reaction to both the spread of nationalism throughout Europe and to European colonial incursion prior to the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar and UAE). Overall, as of 2007[update], according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth. It is also spoken as native language by Jewish immigrants from Anglophone countries (UK, US, Australia) in Israel and understood widely as second language there. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel’s population, the other 20% using Arabic.

Women’s sporting events are now an integral part of national health and wellness transformation agendas as governments get keen to improve health and fitness levels in women. The Middle East is both the most urbanised and one of the fastest urbanising regions in the world. Two-thirds of Middle Eastern populations live in cities – well above the global average of 50%.

Upcoming Events

Ultimately, Germany has to follow a more networked and nuanced Middle East policy which is driven by clear strategic interests and offers potential cooperation models by combining normative and pragmatic trajectories. During the Merkel years, German foreign policy was tightly controlled by the Chancellery, reducing the room for manoeuvre and creativity for the Foreign Ministry. Chancellor Scholz has already taken some steps to improve collaboration between his and Baerbock’s offices through key personnel changes. Jens Plötner, the former political director in the Foreign Ministry, has been appointed as Scholz’s foreign policy advisor, while his former deputy, Andreas Michaelis, now serves as Baerbock’s undersecretary of state (Staatssekretär).

• Middle East, the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran and, by some definitions, sometimes beyond.
• In addition to lacking control over budget performance, budget management is severely undermined in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• This collection, however, follows the US-Israeli position by not identifying Palestine as a state.
• Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Greek Cypriots, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas.

But corruption risks in Qatar go far beyond this event, as public access to relevant information on state procurement and government budgeting is highly restricted. While petty corruption offenses are regularly punished, independent mechanisms to detect and prevent systemic corruption are severely lacking. Anti-corruption legislation may also be abused to target critics and whistleblowers, who have no protection from government repression, as the case of Abdullah Ibhais demonstrates. After exposing abuses against migrant workers in Qatar, the former employee of the World Cup organising committee was given a prison sentence for alleged bribery and misuse of funds. While his sentence was reduced to three years, his family raised allegations of torture in late 2022.

• 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.
• Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity,[43] are also well represented.
• Wherever protests have been allowed, crowds have filled squares in solidarity with Palestine.
• It features a consociational political structure marked by confessionalism, all knit together by regnant tensions, frail institutions, and the shadow of foreign intervention.

His research interests include ethics and integrity, performance management, and digital governance. Bizarrely, as the US is offering Israel unconditional support, there is no sign that it is privy to its specific war plans, or its endgame. Hence, President Joe Biden advised the Israelis in a prerecorded interview on Sunday against “a new occupation of Gaza”, warning it would be “a big mistake”. There has been hardly any American mention of the Palestinians’ plight during a week of vicious Israeli bombardment of Gaza, except in the context of them being used as “human shield” by Hamas.

Thus, the Romans stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region for the sole purpose of defending it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids and invasions. By considering the crosscutting effects of climate change adaptation, biodiversity and ecosystems protection and climate-resilient livelihoods development, these organizations hope to make a positive impact in preserving and protecting one of Iraq’s greatest national treasures. In addition to this, practices that harm wildlife biodiversity have also had a catastrophic impact on the fragile ecosystem of these wetlands, upon which the indigenous population, migratory water birds and native fish species largely depend,” continues Mr. Lootsma.

Corruption, conflict and security are profoundly intertwined – and nowhere is this more evident than the Middle East and North Africa. As the least peaceful region in the world according to the Global Peace Index, it exemplifies the myriad ways in which corruption and violence fuel each other. President (formerly Field Marshal) Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, elected in June, has vowed to crush the Muslim Brotherhood and banned it as a terrorist organisation. His military government overthrew democratically elected but unpopular Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, killing and imprisoning thousands. Egypt emphasises commitment to crushing jihadis in Sinai, the strategically vital peninsula bordering Israel. Fabulously wealthy Gulf state uses Al Jazeera TV and support for Islamists to punch above its weight with an independent foreign policy at odds with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf neighbours.

Read more about Middle East Government here.