The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

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 casu...

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...

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...

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 te...

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...

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 worl...

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...

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 abo...

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 e...

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...

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 inves...