Global Politics

Any follower of Moroccan foreign policy will recognise an unprecedented dynamism and momentum in recent years. The best catchphrase that illustrates this dynamism is the one by Morocco Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita: “maghrib alyawm lays hu maghrib al’ams  – [today’s Morocco is not that of the past]”. This expression is argued not only to highlight […]

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When U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested in a recent Security Council speech that an Israeli drive to build settlements beyond its territory partly fueled Palestinian extremism, it drew ire from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There is no justification for terror,” responded Netanyahu. “The comments of the U.N. Secretary-General encourage terror.” In the epochal ‘war […]

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  War will never again be the same. Autonomous weapons have nearly arrived, and so far nothing has been able to stop them. At the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, an open letter—signed by over three thousand of the world’s most relevant robotics experts, and endorsed by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Nobel Laureate […]

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I sat down with the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.K., Minister Elizabeth Dibble, to discuss the Obama visit, the Middle East and the complex Iran-Saudi relationship. The Obama Visit to the U.K. D.M.: You touched on President Obama’s visit in your talk and what he said about the EU referendum. What for […]

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How religion, culture and crude politics sustain America’s support for the Jewish state. We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people ─ the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world. Herman Melville, 1850 Anyone taking even a passing interest in Middle East politics over the past year might be […]

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Almost everybody thinks badly of Israel. That’s what a poll published by the BBC World Service in 2014 shows. More precisely, Israel ranks as the fourth most negatively viewed nation, right after North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. What explains the differences between European and American views on Israel, and how does such an overall negative […]

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Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won re-election. Under immense pressure, Netanyahu displayed his winner mentality and insatiable desire to govern Israel by seemingly pulling out all the stops to assure another Likud victory, but at what cost? First there was Netanyahu’s Republican-hosted speech to U.S. Congress where his apparent aim was to display […]

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This article was first published in The Huffington Post on 3rd March 2015. One of the defining precepts of the American Republic from its earliest days to today has been that the president of the United States represents the country in its dealings with the world. It is a view which the Supreme Court unambiguously […]

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There is a convenient falsehood every time a ceasefire agreement occurs and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict temporarily vanishes from the media. It is the assumption that the conflict has come to a halt and a diplomatic solution brokered by the United States is soon to follow. The truth is that the conflict does not stop, because the status […]

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The established templates of international peace operations are under threat, because the core premise of these operations, consent, is eroding . Filipino and Fijian troops serving with the UNDOF mission in the Golan Heights were targeted by the Nusra Front last week (30 Aug). A number of Fijians have been captured while the Filipinos managed […]

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