The Gulf

Modernizing MENA education: How to close the career success gap

By Nibras Basitkey

The education systems in the MENA region are failing to keep pace with the rapidly evolving labor market, which is increasingly characterized by emerging technologies, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Is Saudi-Iran reconciliation threatening the future of Israeli normalization?

By Sarah Zaaimi

The recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran could signal a sea change in Arab-Iranian relations and pose practical hindrances to Arab-Israeli normalization.

How WhatsApp upended Middle East diplomacy—and what the US can learn from it

By Joze Pelayo, Yulia Shalomov

In WhatsApp’s encrypted channels, diplomats feel freer to form and participate in groups where they privately share resources, coordinate meetings, strategize with colleagues, create informal alliances, lobby for their country’s positions, and coordinate policy decisions.

State of the Order: Assessing March 2023

The State of the Order breaks down the month's most important events impacting the democratic world order.

Arab states are normalizing with the Assad regime. This is the Middle East’s 1936 moment.

By Malik al-Abdeh and Lars Hauch

Now diplomatic relations are set to be restored between Syria and two behemoths of the Arab League: Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who are the holders of the all-important veto on Assad’s return to regional respectability.

China is getting comfortable with the Gulf Cooperation Council. The West must pragmatically adapt to its growing regional influence.

By Joseph Webster, Joze Pelayo

The US and its allies and partners must pragmatically adapt to China’s growing regional influence by providing credible alternatives to Beijing.

Israeli-Arab cooperation on agriculture, water, and food security starts with building on existing innovations

By Daniel B. Shapiro

The recent N7 conference showed how the climate crisis in Middle Eastern societies has given rise to a set of issues around which there is much consensus and a true openness to addressing them together.