Middle East

War seldom has true victors – and for Bethlehem, where tourism once accounted for approximately 70 per cent of income, the Israel-Gaza conflict has left businesses shuttered and livelihoods in ruins. Since the October 7 attack, my home country of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs has classified Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank under its highest Level 4: “Do Not Travel” risk advisory. Earlier this month – despite my better judgement – I ventured into Bethlehem to witness firsthand the impact of the Israel-Gaza war on the city’s economy and dwindling Christian population. ‘There are dozens of hotels in Bethlehem, and they’re almost all empty.’ Under the Oslo

You’re more likely to see a protest against Hamas in Gaza than in London. For brave, spirited agitation against this army of anti-Semites that murders Israelis and oppresses Palestinians, forget Britain’s activist class – they’re too busy frothing about the ‘evil’ Jewish State morning, noon and night. Look instead to the bombed-out Gaza Strip itself, where, finally, fury with Hamas is bubbling over. If Palestinians vented their Hamas criticism in Britain, they would get an earful from ‘progressives’ Hundreds of Gazans took to their rubble-strewn streets to register their disdain for Hamas. Around a hundred gathered in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza, brandishing placards saying ‘Stop War’ and

As the US and Russia meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, the talks potentially mark the end of a battle over who would get to serve as the mediator to help bring the war to an end. The diplomatic tussle to be the Ukraine war’s peace broker has been fractious. So how did Saudi Arabia come out on top? It comes down to the Kingdom’s cordial relations with both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump’s White House – and, of course, a lot of money. MBS is said to be Trump’s favourite foreign leader Saudi Arabia’s triumph was not a foregone conclusion. Prior to

There are moments in the life of a democracy when ambiguity becomes complicity. On Sunday, in the heart of London, such a moment unfolded with eerie precision and devastating clarity. During the annual Quds Day rally – an event imported from the revolutionary streets of Tehran – demonstrators hoisted images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a city that prides itself on liberty, tolerance, and pluralism, the figurehead of a regime known for repression, hostage diplomacy, antisemitism, and extraterritorial assassination plots was paraded as an icon of defiance. One might ask, defiance of what? Of Zionism? Of oppression? No. Of Britain itself:

A Kurdish-led rebel coalition which dominates north-eastern Syria has signed a deal with the interim government in Damascus. The agreement, which means the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will look to hand over border posts and oil and gas fields under its control, recognises the Kurdish minority as ‘an integral part of the Syrian state’. Peace in Syria is now a little bit more likely. After a week of new threats to the stability of Syria, with hundreds killed in a series of massacres, this tentative deal is one that many thought might never happen. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi was not in his usual military garb when he signed the deal

There’s an old journalistic maxim: If it bleeds, it leads. But some crucial words are missing from the end: If we can hold the Jews responsible. It’s not by chance that most news organisations have more correspondents in Israel than in the rest of the Middle East put together. True, that’s partly because Israel – unlike its neighbours – is a democracy which allows dissenting voices, and is home to and welcomes a cacophony of both homegrown and foreign media voices. If you want to cover the Middle East, you’ll likely base yourself in Israel. Al-Sharaa’s arrival as Syria’s de facto president was greeted not as the ascension to power

Israeli leaders recently made clear that the IDF’s current military deployment into south-west Syria is not intended as a stop-gap measure until its northern neighbour stabilises. Rather, in a speech last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told IDF officer cadets that the force’s troops would stay on the formerly Syrian side of Mount Hermon, and in the buffer zone carved out to the east of the Golan Heights for ‘an unlimited period of time’. Israel’s incursion into Syria to disrupt a perceived threat resembles other foreign entries into Syria, In a statement appearing to hint at a yet more ambitious Israeli strategy, the Prime Minister added that Israel demanded the

So the moral rot at the BBC appears to run even deeper than we thought. The storm over its Gaza documentary just got a whole lot worse. As if it wasn’t bad enough that this Israel-mauling hour of TV was fronted by the son of a leading member of Hamas, now we discover that the Beeb whitewashed the bigoted views of some of the doc’s participants. It omitted their Jew-bashing. This is as serious a breach of broadcasting ethics as I can remember. The film was swiftly mired in scandal Gaza: How To Survive a War Zone was first broadcast on BBC Two last week. The film was swiftly mired

Another weekend, another grotesque spectacle in Gaza. Hamas released its latest handful of Israeli hostages as part of the fragile ceasefire agreement which is expected to expire next week. As on many Saturdays before, Hamas paraded a trio of Israelis – Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, and Eliya Cohen – onto makeshift platforms emblazoned with multilingual propaganda declarations and decorative nationalistic flags. The Hamas production feels like nothing less than a slave auction in America’s South As cheering crowds looked on, the trio were then forced onto the stage, made to smile and wave as heavily-armed militants milled about, before finally being led to freedom by the Red Cross officials

‘Isis is taking huge advantage of the current situation in Syria,’ Ilham Ahmed told me, when we met in the north Syrian city of Hasakeh in mid January. ‘In the recent time, there have been many attacks on checkpoints of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces). They are most active in the al Badiya area. There’s no security control there, and we have confirmed intelligence information of plans for an attack on the Al Hol camp to liberate the families there.’ Ahmed chairs the foreign relations department of the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES). This is the Kurdish-dominated de facto government with which the US and its allies aligned

“See that?” my friend pointed to a pylon on the hill opposite the window. “That’s the dawla.” The dawla (pronounced “dowleh”) is Arabic for state, and my hostess was telling me about an essential feature of life in contemporary Lebanon: the ability to understand when there is electricity and who is providing it. If the light on the pylon was orange, I would know that power was coming from the national grid. If, like good Net Zero citizens, we eschew gas, it could also mean no heating, hot meals or hot showers It was my first trip to Lebanon for almost fifteen years. In the early 2000s, I went repeatedly