Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Muhammad Hussein
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If the West is not careful, Russia will make the Balkans a second front
This month has likely been the most crushing for Russia since it launched its invasion of Ukraine almost seven months ago. In an aggressive counter-offensive operation, Ukrainian forces recaptured the cities of Kharkiv and Kupiansk, reportedly retaking 3,000 square kilometres of territory rapidly, and driving out Russian forces. Aside...
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The totalitarian dream: Gulf and Israeli surveillance is going global
It has forever been the dream of almost every state, intelligence agency, empire and totalitarian regime to oversee the doings of all of their subjects, to detect any hint of dissent, to control their movements, to influence their thinking and even to peer into their minds. That dream has...
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As Turkiye moves to reconcile with Assad, the Middle East’s opposition movements now are left homeless
After a decade of support for the Syrian revolution and opposition, Turkiye seems to be having a change of heart. Over the course of 2022, there mysteriously emerged reports claiming that – in no official terms – the Turkish government may soon restore its ties with the Syrian regime...
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Israel will use the Kurds as a tool, yet Turkiye still normalised relations
When it was revealed last month that Israel had requested the United States to prevent a new Turkish military operation in northern Syria, it served as a necessary reminder that Tel Aviv’s role in Syria is not limited simply to conducting drone strikes on Syrian regime and Iranian targets...
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In their hope for a ‘Middle Eastern NATO’ against Iran, Israel and the US may end up heartbroken
As Arab states the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco began establishing ties with Israel over the past few years and warmed towards their old adversary, many saw it as the beginning of a new era. And in some ways, it was: trade could now openly flow...
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As the West commits energy suicide in its green transition, it exploits the Gulf
US President Joe Biden’s Middle East tour was muddled from the start, and his administration’s regional policy was criticised by analysts for lacking clarity and direction. The results of the trip were equally disappointing, producing no great announcement to change the course of Washington’s relations with its Middle East...
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The Motawif chaos at Hajj reveals the flaw in Saudi Arabia’s centralisation strategy
It is difficult to recall a time in the lives of current and surviving generations where the Hajj pilgrimage was made so chaotic and unstable as it was this year. Over the past month, decades of status quo in the Hajj arrangement process were overturned when Saudi Arabia’s government...
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Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967; when will Washington put its special relationship aside?
Fifty-five years ago this month, Israel declared war on the United States of America. Unofficially and not in so many words, of course, but what else can it be called when Israeli armed forces launched a two hour sustained attack on a clearly marked US Navy ship in the...
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Remembering the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon
In 1978, Israeli military forces finally withdrew from Lebanon three months after their invasion of southern Lebanon in an effort to hunt down and eliminate the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). It was essentially an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spread into neighbouring borders, drawing in multiple other players and...
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Will Syria’s opposition defeat Assad while Russia is tied down in Ukraine?
Pivotal moments in history rarely present themselves, but when they do, that is exactly what they turn out to be. The power dynamics of an entire region can be altered, the interests of governments can be shifted, and the geopolitical arena can be at least partially dominated by former...
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MEMO launches ‘Our Vision for Liberation’ Ramzy Baroud’s latest book in London
In Middle East Monitor’s first in-person event two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a panel of speakers came together to discuss the future of Palestine from a grassroots perspective....
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The UK will be complicit in the rise of far-right terrorism if it adopts the Shawcross review
It was only a matter of time before a right-wing figure in the West finally revealed the true depth of their agenda by deliberately drawing attention away from the extremists at their end of the political spectrum. That is exactly what William Shawcross, appointed by the British government to...
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The EU continues to blackmail Palestinians through the weaponisation of anti-Semitism
Over the past year, the European Union has delayed the transfer of hundreds of millions of Euros in its annual aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), solely over the allegations that the PA’s school textbooks contain some content deemed “anti-Semitic”. The restriction of the annual funding – last year’s as...
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A new age of transnational terrorism threatens the West after Ukraine’s foreign fighters return
There are many impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that have been almost forensically analysed over the past month. From the laying bare of the European community’s blatant racism and selective solidarity to the threat to international order, the subject has been drained and the cow can no...
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The Great Starvation is coming, and the world must prepare for it
While the world endured global supply chain issues and delays for over two years throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, markets suffered, economies buckled, and there were real fears that it would mean potential shortages of essentials, and even food across the globe. Such a fate is finally arriving...
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Remembering Israel’s Siege of Jenin
What: The Israeli military’s siege and invasion of the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp during the Second Intifada, resulting in at least 52 Palestinians being indiscriminately massacred and over 13,000 made refugees again. When: 3 April – 11 April, 2002 Where: Jenin, northern West Bank What happened? As the Second Intifada raged on throughout...
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After decades of status quo, can Pakistan remain a neutral player on the world stage?
When Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, hit out at the European Union and Western envoys who urged him to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, asking if they thought Pakistan was their “slave” and enquiring why similar demands were not made to India, it cemented a precedent that had...
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Russia is daring to destroy the current world order, like Daesh and others before it
A fortnight into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the advance of the “special operation” is not going as rapidly or easy as the Kremlin thought it would. While Russian forces – whose losses stand at over 11,000 already – still desperately attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and are resorting...
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Remembering the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait and the Highway of Death
What: The withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, resulting in Iraq’s acceptance of UN terms and resolutions following seven months of its occupation of its small Gulf neighbour. This led ultimately to the decline of Saddam Hussein’s power and set the stage for his fall and death over a...
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Amid an American decline, China is winning the Middle East
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and that bastion of communism just over thirty years ago, the United States and the western world have still not lost their fascination with that old rival superpower. Throughout the three decades as a proudly interventionist force with near-total supremacy on...
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UK government welcomes genocidal apartheid upholders
When hundreds of students at the University of Cambridge gathered on Tuesday to protest the Israeli ambassador to Britain Tzipi Hotovely’s speech at the Cambridge Union, cutting it short and causing her to flee the grounds, it became clear that her track record would not be forgotten any time...
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To prevent a second Bosnian genocide, Turkey may finally militarily intervene
Many see Turkey as an increasingly interventionist force in its surrounding regions, but also as a mediating force. From its military interventions into Syria and Libya to its backing of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Ankara has worked to establish its own assertive foreign policy using new military capabilities...
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Under biomedical security states, Israeli apartheid may soon go global
Almost two years ago, I penned an article highlighting the possibility of governments around the world – particularly Western democracies – using the spreading Covid-19 pandemic to implement a series of harsh restrictions on their populations in order to grant themselves sweeping new powers in a taste of totalitarianism. Back...
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Despite his gratitude to Soleimani, Assad is clamping down on Iran’s presence in Syria
Two years after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in a US missile attack at Baghdad Airport, the legacy of the late commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is still disputed. His critics insist that he was a war criminal who was responsible for the deaths of...
