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​This report documents the most significant Palestinian events and developments related to the Arab-Israeli conflict between July 1 and August 31, 2024.

The dominant-party system as theorized by political literature is examined through the case of Israel. At first glance, the 2015 elections in Israel reinforce the view that the country is in transformation to a dominant party system, rather than a stage where a dominant party governs it. This confirms the theoretical political literature, which also makes this distinction. The paper argues that the current stage may be a prelude to the dominant-party stage, especially if Israeli policies continue down their current path. The path in question undermines the democratic foundations of the Israeli political system, cementing right-wing discourse as the dominant position in both state and the public sphere. This trend is likely to continue so long as opposing camps remain entrenched. Regional and international climates reinforce the right's discourse; which Netanyahu has strengthened during his years in power. If his successful policy of managing the conflict with the Palestinians without reaching a solution or paying a price continues, this trend will become further entrenched. In four sections, this paper overviews the theoretical debate regarding the notion of the dominant-party system, analyses the results of the general election in Israel, then presents a sociological analysis of the election results. It concludes with a discussion of the results in the context of the concept of the dominant-party system.

Looking at the results of the mid-April 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections in Sudan, the paper reviews the changes that have occurred amid the last presidential cycle under al-Bashir (2010-2015). The election results are analyzed against a background of the South's succession when Sudan lost two-thirds of its oil revenues and entered a severe economic crisis, and a period when war erupted in the South Kordofan and the Blue Nile states, and unrest continued in the Darfur states. This will also be put into the context of a collapse of Islamist powers in Sudan, the decline of the role of the Islamic movement in the political process, President Bashir's exclusion of Islamist leaders who defected form Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi, the rise of generals to power, and their control of the leadership of the Islamic movement itself. Further, the implications of the broad boycott of the elections, the loss of trust in the national electoral commission, and the implication of the growing number of independent candidates are taken into account. Finally, the paper examines Sudan's disengagement with Iran its attempt to return to the Arab fold as a last attempt to buy additional years for the ruling regime.

Examining the conditions of active groups in the Yemeni political arena, this paper will highlight the groups' most important wagers in managing the conflict. The many groups, each carrying out vendettas against past acts, create complex intersections. The coalition of the "clique" and Al-Islah party with the General People's Congress Party in the war of the summer of 1994 is one example, as is the alliance between the Houthis and the former regime against the forces of February 11, 2011 that drove Saleh out of power. So too can the role of Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar in the confrontations with the Houthis in the six wars between 2004 and 2006 be read into the current political scenario. In explaining the division of national identity into southern and northern groups, and the popular mood against everything that is northern, the paper tackles the escalating sectarian conflict and the systematic undermining under Saleh's regime of the foundations of a modern civil state. It further addresses the weakening of modernizing forces in favor of traditional ones, and the weakening of the center in favor of the peripheries. The paper argues that any treatment that does not address these issues will be unsuccessful. It suggests that any political settlement among the warring parties could only postpone cyclical war and instability, and act as a gap for foreign intervention and tutelage.

​The political game in Morocco has set rules and the royal institution plays a central role in its use of an approach that seeks to maintain the main political balance through soft guidance. The royal institution employs several strategies ranging from progressive integration to the implementation of restrictions, policies of repression, and use of torture as well as ignoring, feigning indifference, and taking a variety of other positions that skirt direct interference, which would cause the regime to appear authoritarian. This approach often leads to resolving outstanding problems instead of implementing threats. The paper argues that the political formula has enabled the Justice and Development Party to engage in the political arena on a practical level. The Islamists’ daily dealings with a complex reality, with all its problems and complications, have forced them to look for solutions with political officials either through consensus and coordination or by presenting their concerns to the parliament as an opposition party. This contributed a great deal to maturing and developing the party’s political experience despite the challenges posed by the parameters of the political game and the narrow margins it leaves for maneuvering.

​The study argues that Turkey's foreign policy has undergone a transformation, specifically towards the Arab region, since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. This transformation has taken many shapes over several periods of time, which means that these shifts may be read differently according to influencing factors and theories. It argues that the realist school is the theory most appropriate to explain this transformation, especially since 2016; Neoclassical realism takes into account the internal and external factors that affect the formulation of foreign policy, and is able to analyse political decisions with rational logic.

Given the unrest boiling in the region, this paper considers the possibility of partitioning the countries of the Levant. Given the state of affairs and current political indicators in Syria and Iraq, which suggest the Kurds have started to regain their national unity and awareness, the group is now the only faction in the Levant fighting on nationalist or ethnic bases. What makes it easier for them to establish a viable Kurdish entity, at the local level, is the fact that they have huge economic, political, human, and military potential. This paper examines local and international contexts and obstacles to the establishment of a Kurdish state. It also argues that it will be unlikely, meanwhile, that sectarian entities could be created in Syria and Iraq given current local and international circumstances. Indeed, sectarian tension is nothing more than social tension that is the result of imbalance in the distribution of wealth and power, and the result of political authoritarianism. Therefore, the warring groups are not part of the framework of separatist tendencies; though they are liable to turn into sectarian nationalisms due to foreign intervention and agendas.

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama announced a “comprehensive strategy” to degrade and destroy ISIL. Obama stated, “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.” But despite this announcement, questions over the nature, goals, and instruments of US policy towards ISIL still continue to be asked in the context of a debate between those who think that the US is not doing enough to take on ISIL and those who think it would be better for the US not to expand its military involvement in the conflict. This debate has been influenced by internal American political polarizations in the form of the critical position taken by leading Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who view the Obama policy as weak, and Middle Eastern regional rivalries over the position towards ISIL and the nature of the political choices that must frame the confrontation with it.

Despite the sharp and often uncompromising rhetoric that accompanies it, Iran's foreign policy is deeply pragmatic and is guided by practical, strategic considerations and objectives. Especially after the end of the war with Iraq in 1989 , successive administrations in Tehran have pursued foreign policies that have been largely nonideological, guided more by the logic of national interests as dictated by evolving circumstances rather than by the principles of the 1978 - 79 revolution. Constitutionally, while the Supreme Leader is technically in overall charge of the country's international relations, Ayatollah Khamenei's guiding principles for conducting foreign policy – dignity, wisdom, and expediency – are broad enough to include a wide range of potential policy options. With the Islamic Republic seemingly embroiled in one regional and international crisis after another, pragmatism has become its default backup policy. A legacy of the war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988 , this hard realism is only likely to be reinforced as the lingering consequences of the Twelve-Day War shape Iranian foreign and security policies in the years to come.

This study attempts to understand the concepts of democratic consolidation and of dictatorship, and explains which is closer to coming about in the Turkish state after the experience of the past sixty years. Despite the reforms undertaken by the AKP since it came to power in 2002 that aimed to curtail the constitutional and legal pretexts allowing the military to intervene in political life, there have been notable changes in the Turkish scene, especially in 2013 and 2014. It has been implied that Turkey is on course to consolidate dictatorship, and this makes the third and final phase of democratization in Turkey subject to very different assessments. On this basis, the study attempts to answer a key question: where is Turkey heading, towards democratic consolidation or towards dictatorship?