The war in Gaza has expanded to include a new and dangerous flashpoint: the Red Sea. In recent weeks, Yemen’s Houthis have targeted “Israeli” cargo ships – and attacked others – in support of Hamas. The US and the UK have retaliated by bombing a number of Houthis’ targets in Yemen. ResetDOC interviewed Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, about the stakes for the Houthis and the risks of a wider high-intensity conflict.
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- Siegmund Ginzberg 19 October 2023Why does Hamas deliberately flaunt the horrors it perpetrates? To demonstrate Israel’s lack of preparation and Hamas’s own military prowess? To spread terror? To disorient, to humiliate, to foster a sense of paralysis and powerlessness? To say: look, we can get you when and how we want? Or perhaps to say: yes, we are the beasts you say we are, come and avenge yourselves, come and get us in Gaza?
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- Federica Zoja 11 November 2022Mohammed Bin Salman is deftly playing a chess game aimed at positioning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a foreign policy leader both regionally and internationally, exploiting each of the great powers’ primary weaknesses (and desires): energy prices in the US, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and China’s desperation to assert its regional dominance. His sudden rise to the head of the desert kingdom was consolidated recently with his appointment as Prime Minister and heir apparent to his aging father, securing his untouchability and immunity when it comes to human rights violations, putting partners like the United States in the particular quandry of not being able to use their traditional soft power levers and leaving evermore domestic dissidents at risk.
- Claudia De Martino 30 June 2022An Israel with a collapsed government will host Joe Biden in mid-July, amid uncertain political legacy and perspectives.
- Hussein Ibish 6 September 2021How are Sunni and Shiite countries viewing the Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan? How will that impact on Islamist movements across the region?
- Federica Zoja 26 July 2021Women, religion, economic growth: prince Bin Salman’s reform programme proceeds, bringing relief to part of the society, but also many questions.
- Hussein Ibish 8 January 2021Almost all sides are winners for now, but a third GCC confrontation remains possible, writes Hussein Ibish
- Hussein Ibish 26 August 2020What the normalization and the freeze of Israel’s annexation of West Bank territories means for the Middle East, the Arab world and the Palestinians.
- Federica Zoja 8 April 2020The Crown Prince may be soon called to relpace his old father and lead the Kingdom. But there are also growing signs of his vulnerability.