The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey The Greater Middle East is a ticking time bomb. Simmering at the surface in Gaza and across much of the Middle East and North Africa is social, economic, and political anger and frustration that could erupt at any moment but may not immediately manifest itself publicly.

Diaspora Jews, Palestinian Israelis, and Turkish Kurds have more in common than meets the eye.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has fractured a long-standing pillar of Israeli foreign policy that dictated it always needed to ensure the backing of the United States. Fixing the pillar may prove easier said than done.

This week’s Gazan short-lived celebration of a ceasefire that was not to be, highlights what is at stake in the seven-month-old war and Israel’s refusal to end the carnage.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence on Israeli security control of all the land west of the Jordan River, coupled with his public rejection since October of the notion of a Palestinian state and Israel’s Gaza war conduct, has in Palestinian ears the same ring that ‘From the Sea to the River’ has in Israeli ears: the rejection of the other’s rights and eradication of the other’s national existence.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other leading Israeli figures appear blinded and progressively cornered by the gathering of increasingly dark clouds.

Israel’s latest Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange proposal puts the ball in Hamas’ court.

An Israeli ground offensive in the southern Gazan enclave of Rafah is a question of when, not if. Not because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is oblivious to US and international pressure but because it could prove to be make or break for Israel’s embattled leader.

Words matter. In the Israeli-Palestinian battle of narratives, they, more often than not, either are designed to thwart solutions or, by design or default, reinforce entrenched mutually exclusive positions.

Multiple overt and covert wars have pushed the Middle East to the edge of a cliff. Increased tension between Iran and Israel complicates efforts to pull the Middle East back from the abyss.

The Gaza ceasefire negotiations have all but broken down, with Israel and Hamas pursuing mutually exclusive goals.

Despite its devastating human and physical cost, Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas has a whack-a-mole aspect.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is tying himself up in knots as he grudgingly, and only to a limited degree, bows to US President Joe Biden’s demands. In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu is puncturing Swiss-cheese size holes into Israel’s Gaza narrative, making it easier for Mr. Biden to take him publicly to task.

The Greater Middle East is a ticking time bomb. Generations in war-wracked Palestine, Syria, and Yemen have little, if anything, to look forward to. Moreover, discontent is mounting and could explode anytime in countries like Jordan, Egypt, and Iran.

Three recent attacks on Israelis shine a spotlight on the 35,000-member Palestinian security forces that the United States, Gulf countries, and much of the international community want to see in charge of on-the-ground security in post-war Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clutches at straws as he seeks to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza while attempting to create building blocks for a compliant post-war Palestinian administration of the Strip.

Gaza’s population of 2.3 million are pawns in a cynical battle for control of post-war Gaza. Israel’s refusal to lift restrictions on the unfettered entry into Gaza of food, medical supplies, and other desperately needed humanitarian goods, has less to do with a stand-alone starvation policy and more with who controls distribution in the Strip. Both Israel and Hamas see control of aid distribution as a building block of who comes out on top once the guns fall silent.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s walls are caving in. Mr. Netanyahu’s multiple battles fall into two categories: keeping his increasingly fragile government in place and fighting a war he has already lost in the court of public opinion and possibly on the ground in Gaza if measured by the prime minister’s war goals.

The besieged Gazan city of Rafah is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s yo-yo. A brilliant but ruthless politician, Mr. Netanyahu is in campaign mode. “The man is in the midst of an election campaign, Rafah is a marketing tool and (the Americans) are the whipping boy,” said Israeli columnist Yossi Verter.

A just-published Palestinian public opinion survey offers pointers for what a successful transition from the devastating Gaza war to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have to entail.

One just has to switch on the news to realize that mercenaries and private military companies live a life of their own and shape headlines. Chaos and mayhem dominate the streets of Haiti after Colombian mercenaries killed the president. Russia's Wagner Group played a key role in the invasion of Ukraine and at one point appeared to revolt against President Vladimir Putin. This is just to name a few recent histories shaping events. The irony is that the latest phase in the evolution of mercenaries and private military entities first emerged in the Middle East, a region racked by wars and conflict in which states like the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey backed armed to the teeth, non-state actors of different stripes.

A historian and political scientist at South Carolina's Clemson University, Arash Azizi argues that Iran may be on the cusp of change. It's just that the change may come from within the regime rather than from the street.

This year’s US presidential elections are not the only potential hurdle confronting President Joe Biden’s multi-pronged vision for a Middle East peace once the Gaza war ends. So is Israeli intransigence, the prospect of a long-term insurgency in post-war Gaza, and increasing Saudi Chinese technological cooperation.

Failed efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire on the eve of Ramadan leave innocent Gazans in the lurch, highlight the gap between Israel and Hamas’ demands in negotiations, and raise the stakes for the United States.

The Gaza war has turned Palestine into a lightning rod for mounting frustration and discontent in Arab autocracies such as Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

A long-standing Israeli-Palestinian battlefield, food has moved centre stage. For Gazans, who are on the verge of starvation, the food fight is existential.

Two recent high-profile Arab events honouring Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, highlight a subtle tug-of-war over who will define ‘moderate Islam’ in the 21st century.

A proposed temporary Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange appears designed to buy war-battered Gazans relief while enabling Israel and Hamas to claim a success.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza’s future once the guns fall silent is likely to be a non-starter. Rather than provide a pathway to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the plan aims to squash Palestinian national aspirations and ensure continued Israeli control.

Two recent soccer incidents suggest that beyond optics little has changed in the Saudi-Iranian rivalry since China mediated the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries a year ago.

With the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange talks stalled, Israel and its hardline US supporters have stepped up long-standing efforts to discredit Qatar, the main mediator between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Increasingly, the Biden administration links a Gaza ceasefire and a prisoner exchange to broader regional objectives, including Saudi recognition of Israel and the semblance of a pathway to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The realisation that Saudi Arabia is not Qatar may seem obvious, but it has significant meaning for the lessons rights activists and others draw from the Qatar World Cup as they prepare for a Saudi-hosted tournament in 2034.

China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang has taken advantage of the international community’s focus on Gaza and US support for Israel, to tighten control of the region’s Turkic Muslim Uighur population, reshape Islam, and engage in social engineering.

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has found a hardened political landscape as he tours the Middle East for the fifth time since the Gaza war erupted.

Qatari mediation in the Gaza war threatens to become a double-edged sword.

The irony of Middle Eastern geopolitics is that Israel makes it increasingly difficult for US President Joe Biden to support it, while Iran strengthens domestic US anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli hardliners.

The timing of US and Israeli allegations that United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff participated in Hamas’ October 7 attack on the Jewish state was hardly coincidental.

Israel and Hamas are likely to be buoyed in efforts to secure a ceasefire and a new round of prisoner exchanges by an International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s conduct in Gaza risks acts of genocide, even though the court’s decision failed to satisfy either party.

If one listens to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders, there is only one conclusion: an end to the Gaza carnage is nowhere in sight. However, there may be more to the maneuvering on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, notwithstanding both sides’ seemingly uncompromising positions.

A recent Lebanese public opinion poll suggests there may be limits to Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah’s restraint in confronting Israel. It also suggests why Iran feels emboldened by escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Turkish disciplinary action against two Israeli soccer players spotlights one more major casualty of the Gaza war beyond the 24,000 Gazan death toll, the Hamas-held hostages; and the mass Israeli arrests of West Bank Palestinians: freedom of expression.

Increasingly, the United States is caught in a Catch-22 with tension mounting in the Red Sea, Israel maintaining unabated its assault on the Gaza Strip, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) possibly ruling that Israel may be committing genocide.

US pressure on Israel to switch gears and focus on targetted precision strikes and killings, rather than indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, potentially heightens the risk of the war escalating into a regional bust-up and expanding beyond the Middle East. The heightened risk suggests US efforts to allow Israel to continue attempting to destroy Hamas while minimising civilian Palestinian casualties could backfire. This would further underline that the only way of preventing an escalation, protecting innocent lives, and securing the release of Hamas-held hostages, is a ceasefire.

The question is not if but when Gaza-related violence will spill onto the streets of European and American cities. This week’s killing in Beirut of Hamas executive Saleh al-Arouri significantly enhanced the threat posed by Hamas, Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, and jihadists.

History repeats itself. This week’s presumably Israeli killing in Beirut of senior Hamas official Salah al-Arouri raises the spectre of renewed tit-for-tat Palestinian and Israeli killings in third countries.

The jury is out on the degree to which the Gaza war threatens pre-war efforts by Middle Eastern states to freeze their differences and focus on economic and security cooperation.

Controversy over the release of Palestinian tax receipts tests the United States’ ability to pressure Israel and suggests that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ultra-religious, ultra-conservative government may not survive an end to the Gaza war.

Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the leader of Palestine Islamic Jihad, the second most significant militant Gazan group, arrived in Cairo this week for carefully timed talks with Egyptian intelligence chief General Abbas Kamel. A Palestinian source said Mr. Al-Nakhalah was discussing an end to the Gaza war that would involve an exchange of prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and reconstruction of the devastated territory. On the table was a three-stage Egyptian proposal that falls short of mutually exclusive Israeli and Palestinian demands.

One would think that heart wrenching images streaming out of the Gaza Strip suggest that Israel has Hamas over a barrel in stalled efforts to revive prisoner exchanges. Think again. Talks in the past week in Europe between senior Qatari, Israeli, and US officials, and in Cairo between Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, the second most prominent Gazan group, and Egyptian intelligence in Cairo, suggest otherwise.

A high-flyer at the center of efforts to negotiate temporary pauses and Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swaps, Qatar is catching flack for its relationship with Hamas that has enabled its mediation endeavour. Even so, the flack, for now, has been drowned out by the Gulf state’s indispensability, established with the tacit endorsement of the United States and Israel.

Israel wasn’t slamming the door on renewed indirect prisoner swap negotiations with Hamas when it this week barred David Barnea, the head of Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence agency, from travelling to Qatar to explore possibilities for renewed exchanges. Instead, it was maneuvering for greater leverage in potential talks and expressing doubts about whether Hamas could deliver a second temporary truce in the Gaza war that would make further prisoner swaps possible.

The question is no longer if but when the United States will support a ceasefire in the Gaza war. While the need for a ceasefire to halt Gaza’s human carnage is self-evident, some drivers of the Biden administration’s debate about the timing of a ceasefire raise questions about the moral underpinnings of Western democracies.

The United Arab Emirates walks a geopolitical tightrope, juggling big power rivalries and mounting regional instability fuelled by the Gaza war.

Separating the wheat from the chaff in the Israeli-Palestinian fog of war is key to preparing for the day after the guns fall silent and resolving a conflict that constitutes a perennial regional ticking time bomb.

Spanish philosopher George Santayana didn’t have Palestine in mind when he coined the phrase, ‘history repeats itself.’ Yet, Mr. Santayana’s maxim may apply to Hamas when comparing the group’s political evolution to the 16-year-torturous road traversed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from classification by Israel and its Western allies as a terrorist organization to establishing the Palestine Authority on Israeli-occupied Palestinian land.

A recent clash between pro-Palestinian Muslims and pro-Israeli Christians in the North Sulawesi coastal town of Bitung raised the spectre of Indonesia’s worst nightmare, inter-communal violence. In a country that prides itself on a culture of inter-communal harmony, the death of a protester set off alarm bells. “This is very worrying” said Yahya Cholil Staquf, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement. Mr. Staquf, popularly known as Pak Yahya, spoke at a one-day summit in Jakarta of religious leaders, convened to define “religion’s role in addressing Middle East violence & threats to a rules-based international order.”

Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel has not just divided Muslim political leaders. It’s also solicited diverse responses from religious figures and institutions, reflecting deeper divisions about what Islam stands for in the 21st century. At the core of the differences is the ability and willingness to empathise with innocent victims on both sides of the Israeli-Palestnian divide, even if the focus is on the carnage caused by Israel’s assault on Gaza, the West’s double standards, and the international community’s impotence in imposing a long-term halt to the fighting.

Israel’s war on Gaza. Cracks in Western support have emerged not only because of the devastating human toll of Israel’s military campaign, including stepped-up attacks on hospitals and schools, but also due to differences on how Gaza would be governed once the guns fall silent.

Words matter. No more so than in legal settings. Genocide is the word most associated with Israel's more than one-month-long assault on Gaza. In response to the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel, in which at least 1,200, mostly civilian, Israelis were killed. Genocide and Holocaust scholars, including those who believe that Israel has and is committing war crimes in its assault are divided about whether Israeli actions amount to genocide. Even so, they warn that Israeli actions could lead to genocide, if it not already has. What is certain is that optics streaming out of Gaza of the destruction and the plight of innocent Palestinian civilians, including large numbers of children and babies, explain the popular use of the term genocide when discussing the Israeli assault. To get some proper definitions and put things in perspective. I am joined today by Professor Omar Bartov, a world-renowned genocide and Holocaust scholar at Brown University in Rhode Island.

When US President Joe Biden insisted there could be no return to the status ante quo once the guns fall silent in Gaza, he revived debate about the viability of a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, for all practical purposes, Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack against Israel and Israel’s more than month-long indiscriminate bombing of Gaza have likely delayed any realistic effort to resolve the conflict.

It took Arab and Muslim leaders 35 days of war to call an ‘emergency’ meeting to discuss Israel’s assault on Gaza. Their limited ability to influence developments was on public display when they finally gathered this weekend in the Saudi capital Riyadh. So were the differences that raised questions about efforts in recent years to sustainably reduce regional tensions without resolving fundamental disputes and conflicts.

Few bring an understanding to the table of both sides that is grounded in having mediated between Israel and Hamas rather than only having engaged with one side or the other, particularly as Qatar negotiates a release of some hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. A hostage negotiator, former advisor to Israeli prime ministers, critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and an investor in East Jerusalem housing for Palestinians, Gershon Baskin is one of those few. In 2011, Mr. Baskin negotiated Hamas’ release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Mr. Baskin was in touch with Hamas leaders in Gaza until a week ago. He says the release by Hamas of women, children, and elderly hostages is being negotiated on three different tracks in Qatar, Egypt, and Lebanon, countries that host exiled Hamas officials and/or have a relationship with the group. The release could involve an exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and/or a temporary silencing of the guns.

Gershon Baskin may be one of the few sane voices left on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Mr. Baskin speaks with authority when he denounces the Israeli assault on Gaza as a war crime and Hamas for its brutal October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400, primarily civilian, Israelis.

Israel’s options are central to discussions about the day after the guns fall silent in Gaza. Absent from the debate is what Palestinians want.

The stakes in the Gaza war for the United States and President Joe Biden could not be higher.

US President Joe Biden’s bear hug approach and refusal to pressure Israel more forcefully involves a complicated cost-benefit analysis as well as a crucial political battle that could not only drag the United States into another Middle East war but also change the paradigm of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is in a bind. He is caught between public support for the Palestinians, and for Hamas in significant quarters, opponents painting him as a Western and Israeli lackey, and the need to not be seen as enabling a militant organization that brutally targets civilians.

Israel will likely win the Gaza war on the battlefield. Even so, it has already been defeated in the court of public opinion.

Human beings’ most destructive instincts – survival, anger, fear, despair, and vengeance – dictate Israeli and Palestinian war strategy and policy in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 brutal attack on Israel.

If there is a lesson to be drawn from the Gaza war, it is that history repeats itself: hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide reinforce each other.

Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls Gaza, will likely emerge a victor regardless of how the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting ends.

Saudi and Iranian sports have politics written into their DNA.

Islamic Law is at the centre of debates about what constitutes moderate Islam and what it would take to reform Islam. Essentially two schools of thought dominate the discussion. Islam's traditional approach simply picks and chooses which elements of Sharia it opts to ignore. That is the approach adopted by autocratic rulers like Saudi Crown Prince Moham bin Salman and United Arab Emirates. President Mohamed bin Zayed. Indonesia's, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest and most moderate civil society movement challenges the traditional approach. It insists that removal of outdated, obsolete, and supremacist concepts in Sharia is the only way to fortify Islam against religious and political extremism and promote political, social, and religious pluralism, religious tolerance, and democracy. My guest today, Andrew March, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor is an Islam scholar and author of several books published last month. Andrew's last book on Muslim democracy is a translation of essays by Rached Ghannouchi, a Tunisian politician, public intellectual, religious thinker, and founder of a political party that evolved from Islamism to Muslim democracy in many ways comparable to Christian democratic parties. The book is also a philosophical discussion between the two. Mr. Ghannouchi was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and Foreign Policy’s top 100 global thinkers. Eighty-two years old, Mr. Ghannouchi is the latest high- profile figure to have been arrested on charges of incitement against state authorities by the autocratic regime of President Kais Saied. Ghannouchi went on hunger strike this week. Ghannouchi is a middle ground figure in the debate about what constitutes moderate Islam and how to reform the faith. Reform of Sharia may be one step too far for him. Yet, his evolution from Islamism or political Islam to Muslim democracy positions him as a democratic reformer. It raises the question of whether Mr. Ghannouchi and his Ennahda Party are models for groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or the exception that confirms the rule that political Islam is inflexible, rigid, and opposed to moderate interpretations of Islam and a threat to secularism. Andrew March joins me to discuss all of this.

A Saudi-Israeli agreement to establish diplomatic relations involving enhanced US commitments to Gulf security could be a game-changer for great power rivalry in the Middle East.

Meet Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem, aka Sheikh Awesome, a multilingual, ultra-conservative, and charismatic Saudi cleric. Mr. Al-Hakeem is more than just any Saudi Islamic scholar. An erstwhile Friday prayer imam of a mosque in Jeddah, Mr. Al-Hakeem articulates views that at times align with those of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but, at others, contradict the recasting of Saudi Arabia’s religious image projected by the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

It's a no-brainer to suggest that we live in an increasingly polarised world. Geopolitics are polarised, so are societies. Polarisation marks the transition from a unipolar world dominated by the United States to a bipolar world with China, or more likely a tripolar world that includes India, in which middle powers assert themselves more forcibly. The polarisation is fueled by populism and civilizationalism, led by men with little regard for international law or rules of the game that would limit their freedom of action. To be fair, adherents of the rule of law also ignore international law when convenient. The result is a breakdown in conflict prevention mechanisms; the US toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, despite foreseeable disastrous consequences; Russia's invasion of Ukraine; and rising racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and distrust and hostility towards the other as it manifests itself in anti-migrant sentiment. Polarisation is also driven by a clash between liberal and conservative values in which both sides attempt to impose their definitions of all kinds of rights. Jason Pack, my guest today, argues the coherent management of the world order has been replaced by what he calls the Global Enduring Disorder. Jason suggests that conventional geopolitical theories fail to explain a world in which many states no longer rationally pursue their long-term interests. A Middle East expert focused on Libya, Jason is the host of the Enduring Disorder Podcast out now with Goal Hanger Podcasts, a senior analyst for emerging challenges at the NATO college in Rome, and the author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder published in 2021 by Oxford University Press.

Debates about the US commitment to Gulf security are skewed by confusion, miscommunication, and contradictory policies.

Libya has figured prominently in recent headlines. These days, it's floods that have devastated Eastern Libya and killed more than 5000 people, days after a catastrophic earthquake rocked Morocco like much else. Some 10,000 people are missing. The floods could not have occurred at a worse moment for Haftar. The short-lived mutiny in June by the Wagner Group has cast a shadow over Russian backing for the rebel leader. Add to this, recent protests following a controversial meeting in Rome between the foreign ministers of Libya and Israel, raised the spectre of a disconnect between Middle East and governments and public opinion. Overall, Libya may not be the most influential player in the Middle East, but the impact of what happens in Libya resonates across the region and beyond frequently impacting the domestic policies of countries like the United States, France and Italy. My guest today, Ethan Chorin, notes that Libya, if ignored, “may be marginal for policy formation, but it's poisonous when neglected.” A former US diplomat, who served in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East East, Ethan skipped a dinner a decade ago with US Ambassador Christopher Stevens at the US Consulate in Benghazi. Mr. Stevens and three other Americans were killed that night in an attack by Islamic militants on the consulate.

Storm clouds may be gathering, potentially casting a shadow over Saudi Arabia's shock-and-awe sports buying spree and complicating the geopolitical and geoeconomic sports strategies of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

An unexpected twist in the run-up to next year’s Indonesian presidential election puts Centrist Democratic International (CDI), the world’s largest alliance of conservative political parties, and Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, in a bind.

Protesters in Syria, Bahrain, Libya, Iran, and Israel are dashing autocratic and authoritarian hopes of a prolonged winter.

Gulf States like Saudi Arabia and Qatar dominate sports headlines, particularly when it comes to football and golf. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's sports ambitions seem to know no limits. He's paying unprecedented sums of money to hire many of the world's top players, like Christiano Ronaldo and Neymar, in a bid to turn the Saudi Pro League into one of the world's top soccer competitions. Most recently, Saudi Arabia set eyes on Egyptian born top Liverpool player, Mohamed Saleh. The buying spree follows the controversial acquisition in 2021 of Newcastle United by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Moreover, Mr. Bin Salman has muscled his way into golf with the merger of PGA Tour, the organiser of the sports top events, and the Saudi backed upstart, Live Gulf. Not to be left behind, a member of the Qatari ruling family is bidding $9 billion to acquire Manchester United. If the sale goes through, it would turn the Manchester Derby into a dual between the Gulf State and the United Arab Emirates, long, a critic of Guty policies and the owner of Manchester City. All of this raises a host of questions. Why are Gulf States willing to invest huge amounts in sports? Will Gulf money change sports like football? Should states be allowed to control sports clubs or are they vital parts of civil society that should be shielded from encroachment by the state? Should democracies make human rights a qualifying condition for club ownership would to do so be hypocritical at a time that European and US adherence to human rights is backsliding. To discuss this and much more, I'm joined by Kareem Zidan, an acclaimed journalist whose Sports Politika Substack column covers the nexus of sports, politics and society.

Saudi Arabia’s stunning sports acquisition blitz, alongside Qatari and Emirati European club purchases, may reshape the beautiful game, just not in ways Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Gulf rulers like Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani envisioned.

A potential sale of storied soccer club Manchester United to a member of Qatar's ruling family could take the Manchester derby to new heights.

It’s not just Saudi Arabia that puts a high US price on diplomatic relations with Israel. So does Israel.

A just-published survey suggests Arab youth are returning to traditional values. The survey contrasts starkly with another, only partially released poll, in which a growing number favour religious reform.

An Indonesian push for a Southeast Asian return to values rooted in an ancient Indo civilisation amounts to an innovative attempt to manage polarisation.

Saudi Arabia's soccer player buying spree is about more than sports and the diversification of the kingdom's economy. It’s also about geopolitics and religion for Saudi Arabia and, at least, some of the world’s top players moving to the kingdom.

The United Arab Emirates resembles US ‘Teflon President’ Ronald Reagan.

Poking the United States in the eye appears to be a Saudi pastime. In the latest incident, Saudi Arabia detained five relatives of a US resident whose family in 2020 filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania against the Saudi government in a long-standing commercial dispute involving an oil refinery on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, according to human rights groups.

For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, religious reform has long been a question of when rather than if. Mr. Bin Salman’s potential embrace of religious, not just social and economic reform, could have far-reaching consequences for the role of religion in Saudi Arabia and religious soft power rivalry in the Muslim world.

Indian politicians and commentators have rallied in defense of anti-migrant sentiment in Europe to forge alliances and undercut criticism of Hindu nationalism that targets minorities, foremost Muslims.

Increasingly, muzzling political freedoms beyond national borders is part of an autocrat’s toolkit.

A recent 27-year, four million-tonne liquified natural gas (LNG) Qatari export agreement with China, the longest in gas export history, highlights different Gulf state approaches to navigating big power rivalry between the People’s Republic and the United States.

At first, comparing Palestinian gunmen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to rioting youth in France may resemble likening apples to pears. In many ways, it is. Yet, armed Palestinian resistance and French rioting have a common message: violence results from governmental and societal failure to acknowledge and address social, economic, political, and/or national aspirations.

For the second time in a month, Saudi Arabia has discovered that money buys a lot but not everything.

The sigh of relief in a swath of land stretching from China to Africa’s Atlantic coast was audible when Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch who heads the Wagner Group, a state-funded private military company, called off his mutiny against President Vladimir Putin’s military and security establishment.

A recent poll of Arab public opinion suggests US credibility has taken a hit, but all is not lost. That is if the United States realizes that Middle Easterners judge the US on glaring inconsistencies in its domestic and foreign policies rather than on its cultural, technological, and economic attributes.