Middle East Update

Thanassis Cambanis
This month’s legislative elections were supposed to be a watershed in Jordan’s slow but committed march to democratic change. But Hamas’ rise to power in the Palestinian Authority and its violent takeover of Gaza in June have cast a heavy shadow over politics in Jordan, where a Hashemite monarch maintains a tight, authoritarian grip [...]

Amir Oren
The IDF senior command held a workshop this week , August 22, on the army’s five-year plan. The IDF will be preparing for the following scenarios in the next five years: thwarting the danger of a hostile country that does not border on Israel achieving nuclear capability (Iran, in particular), a war with Syria, [...]

A number of Arab countries have recently accelerated their nuclear programs in response to Iran’s renegade nuclear quest, claiming they are pursuing the ‘peaceful’ atom. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Egypt all have nuclear programs at different stages of development, even though the region has huge oil reserves to produce cheap [...]

Jordan’s King Abdullah II flatly rejected a confederation with the Palestinians on July 1, calling any such proposal at the current time a “conspiracy” against his kingdom and the Palestinians, a local newspaper reported. The key US ally in the region fears that any confederation before a final settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could give [...]

The Israeli government has approved the creation of a railway linking Jordan to the northern Israeli port of Haifa, the cabinet announced on Sunday, March 11. Most of the projects will be concentrated in the Jordan Valley and will include the construction of a cross-desert canal system linking the Red Sea and [...]

Citing the risks of further delay, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Wednesday March 14, the United States must take the lead in creating conditions for a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Ha’aretz reported on February 14, that at least 25 Jordanian lawmakers have signed a petition urging the government to officially declare that Israel has “violated” the peace treaty reached between the two countries in 1994 by continuing repair and excavation work near Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Middle East is verging on three civil wars - in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon - according to Jordan’s King Abdullah in statements earlier this week. Saying that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the “emotional core” of all the conflicts in the Mid East, King Abdullah petitioned the international community to look at the “big picture” [...]

An environmental group, Friends of the Earth - Middle East, has warned of a dramatic drop in the quantity and quality of the water in the southern end of the Jordan River, following the completion of a joint Jordanian and Syrian-built dam. The group told Ha’aretz that over the next summer, the river could dry [...]

IDF preparing for “larger than ever” Gaza operation!Israeli and Palestinian media sources reported that one of two Hamas gunmen killed by the ID F on October 18, was involved in masterminding the cross-border attack in June in which two IDF soldiers were killed and Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. Meanwhile, with Kassam rockets [...]