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Israel believes the US-Russian agreement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons holds several opportunities and risks. In terms of opportunities, Israel thinks the agreement will save it from the dangers of chemical weapons and will eliminate the justifications for launching a US military campaign on Syria. Such a campaign could tip the balance of power in favor of the rebels in a way that might lead to the fall of the regime and the rise of jihadi groups, which is not in Israel’s interest. Israel is also afraid that the regime might succeed, with Russian support, in evading its commitment to the agreement. The risk factors would then persist and threaten its internal front. At the same time, there is a clear discordance in the Israeli stances vis-à-vis the resurgence of the Russian role in the region. This paper aims at exploring the extent to which the US-Russian agreement caters to Israel’s interests in Syria, and examines the repercussions of the agreement on the US and its deterrence power and their impact on Israel’s national security. The paper also explores the significance of the decisive Russian role in reaching an agreement.

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

A convergence of interests between the Houthi militia and former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh have served to undermine the National Dialogue for the country, which had earlier formed an implementation mechanism for the GCC Initiative. Previously, the aims of that Dialogue were intended to further the cause of a federalist, democratic state which decentralized power. This would have changed the status quo, in which power was concentrated in what Yemenis call the “Holy Center”, a tribalist-sectarian concentration of political and financial power which been in place for a millennium and which survived into the reborn, unified and modern-day Yemen of 1994.

Examining the dimensions of the constitutional crisis in Libya, this paper begins by explaining the situation of the country’s political factions. On this backdrop, it looks at how the interim Constitutional Declaration of Libya’s 17 February revolution – which has seen seven amendments – has led to large-scale changes in the legal positions of political institutions and has caused a disturbance in the state’s constitutional framework. Analysis shows how the declaration has disrupted the country’s transitional path, and outlines the ways that this has taken place including: the diverse results from the National Congress’s legislative elections where no political party or movement secured an absolute majority, the growing disputes following the adoption of the political and administrative isolation law, and the emergence of alternative proposals for a third transitional period. This paper tackles the factors leading up to the amendments of the interim Constitutional Declaration, issued on August 3 2011, and their impact on Libya’s political crisis. Analyzing the constitutional framework allows a closer look into the role of Libyan political actors and an understanding of the elements that helped shape the path of the transitional period. It shows that the conflict over the constitutional framework has led to an armed conflict among parties to the Libyan revolution.

Borders between Morocco and Algeria have been closed since the Hotel Atlas Asni terrorist attacks in Marrakech on August 24, 1994. Investigations found the groups that carried out the attacks had their origins in Algeria. Moroccan authorities responded by implementing a visa requirement for Algerians, and Algeria retaliated by closing the borders between the two countries. This paper looks for a solution to the re-normalization of relations between the two countries. Looking at the history of Moroccan-Algerian relations, it focuses on the Marrakech incident and the issue of Western Sahara, and their impact on the bilateral relations within a context of tension, and regional competition where each remains entrenched.

An analysis of the results of the 19th Israeli Knesset elections, held in January 2013, indicates a continuation of the political and social changes currently underway in Israeli politics, such as the decline of the major parties and the continuation of traditional voting patterns in Israel. On the other hand, new transformations have been noted, most importantly the dominance of the right on the Israeli political scene. The elections showed the lack of an alternative to the Likud Party. For the first time there was no other party to compete with it to form the government. This came in the context of the increasing strength of the new right in Israel and the decline in the camp of the leftist parties. The election results also showed for the first time the preponderance of the socio-economic factor in determining how to vote, whereas previously the political-security factor had been dominant in determining electoral behavior. This change led the Israeli middle classes to strongly back the Yesh Atid party, which placed the interests of the middle class at the center of its social discourse. Overall, the study makes clear that the analytic of left and right is inadequate for understanding voting patterns in Israeli elections.

​The Iranian nuclear agreement with the P5+1 countries raised speculations and questions that perhaps outnumber and outweigh those that accompanied the public and secret negotiations in the past phase. This is because Iran’s nuclear situation has become even more complex and ambiguous in terms of Iran’s relations with the Western states as well as with its neighbors in the Arab world, specifically the Gulf. The agreement carries regional and international significance on the political and economic levels, among others. This paper discusses the agreement and explores its various consequences on Iran, the region and the world.

Following the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last August, Iranian-American relations now appear set for a major breakthrough, overturning more than three decades of enmity between the two sides. Such a breakthrough, should it come to pass, has the potential to completely transform the bilateral relations over a number of issues, including most importantly the Iranian nuclear program, Iran’s regional role and its involvement in the Middle East’s “hot button” issues, including in the Gulf. The eventual success of efforts to bring Iran and the United States closer together, however, relies also on the roles played by regional players, particularly Israel. This paper explores the reasons behind Israeli anxiety surrounding a potential breakthrough in Iranian-American relations, and Tel Aviv’s ability to influence the outcome of a possible agreement over Iran’s nuclear program and whether such an agreement shall extend to Iran’s regional influence.

This study examines the constitutional management of political transition in Algeria following the popular protests of February 2019 (the Hirak). After setting out the basic tenets of Transitional Constitutionalism, the study investigates the extent to which peaceful political change can be achieved through constitutional mechanisms or arrangements derived from inherited texts. In contrast to similar Arab cases, the Algerian experience was characterized by the adoption of a political plan to manage the transitional phase, based on constitutional measures derived from the texts in force. But it was not convincing for a large segment of the Hirak, who believed that these arrangements would restrict the path of change to reproduce the existing system at the expense of achieving peaceful political change. In this sense, managing the transitional political phase according to the applicable constitutional texts did not set a precedent. Rather, in Algeria, a kind of precedent was set in the restriction of the concept of constitutional solution to the literal requirements of the functional constitutional text, without partial constitutional amendments, nor a fundamental revision of the inherited legislative structure.

Based on the Arab Index data, this paper aims to present the trends of Lebanese public opinion towards the protests in Lebanon. It focuses on two main axes to construct an image of the Lebanese community's interaction with this important ongoing event. The first one discusses public opinion trends towards the protests, to identify the extent to which citizens support or oppose these protests, as well as to define the reasons for such support or opposition. As for the second one, it discusses the extent to which citizens interact with these protests by actually engaging in protests or by providing help and support to the demonstrators. This paper uses the data of the 2019/2020 Arab Index, which was conducted in Lebanon during February and March 2020.