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This paper monitors the post-2007 trends of US foreign policy towards the Gaza Strip. This paper's discussion first examines the general framework of the US approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict before discussing the quandary posed by the Gaza Strip to that framework. The paper then focuses on the role played by President George W. Bush's administration in creating the impasse over Gaza, deconstructs the efforts to overthrow Hamas, and tracks the attempts to isolate and marginalize the Gaza Strip. Finally, it analyses the status of the Gaza Strip in the respective administrations of US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The paper concludes that the Gaza Strip represents a predicament to both the US and Israel, to a large extent the outcome of flawed and biased US policies as well as symptomatic of the Zionist project in occupied Palestine; an outcome that cannot justify the crushing crisis caused by the official Egyptian blockade on the Gaza Strip.

This paper adopts the assumption that the series of foreign interventions which served to transform the Syrian crisis from a domestic revolution into a regionalized, and later globalized, conflict were not the result of factors intrinsic to the revolution itself, but rather the consequences of dramatic changes sweeping across the entire Middle East following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The fallout from 2003 included the collapse of the former tripartite of Arab regional powers: Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. For the first time, the non-Arab regional powers of Turkey and Iran came to be directly involved in intra-Arab affairs. The latter effectively had an overland border tying it to Syria's Mediterranean coast once the US withdrew the bulk of its military forces from Iraq in 2011. While the Syrian regime had worked to strengthen its ties to both Ankara and Tehran in the wake of its losses following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria would fall victim to regional power politics between its two regional neighbors. Once the Syrian revolution was militarized, in response to the Damascus regime's iron-fisted approach to peaceful popular protests, Turkish-Iranian rivalry over the future of Syria quickly became bloody. In an attempt to limit the extent of influence not only by Turkey but also its ally Iran, the Syrian regime resorted to seeking out additional foreign support, latterly from Russia.

This paper argues that hybrid regimes help to create an environment that encourages the transformation of political disputes into identity conflicts. In such regimes, there is no resolution to the advantage of a particular party, since there is neither full authoritarianism that prevents the existence of any form of competition, rivalry, or conflict, or full democracy that permits the existence of democratic competition according to principles of pluralism, the peaceful transfer of power, and legal guarantees. In the environment of these hybrid regimes there are some features of democracy and many features of authoritarianism, and so political competition usually begins as a dispute over points of view and intellectual assumptions and ends up as an identity conflict leading to the dissociation of society.

The study focuses on civil-military relations in Egypt since 2013, examining measures the regime employs to achieve three objectives: controlling the military to prevent coups, thwarting political mobilization that could lead to popular uprisings akin to the January Revolution, and securing ongoing external support. The study concludes that these measures have brought about fundamental changes. Firstly, they have restructured the political regime towards a personalist regime led by one man, a close-knit elite, and loyalists. Secondly, they have threatened military unity with the emergence of parallel armed entities, notably Sinai's tribal union. Thirdly, they have undermined state sovereignty through expanding debts, selling state assets, and making other concessions to foreign backers. The analysis reveals that concessions granted to the military to ensure loyalty have also strengthened its independence, potentially paving the way for various scenarios if the presidential office becomes vacant or public discontent erupts due to mismanagement of state affairs.

​This study discusses several hypotheses proposed by political culture literature, especially those that adopt a structural approach to understanding the relationship of social structures and institutions to actors, and the values generated by the nature of this relationship that inspire political action. The paper posits that research into the pattern of political culture arising from the relationship between social structures and actors is not limited to studying this direct relationship, but rather requires an examination of intermediary factors. Hence, the study outlines a supportive conceptual interpretive framework, through Pierre Bourdieu's Social Theory. It begins by reviewing the concepts discussed by Bourdieu to explain the relationship between social structures and actors. The second section presents a comparative analysis of concepts taken from political culture and those of Bourdieu that explain the emergence of political culture through the reciprocal relationship between social structures and actors. The third examines the outcomes of this comparison in light of the 2007 Palestinian political division.

This paper explores the philosophical context of the of political culture on the French radical left. Radical left refers to a group consisting of political and civil activists, intellectuals, writers, scholars, and politicians who assert their commitment to the priority of equality in economic and social conditions over values of freedom, justice, and citizenship. Unlike the moderate left, they believe that the satisfaction of equality claims requires the overthrow of the capitalist system and the abolition of the market economy. In the first section, the paper argues that the thought of the French moderate left, unlike the moderate left in other democratic countries, did not favour a break with the radical left and continued to share with it the idea that true liberation requires eradicating the causes of exploitation and alienation. Even though the moderate left adopted, when it held power, pragmatic policies and committed itself to the respect of democracy and constitutional order, it did not give up the idea of total societal transformation. The second section distinguishes the culture of the new radical left from that of the extreme Marxist radical left in its Trotskyist and Maoist forms. The third section traces the philosophical background of French new radical leftist discourse, writings, and methods.

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and its capture of vast territories in the Fertile Crescent, has confounded the political calculations of a number of all major political players invested in the Arab region, including regional and global powers. With the failure of regional actors to contain the group, the United States was forced to backtrack on its military withdrawal from the region—when it pulled its troops out of Iraq—and become involved, anew, in the Middle East.

This report highlights some of the major milestones of the Arab democratic transition. The countries covered include Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

The study examines wealth and power in the US energy policy in the Gulf region using the international political economy approach, which proposes a relationship of mutual influence between the market and foreign policy. The study is based on two main analytical approaches: economic liberalism and economic realism. By tracking the course of US energy policy in the Gulf, the study extrapolates factors determining US energy security interests between twofold economic and political objectives; creating wealth and maximizing power. It also looks at the weighting factors of one at the expense of the other or the extent to which they are merged. It also aims to assess the future of the US approach to the region given Washington's energy independence strategy. The study argues that the critical impact of energy, especially oil, on economic development and the well-being of nations cannot be ignored.

Despite the dire situation in Syria, the International Organization for Migration states that about one in ten Syrian refugees is returning home. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees predicts that hundreds of thousands of refugees may soon voluntarily return to their devastated homeland. The fear is that this will happen without any prior planning, especially since the Syrian crisis may be relatively unique in terms of its size and the difficulty of predicting its trajectories. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the lessons learned from the experiences of refugee return, whether voluntary or forced, which illustrate the most important factors for ensuring the sustainable return of Syrian refugees. The study is based on an extensive literature review, consultations and interviews with experts and stakeholders, supported by the researchers' accumulated experience in the field of post-war reconstruction and refugee studies. The study does not aim to analyze the current political or military situation in Syria, or to evaluate any ongoing or planned political talks, nor does it evaluate any proposed political solution.