Qatar’s support for Hamas and its investment in the Gaza Strip, though based more on pragmatism than on ideological identification, suit its foreign policy, which supports political Islam and aims to increase Doha’s influence in the Middle East. Qatar’s support for Hamas and political Islam, along with what to the Egyptian regime is subversive behavior, casts a shadow over its relations with Egypt. Against this background, Israel finds itself on the horns of a dilemma, because in addition to the interest it shares with...
Israel’s aerial superiority over the next decade will to a large degree depend on the technological advantages that the F-35 fighter affords it. Consequently, Israel must retain its regional exclusivity of this platform and work to delay the release of fifth- generation fighters to other countries in the region for as long as possible. The United States is currently the primary potential supplier of this capability to the region, and Israel must impress upon the administration its objection to the release of the F-35 to the Gulf...
In the course of 2017, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conducted a research study to examine the situation in the Gaza Strip, with a focus on the prevailing political, economic, infrastructural, and security conditions, including their cumulative manifestations and their short term and long term implications. The aim of the project was to provide a knowledge base for reevaluation of Israeli policy toward the region and for an international reconstruction project. Underlying this aim is the understanding that the...
The foreign policy of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman – is not a good example of consistent cooperation and unity, and policy on Hamas and the Gaza Strip is no exception. In the first few years of the Arab Awakening, differences between each of the participating Gulf states grew increasingly apparent, including over the issue of support for political Islamic movements. Indeed, the focus of most Gulf states has been on internal problems, regional...
In 2017, the major actors in the international arena continued the cautious policy of recent years: a limited investment of resources in the Middle East, based on the desire to avoid falling into regional cauldrons that continue to simmer, though mostly on a low flame. Among the principal events that preoccupied the international actors were the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State, the stabilization of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and the worsening Sunni-Shiite conflict, especially between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Other important...
Seven years after the onset of the upheaval in the Middle East and two years since the implementation of the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, the main contours of the region’s emerging reality – including the actors, rivalries, partnerships, front lines, power relations, and behavior of the major powers – are becoming clear. Now, after nearly one full year at the Washington helm, the nature of the Trump administration and its influence on the domestic arena, the Middle East, and the global stage are also coming into...
As 2017 draws to a close, the Middle East is witnessing the convergence of several important developments that will potentially have a broad impact on Israeli national security. The civil war in Syria is subsiding through a process dominated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey – which poses the danger that Israel’s interests will not be taken into account in the deliberations and steps toward an agreement to stabilize the arena. The jihadist territorial Islamic State established in Iraq and Syria has been obliterated, although the underlying...
2017 was marked by increased Saudi-Iranian hostility, on both the bilateral level and the regional level, and by the strategic balance tilting further in Iran’s favor, intensifying the trend that emerged in the previous year. The new variable of 2017 – the entry of President Donald Trump into the White House – heightened the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and cast a potential shadow over Iran’s room to maneuver. On the one hand, the Trump administration poses a threat to Iran, by casting it as the main cause of regional...
The instability that has defined the Arab world in recent years continues. Arab regimes lack the motivation and/or the ability to deal with the fundamental problems that feed the actual or potential unrest, and above all the socioeconomic situation. Joining the internal shocks are rifts and tensions between regional players, particularly between the Shiite camp led by Iran, and the Sunni camp led by Saudi Arabia, which is also at war with itself. However, state frameworks have survived and previous assessments regarding the...
The fourth issue of Over the Net focuses on trends in two different (though not unconnected) arenas that have been at the center of the debate in the Arab world the past few months. The first trend deals with the internal Palestinian reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, signed in October 2017, after a careful, calculated process by the new Hamas leadership led by Yahya Sinwar. Few give this reconciliation any substantive chance of success, but meanwhile all parties gain from it – particularly Hamas. In this context, the...
When embarking on the war in Yemen, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman promised a rapid decisive victory over the Houthis and the Iranians (Operation Decisive Storm). So far, however, and was proven again with the assassination of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Saudi Arabia has encountered serious difficulties in defeating a determined enemy on its own doorstep. Even if the internal and external pressures on the Houthis grow stronger, their determination and that of their Iranian allies to continue the military...
Saudi Arabia is challenged in nearly every dimension, on both domestic and external levels. Therefore, the recent turmoil in the kingdom, reflected in an unprecedented number of arrests of hundreds of officials, including key leaders of the economic, communications, and political sectors, may prove to be a development of historic magnitude. Will the political upheaval be perceived by Riyadh’s enemies as a window of opportunity to intensify pressure? Is the kingdom facing an era of instability? Strategists and analysts in countries...
