The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

During this week’s Middle East Report, analyst James M. Dorsey provided insights into the evolving geopolitical landscape of the region.

US President Donald Trump may envision himself as a Middle Eastern puppet master only to find out that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Arab and Muslim leaders have played him. Even so, it is Hamas and the Palestinians who are likely to hold the bag, not Mr. Trump. The fact of the matter is that no one in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world sees their interests minimally repr...

US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack appeared to frame the administration’s thinking in a freewheeling interview on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's high-stakes meeting on Monday in Washington with President Donald Trump, his fourth in ten months. The two men’s discussions will focus on a 21-point plan presented by Mr. Trump earlier in the week to Ar...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Israel continues bombing Gaza, Houthis launch a drone strike on the Israeli city of Eilat, Israel conducts airstrikes in Doha, Qatar, the Gaza aid flotilla is being swarmed by Israel according to crew, and European states are recognizing Palestinian statehood. A lot is going on in terms of the Middle East and especially Israel Palestine. James M. Dorsey of the Tu...

Even by its own standards. Israel is cutting off its nose to spite its face. On Sunday, Israel scored an own goal when it targeted the compound of Gaza's powerful Doghmush clan, killing 25 extended family members. Located in Gaza City's Sabra district adjacent to the city's municipality, the Doghmush have long had a troubled relationship with Hamas. Without identifying the Doghmush by name, Israel...

Recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN is gaining momentum, with Australia, the UK and France joining over 145 countries in support. Yet, major players like the US and Japan remain hesitant. What impact does this have on a long-lasting solution to the war in Gaza? BFM 89.9 discusses this with Dr. James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

International sports boycotts of Israel are a question of if rather than when, with mounting pressure and ever more targeted boycotts and sanctions against Israel and widespread public anger at the Jewish state’s conduct of the Gaza war. Next week’s United Nations General Assembly proceedings in New York, where Gaza is certain to take centre stage, are likely to make it increasingly difficult for...

James M. Dorsey discusses on TRT World the impact of the Gaza war on Israeli soldiers, with hundreds reportedly taken their own and many more suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What steps will the Doha emergency summit take following Israel’s attack_TRT 16092025 by James M. Dorsey

US Secretary Marco Rubio’s first engagement after arriving in Israel this weekend to discuss the Gaza war and the fallout of Israel’s strike in Qatar sent a dangerous signal. By visiting Jerusalem’s Western Wall, a Jewish place of prayer and pilgrimage together with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the United States’ Christian Zionist ambassador to the Jewish state, Mike Huckabee, Mr....

Is Qatar the straw that breaks the camel’s back by James M. Dorsey

Israel is playing a high-stakes game of bluff poker. The problem is that the stakes are high not only for Israel but also for its foremost supporters, the United States and Europe, as well as Gulf states with which it enjoyed close relations despite differences over Gaza, Palestine, and Iran. How the US, Europe, and the Gulf respond to Israel's targeting of Hamas's leadership in exile in Qatar, on...

Israel’s risky strike against Qatar was neither an unmitigated success in Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s terms nor a complete failure, even if it’s too early for a definitive cost-benefit analysis of what could prove to be a watershed.

With the United States and Israel discussing a follow-up to a US$38 billion ten-year Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries, which is set to expire in 2028, Israeli officials are warming to the notion of a paradigm shift in US-Israeli military relations.

Nearly two years into Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, ceasefire negotiations remain stalled, the humanitarian toll continues to mount, and international divisions are deepening. Despite mounting global pressure, Israel has resisted calls for a permanent ceasefire, insisting on unfeasible conditions. During this week’s Middle East Report, James M. Dorsey analysed the faltering ceasefire efforts....

Israelis are enjoying their mangoes this summer at sharply reduced prices at the expense of food-deprived Gazan Palestinians. The sharp drop in mango prices is as much a result of Israel's throttling of the flow of food into Gaza and its economic blockade of the Strip as it is a byproduct of increasing consumer boycotts of Israeli products and US President Donald Trump's tariffs on Brazilian and M...

The UAE’s long-standing no holds barred campaign to persuade Western and other nations to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood as the source of all Islamist evil, is producing results. The question is whether crackdowns on freedoms of expression and assembly, leaving Muslims and others with few, if any, release valves, coupled with anger at Western and Arab restrictions on expression of support for th...

James discusses on Radio Islam the dim prospects for ending the Gaza war and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Pursuing diametrically opposed objectives, Gaza's ceasefire mediators are working at cross purposes. The divide among the mediators, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, significantly diminishes the chances of the ceasefire talks succeeding and, if they do, reaching a deal that would lead to an end of the war. Hamas’s renewed acceptance by Hamas of a months-old Israeli-endorsed US proposal for a 6...

The prospects for a Palestinian two-state solution appear increasingly bleak as Israel presses ahead with its military campaign to seize control of Gaza City while advancing a major settlement project that would sever the West Bank from East Jerusalem. On BFM 89.9, James weighs in on how international powers are responding and what could halt this devastating war. Separately, James talks to AzNews...

Netanyahu has long used ultranationalist threats to collapse his government as a justification for his refusal to end the Gaza war, while, in fact, the far-right ministers in his Cabinet provide him a needed fig leaf to pursue policies designed to advance their shared notion of Greater Israel at the expense of Palestinian aspirations.

A Palestinian businessman is lobbying to become the post-war governor of Gaza amid a reported shifting of gears in the Trump administration’s strategy in Gaza ceasefire talks.

Dow Jones has a stellar record of standing by its reporting. As a former Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, I know that firsthand.

A recent opinion poll in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority state and democracy, throws a damper on Israeli and US hopes that Middle Eastern and Muslim states may recognise the Jewish state without a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Even more concerning, the poll suggests that public opinion is turning against a c...

With Saudi recognition of Israel off the table, pro-Israeli and Israeli pundits and far-right and conservative pro-Israel groups in the United States are pushing the kingdom to become an aggressive regional player in Israel's mould. The pundits and groups want Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to abandon his de-escalation policy, including the kingdom's fragile freezing of its differences wit...