The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

The Embassy of the United States in Tel Aviv was temporarily closed after the building sustained minor damage following an Iranian missile strike overnight, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee confirmed on Monday. Though no injuries or casualties were reported among US diplomatic staff, videos surfaced on the internet showing the consulate building impacted by the concussive force of nearby explosions Our US Embassy in Israel and Consulate will officially remain closed today as shelter in place still in effect. Some minor damage from concussions of Iranian missile hits near Embassy Branch in Tel Aviv but no injuries to US personnel," Huckabee wrote in a post on X.

Is Israel against a negotiated resolution to Iran's nuclear programme_TRT 16062025 by James M. Dorsey

Beyond shifting the paradigm of Middle Eastern geopolitics, Israel's dramatic strikes against Iran are likely to shape the outcome of a battle within the Trump administration over US policy towards the region. The battle, with Israel at its core, pits Make America Great Again proponents against pro-Israel figures in the administration, with Iran constituting a major battlefield. Putting Iran on the front burner, Israel's attacks have presented US President Donald J. Trump with his most serious foreign policy conundrum to date. Mr. Trump's problem is foreign and domestic.

Iran has vowed a strong response to an Israeli airstrike on its nuclear program early Friday. James M. Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, explains how Tehran is expected to react following Israel's major military offensive targeting its nuclear and military sites.

To say Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is a highly controversial figure in Israeli politics is, at best, an understatement. Yet, his notion of a forever war against Palestinians resonates with a significant segment of Israeli public opinion, despite differences over strategy, tactics, and the prioritisation of the war's goals.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may be grasping at straws in his hope that US President Donald J. Trump will continue to back his refusal to end the Gaza war and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The prime minister is placing a risky bet that Mr. Trump's recent suggestion that he is focussing on Iran nuclear negotiations, China, and Russia rather than Gaza means that the continued rise of Make America Great Again protagonists within his administration will not shift the president's attitude towards the war. Speaking about his feud with billionaire Elon Musk, Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "Honestly, I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran... I'm not thinking about Elon Musk.” By implication, Mr. Trump suggested that he was also not thinking of Gaza by not mentioning the war as part of his agenda. To be sure, by doing so, Mr. Trump was allowing Mr. Netanyahu to continue the war. Nevertheless, Mr. Netanyahu could be on shaky ground with pro-Israel figures in Mr. Trump's administration losing battles to Make America Great Again proponents.

Israel's throttling of aid for Gaza is as much about weaponizing food and other essential goods as it is about eventually installing a post-war Palestinian administration empathetic to Israeli concerns. Similarly, Israel's refusal to end the war intends to create space for an alternative to Hamas to emerge as the group's popularity in Gaza hits rock bottom. So is Israel's sidelining of the United Nations, despite its decades of experience in delivering aid to Gaza and extensive infrastructure in the Strip. An outspoken Palestinian American Hamas critic who lost 33 relatives in the Gaza war, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, believes that Israel is following the example of the United States in Iraq, where it funded and trained Awakening Councils to counter Al-Qaeda.

Critics have long argued that Israel's 58-year-long occupation of Palestinian lands conquered in the 1967 Middle East war has brutalised Israeli society. Israel's 20-month-old assault on Gaza and the Israeli public's attitudes towards Gazan Palestinians serve as Exhibit A of the degree of brutalisation. So does last week's pummelling of two Palestinian public bus drivers by militantly racist fans of soccer club Beitar Jerusalem, a far-right darling, after a Palestinian soccer player, Zaki Ahmed, secured the 2025 Israel State Cup title for his team, Hapoel Be'er Sheva.

President Trump's Gulf Yatla-Indian Futures 26052025 by James M. Dorsey

The Trump and Netanyahu administrations may diverge on immediate issues, including Iran, Gaza, and Syria, but are weighing a long-term strategy to strengthen Israel militarily while making it less dependent on the United States.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accelerated the Jewish state's travels towards international pariah status by declaring that the Gaza war aims to expel Gazan Palestinians from their homeland. Mr. Netanyahu added resettlement of Gaza's 2.1 million Palestinians to his war goals after earlier adopting as official Israeli policy a plan to move Gazans out of the Strip first put forward by US President Donald J. Trump in February. Earlier, Mr. Netanyahu insisted that he would only end the Gaza war once the Israeli military has destroyed Hamas or if the group agrees to disarm and send its leadership and fighters into exile. By making Mr. Trump's plan a war goal Mr. Netanyahu has officially changed the nature of the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Trump's plan envisions Palestinians being resettled in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere so that Gaza could be turned into a high-end real estate development. The international community has virtually unanimously condemned his plan. Many charge that it would amount to ethnic cleansing and violate international law.

European members of the world soccer body FIFA staged a dramatic walkout at the world governing body's congress in Paraguay when President Gianni Infantino arrived late earlier this month. The Europeans accused Mr. Infantino of prioritising his personal political interests by attributing greater importance to meetings with US President Donald J. Trump in Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup, than to FIFA's highest decision-making body. Mr. Infantino was part of Mr. Trump's extended entourage on the president's three-nation Gulf tour, which also included visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. With their walkout, the Europeans highlighted a core problem with global sports governance that has dogged FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and virtually all other global, regional, and national sports associations for decades: the insistence on the fiction that sports and politics are separate.

The winds didn't just blow hot when Donald J. Trump recently touched down in Qatar on the first visit ever to the Gulf state by a sitting US president, which generated deals worth US$s1.2 trillion. They also blew cold, chilled by a long-standing, Israel-inspired campaign aimed to sully Qatar's reputation.

Donald J. Trump and the American economy are two beneficiaries of the president's Gulf road show. So are the Gulf states, Syria, and Make America Great Again supporters within Mr. Trump's administration. In less than 24 hours in the kingdom, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation from Arab leaders and hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Syrian towns and cities to celebrate his lifting of long-standing crippling sanctions—a rare achievement for an American president. On the surface, Syrians, Saudis, and Israel critics have much to celebrate, including Syrians' prospects for reconstruction, Gulf states' defense, technology, and aviation mega deals with the United States, and seemingly upgraded Gulf relations with the US that potentially put them more on par with Israel. Even so, Mr. Trump has yet to pass the litmus test on whether, how much, and what history he wrote on his Gulf tour, packaged in pomp and circumstance.

Syria could be the Middle East's next exploding powder keg.

Alarm bells went off in Jerusalem and pro-Israel circles in Washington when US President Donald J. Trump this week announced a truce in America's Red Sea tanker war with Yemen's Houthi rebels that failed to take Israeli interests into account. Mr. Trump's announcement of a deal that protects US assets and international shipping but leaves space for continued Houthi targeting of Israel suggested that the president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu differed on multiple issues, including Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

US President Donald J. Trump and Hamas have separately opened a Pandora's Box that could fuel Middle Eastern fires for years to come. Hamas did so when it unleashed Israel's assault on Gaza with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. With more than 50,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded and/or maimed for life, Palestinians have paid a stark price. Israel's assault has devastated the Strip and opened the door to Israeli reoccupation 20 years after the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the territory. Mr. Trump played his part when he called in February during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's first visit to Washington this year for resettling Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turning the Strip into a high-end luxury real estate development. In doing so, Mr. Trump allowed Israel to adopt a plan long envisioned by ultra-nationalists but not the general public as its official policy. Now, the Pandora's Box could come home to haunt Mr. Trump as he prepares to visit the Gulf next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's embrace of the global far-right faces a difficult choice. The question for Mr. Netanyahu is whether to maintain Israel's boycott of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country's second-largest political party, and Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ) amid an escalating feud between the Trump administration and Germany over attitudes toward the far right.

Algeria may be the latest target in efforts to garner further Arab recognition of the Jewish state, despite its Gaza war conduct and rejection of Palestinian national aspirations. To that end, a Philadelphia-based far-right pro-Israeli organisation, the Middle East Forum, has put Algeria in its crosshairs in an apparent attempt to build pressure on the North African state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Algeria would be a prize catch.

Netanyahu hardens his position despite pressure to lift the Gaza blockade by James M. Dorsey

The coming days will tell whether it's crunch time for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The litmus test will be whether US President Donald J. Trump forces Mr. Netanyahu to lift his almost two-months-long blocking of the flow of humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza.

Betar, the far-right youth movement of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party, is happy to help US President Donald J. Trump curtail pro-Palestinian speech and academic freedoms. That has mainstream American Jews fear that the Trump administration's crackdown on democratic freedoms of speech, assembly, and academia will fuel anti-Semitism rather than enhance their security.

This week's Gazan anti-Hamas protests demanding an end to the war could prove to be a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that Gazans want to see an end to the further devastation of their already war-ravaged Strip, the killing of more than 50,000 primarily civilian Palestinians, and Israel's blocking of the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medical supplies. Similarly, there is little doubt that Hamas's popularity in Gaza has hit rock bottom, which is not to say that Gazans absolve Israel, the United States, and the international community of responsibility for their desperate plight or oppose armed resistance against occupation. A mere six per cent of Gazans polled in January by the Palestine-based Institute for Social and Economic Progress wanted to see Hamas in power once the war ended. Only 5.3 per cent would vote for Hamas in an election.

Hamas has Israel where it wants it. The group's insistence that ending the war be part of any ceasefire deal and refusal to disarm strengthens its position. To be sure, Israel has severely weakened Hamas militarily. To be sure, Israel has severely weakened Hamas militarily. Moreover, Hamas barely scores double digits in Gaza opinion polls. Hamas may no longer be able to organize an attack on the scale of its October 7, 2023, assault on Israel in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed. Even so, Hamas still has a de facto presence in much of Gaza. Moreover, based on-19th century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz's principle of “war as a continuation of politics by other means," Hamas is scoring points in what amounts to a war of attrition as Israel relentlessly batters the Strip.

As he embarked on a Middle East tour, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto this week offered to accept an estimated 1,000 wounded Gazan Palestinians and “traumatised, orphaned children.” Mr. Prabowo, the leader of the Muslim world's most populous country and democracy, was careful to limit those that would qualify to Palestinians in medical or psychological need and to insist that Indonesia would host the evacuees until they have fully recovered from their injuries and the situation in Gaza was safe for their return. He said the evacuations would be coordinated with the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's multi-pronged strategy to crush the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation by destroying Hamas is doomed to failure with or without the potential expulsion or departure of Gazans. Eighteen months into the Gaza war, Israel has failed to dislodge Hamas, militarily free hostages held by the group, stop it from firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities, and halt Hamas' smuggling of arms into the territory. “Hamas still maintains sovereignty in the Strip,” said reserve Major General Tamir Hayman, the executive director of Israel's prestigious Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a former head of the Israeli military's Intelligence Directorate.

This week, US President Donald J. Trump put Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a pedal stool for the second time since he returned to the Oval Office two months ago. Mr. Trump is not known for handing out goodies without extracting a price. The question is whether that is what Mr. Trump's last-minute surprise invitation to the White House is about, and if so, what the cost will be.

Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli pinpointed the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he reflected on a post-interview conversation with Yasser Arafat, the late chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), more than two decades ago. A one-time secular security official who became a religious West Bank settler and called on air for the slaying of 100,000 Gazans in the wake of Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Mr. Yehezkeli said it took him years to understand what he believed the Palestinian leader was telling him once the camera stopped rolling. “I don't recognize your right to the land, and your logic is completely different from mine. The end of the conflict is your invention... I never agreed to it," Mr. Yehezkeli quoted Mr. Arafat as saying. In a recent email inviting recipients to subscribe to his monthly broadcasts, Mr. Yehezkeli offered an interpretation of Mr. Arafat's remark that ensures the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than acceptance of a reality that potentially holds out the promise of an eventual healing of the wounds on both sides of the divide if adequately managed.

The United Arab Emirates is betting that recent anti-Hamas protests in Gazan towns, supported by influential tribes and clans, will strengthen Abu Dhabi-based Mohammed Dahlan's chances of playing a prominent role in the territory's post-war administration.

A stickler for language, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu twice this month remained conspicuously silent when senior Trump administration officials chose words that signalled potential changes in US policy towards Gaza, the Palestinians, and Hamas.

Like much else in the Middle East, Gaza's fault lines are less linear than meets the eye.

It's ok to be anti-Jewish as long as you support Israel. That is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's bottom line. Mr. Netanyahu is willing to risk losing European officialdom and prominent mainstream intellectuals and activists in the fight against anti-Semitism to garner the support of the global far-right, despite its anti-Jewish roots and sustained links to racism and neo-Nazism. Mr. Netanyahu and his de facto envoy to the global far-right, Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism Minister Amichai Chikli, intend to broadcast that message at an international conference on combatting anti-Semitism scheduled to open in Jerusalem later this month.

At first glance, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could not have a better friend in the White House. In his first two months in office, President Donald J. Trump authorised US$11 billion in arms sales, signed a swath of executive orders to crack down on criticism of Israel, put universities and student protesters in his crosshairs, and legitimised ethnic cleansing. Even so, Mr. Trump's four years in office may not be honeymoon years for US-Israeli relations.

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu first cultivated Evangelical and far-right support for Israel, he didn't worry about their theologically rooted associations with anti-Semitism and/or willingness to turn a blind eye to racially-motivated anti-Jewish sentiment. It was a bet that paid off for decades. It solidified Republican support for Israel and helped ensure that successive US administrations, whether Republican or Democratic, had Israel's back. A recent Gallup poll showed 83 per cent of Republicans as viewing Israel favourably as opposed to Democrats, among whom positive perceptions of Israel dropped from 74 per cent in 2014 to 33 per cent this year. President Donald J. Trump catered to his pro-Israel base in his first two months in office by authorising US$11 billion in arms sales, signing a swath of executive orders to crack down on criticism of Israel, and putting universities and student protesters in his crosshairs. Even so, the times may be ‘a-'changin' to borrow singer Bob Dylan's phrase.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's effort to reshape the Middle East aligns neatly with US President Donald J. Trump's notion of big power geopolitics. In 2023, Mr. Netanyahu outlined elements of his vision in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. The prime minister held up a map that erased Palestine and showed the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, as part of Israel. Mr. Trump's plan to resettle Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turn the war-ravaged Strip into a high-end beachfront real estate development has allowed Mr. Netanyahu to officially embrace the notion of ethnic cleansing for the first time, even though ultranationalist members of his Cabinet have long propagated expelling Palestinians from the territory. US and Israeli officials said concern that Hamas may repurpose some 30,000 unexploded ordnances was one reason why Mr. Trump proposed resettlement. Even so, Mr. Trump's plan fits a pattern, following his recognition in his first term as president of Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Since then, Mr. Netanyahu's big power vision of the Middle East has evolved substantially as a result of the toppling in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Turkish-backed group with jihadist antecedents.

US President Donald J. Trump may be a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Mr. Trump's dealings this week with the Palestinians tell the story.

There is logic to Donald J. Trump's madness. Irrespective of the merits of the US president's ethics, policies, and style, Mr. Trump's grenade-throwing shock-and-awe approach has galvanised Arab states into action over Gaza, much like it did with the Europeans regarding their defense and Ukraine policies. “Love him or hate him, Trump has shaken things up… Before him, Gaza had no real roadmap. Now, the Arab world is singing a new tune: No Hamas, No Arms,” said journalist Amjad Taha.

Russia is not the only country laughing all the way to the bank after US President Donald J. Trump's war of words with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. So is Israel. Mr. Trump's willingness to accommodate Russian President Vladimir Putin serves Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's purpose as he seeks to redraw the Middle East map in his mould.

Israeli security demands threaten to upset Syria's apple cart by James M. Dorsey

US President Donald J. Trump's shock-and-awe Gaza therapy appears to be working. Infuriated by Mr. Trump's assertion that the United States will take ownership of the Strip, resettle its 2.3 million inhabitants in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere, and turn it into a high-end beachfront real estate development has forced Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan. Mr. Trump has acknowledged as much.

Second-guessing US President Donald J. Trump is a tricky business.

An Israeli refusal to allow mobile homes and heavy construction equipment into Gaza bodes ill for this week's second-phase indirect Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas hardening their negotiating positions.

With Arab leaders gathering in Cairo later this month for an emergency summit on Gaza, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the United States and Israel's best Arab friend.

Might is right. That sums up US President Donald J. Trump's vision of a 21st-century world order. Barely a month in office, Mr. Trump has not wasted time creating building blocks for his worldview. Mr. Trump's efforts to end fighting in Ukraine, coupled with his territorial ambitions in Gaza, Greenland, Panama, and Canada, have put the ‘might is right' principle on steroids. So has the president's unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may have opened a Pandorra's Box when he suggested creating a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. Mr. Netanyahu wasn't just throwing a hand grenade into US efforts to engineer Saudi recognition of Israel when he told Israeli television, “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.” A quick Saudi retort hinted at the Pandorra's Box, a decades-old assertion, as fantastical as it may sound, that Judaism's Zion was in Saudi Arabia, not in Palestine.

Marco Rubio is likely in for a reality check when he visits the Middle East for the first time this week as US Secretary of State.

US President Donald J. Trump's Gaza plan could change the nature of the Gaza war and prolong rather than end the hostilities. Amid calls for a unified Arab response to Mr. Trump's plan to resettle or ethnically cleanse Gazan Palestinians, according to many Middle Easterners, officials, journalists, analysts, and social media activists are mulling options. The options under discussion range from approaches that would give US companies a significant stake in Gaza's reconstruction to the fuelling of a Hamas-led armed guerilla-style resistance.

Hamas has released the fifth batch of hostages to the Red Cross. In exchange, Israel will release 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people, including 18 serving life sentences, and 111 detained in Gaza during the war, according to Hamas. James M. Dorsey, an adjunct Senior Fellow, at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies give us more analysis on the story.

US President Donald J. Trump's call for the permanent resettlement of Gazan Palestinians has focused regional minds, even if the White House and senior officials have walked back key elements of the president's proposal

US President Donald J. Trump's plan to expel Palestinians and take control of Gaza threatens to render second phase ceasefire negotiations to the dustbin of history and kill prospects for Saudi recognition of Israel. So has Mr. Trump's suggestion that he would decide in the next month whether to endorse Israeli annexation of the West Bank occupied by Israel since 1967. Mr. Trump's propositions take Palestinian aspirations off the table. They fulfill visiting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wildest dreams.

Donald Trump's Oval Office could be Binyamin Netanyahu's brick wall. That is if the president uses Tuesday's meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to visit Washington since Mr. Trump returned to office, to ensure a successful Israeli-Hamas negotiation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement's second phase.