Middle East

Whatever else the arguments concerning the Gaza War, none is more wrong-headed than the suggestion that Gazans were living in such straitened circumstances that they had no choice but to ‘break out’ on 7 October. Palestinian solidarity protestors routinely describe Gaza as a ‘prison camp’. Even the Foreign Secretary David Cameron has previously used that term to talk about Gaza. In the wake of the Hamas massacre, the UN Chief Antonio Guterres insisted that the events of 7 October ‘did not happen in a vacuum’. Although he later denied that this was a ‘justification’ of the murders, rapes and kidnappings of Israelis by Gazans, Guterres’s comments tied in with a

Hopes for a temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas during Ramadan were dashed over the weekend, when it became apparent that no such deal would be reached before the beginning of the holy month. Weeks of tough negotiations that raised optimistic speculations about a deal have so far produced no tangible results. Hamas has hardened its position on a temporary ceasefire that would include the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners. This came as no surprise to Israeli negotiators; Israel has been warning for weeks that Hamas is set to reject a deal while attempting to provoke violent clashes between Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, and Israeli security

Israel’s government has finally begun to turn its attention to what happens once the war in Gaza is over. The ‘basic contours’ of a hostage deal – and possible second Gaza ceasefire – continue to take shape, with further talks set to take place this week in Qatar’s capital Doha between Israel’s intelligence services, the United States, and Hamas via Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for post-war Gaza has been a long time coming, with his government constantly dogged by the question of what its goals are beyond destroying Hamas and what the endgame for the Palestinians might look like. You would think that with

Performative sanctions have long been the last refuge of the lazy policymaker looking to ‘do something’. Take, for instance, the sanctions that are slapped on unsavoury individuals from around the world on an almost-weekly basis: Turkish assassins, Iranian guerrilla commanders, Somali pirates, and Yemeni rebels are among those who have been whacked with the sanctions stick. Unsurprisingly, nobody has repented as a result of being listed, meaning that the sanctions roster is a government naughty list and little more. After more than a decade of performative sanctions, the public is slowly cottoning onto the fact that they don’t seem to offer much. Amidst this scrutiny, policymakers are increasingly drawn to

The drone attack on a US base in Jordan that killed three American troops and injured dozens risks bringing one more country into the orbit of the war between Israel and Hamas. US president Joe Biden has blamed ‘Tehran-backed militants’ operating in Syria and Iraq for the strike on Tower 22, a US base on Jordan’s border with Syria, and has promised reprisals. Iran has denied any involvement: Tehran prefers to let its proxies do its dirty work. Watching on nervously is Jordan. Iran, whatever its denials, has much to gain by sowing instability in Jordan Iranian-backed militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have now launched more than 150 attacks on US positions in

The International Court of Justice has handed down a preliminary ruling instructing Israel to prevent a genocide from happening in Gaza. Judge Donoghue, speaking at the court in The Hague, said the country must take ‘all measures within its power’ to prevent acts that breach the genocide convention and must ensure ‘with immediate effect’ that none of its soldiers are involved in any acts which contravene it. Israel was also ordered to take immediate action to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The convention defines genocide as acts committed ‘with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. The ICJ ruling is legally

Sitting in a room at the Israel Defence Forces’ Hakirya base in Tel Aviv, I listened – along with a room full of delegates, mostly European MPs and members of the House of Lords – to a briefing from an IDF spokesman. He was a British-born reservist recruited back to the front lines of Israel’s communications war, and he did not inspire. He repeated basics about what happened on 7 October, and the horror of those events – something that everyone in that room, all there as pretty major fans of Israel, desirous to see it triumph in its hour of adversity, already appreciated. We wanted new information: dispassionately and

I have visited Israel three times in the past year. The first trip was in the spring, just as the anti-government protests – triggered by Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to control the Supreme Court – were beginning. The day before we travelled, protestors forced Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport to close, and a general strike was announced. Every Saturday night, out went the protestors – mostly liberal and secular, but not entirely, so widespread is frustration with the government. ‘You could not be seen sitting and drinking wine on a Saturday night’, Moran Alon, the owner of the Nilus bar in Tel Aviv told me. ‘People would wonder: why aren’t you at