Seth J. Frantzman

Days after the UAE and Israel announced a deal, Israelis were already talking about trips to Dubai and all the great five star hotels the Gulf offers. At the same time, the country has been speculating about which states will be next in line to make peace. This sense of a coming era of peacemaking is palpable.However, the reality in the region is that while many countries have been considering closer ties with Israel because of shared threats and interests they are also moving cautiously. Oman is a good example of this paradox. Oman welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a surprise visit in 2018 and it appeared to be pushing regional states, such as the Kingdom of Jordan, to be more flexible with Israel.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem is located in a leafy neighbourhood of stately villas, many of which date from the era of the British mandate and combine Bauhaus and Arabic architectural styles. Over the last few weeks the neighbourhood has come to resemble more of a protest camp, festooned with a mix of Israeli and black flags and banners calling prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a dictator. Amid the Covid crisis, with Israel suffering a second wave of the virus, the protests are a unique spectacle that could grow into a wider movement. It is a rare sustained protest against more than ten years of rule by the same man, during a historic period of relative calm and economic growth in Israeli history.

Libya has been in the midst of civil war for almost a decade. However, in the last year, the conflict has escalated and become a regional proxy war. This matters because Libya is a gateway for migrants coming to Europe and because whoever wins in Libya will emerge a powerful figure in the Middle East. Eastern Libya is run by Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army. He is principally backed by the UAE, Egypt and Russia; and he appears to receive support from France, Saudi Arabia and Greece. The government in Tripoli is backed by Turkey and Qatar. Haftar seemed poised to take Tripoli in recent months but his allies in Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Moscow have suffered setbacks. They have not been able to get Haftar over the line.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signed a coalition agreement, after a year of uncertainty and three elections, to create a government that should keep him in power for at least another year and a half. If all goes well with his corruption trial, set to begin on May 24 after a postponement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he will have outwitted his opponents once again and remained in office more than a decade. How does Israel’s leader keep going when his own party never gets more than 35 seats in the country’s 120-member Knesset and he seems to have alienated parties on the left, right and centre? Netanyahu has outlasted his rivals by playing them off against each other.

An Israeli startup called Vocalis Health is working with the country’s National Emergency Team to conduct a trial using voice samples to identify coronavirus. It is one of many innovative approaches being trialled in Israel as the country is radically transformed by the battle against the virus.The Israeli Ministry of Defence’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development said this week that the study with Vocalis Health would look at voice recordings and use artificial intelligence to help identify carriers of the disease. ‘These recordings will then undergo data analysis using neural networks.’ The idea is that an algorithm that would identify characteristics associated with symptoms of the virus.

Hooded and masked police officers tackle a man suspected of breaking coronavirus restrictions. This was the scene in Tel Aviv earlier this week, as Israeli authorities ramp up their hard-line approach to dealing with the virus. But can such measures work? Or has Israel's approach gone too far? Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has certainly been clear that his country – no stranger to existential threats – is in a fight for its life. ‘This is not a child’s game, it is a matter of life and death,’ he said. To combat the virus, Israel has begun to use the same digital technology that it uses to outwit terrorists. Interception of telephonic data and the tracking of phones appears to be a key part of this strategy.

Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria is one of the most shortsighted foreign policy miscalculations in recent memory. The president's actions leaves the West's Kurdish allies at the mercy of Turkey. And Trump's bizarre attempt at justification – claiming that he abandoned the Kurds because they didn’t help the United States in the Second World War – adds insult to injury. After thirty years of the US seeking to present what president George Bush called a “new world order,” a cynical American leadership is retreating – and the country's friends are paying a heavy price.  Eastern Syria, which was one of the few relatively peaceful areas of the country, was slowly being rebuilt after being liberated from Isis. Now Turkey is bombing it.

Donald Trump has promised Syria's bloody regime that it will pay a 'big price' for the chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta, which left dozens dead. And many agree Bashar al-Assad should face the consequences of his appalling actions. But the United States – and the West – would do well to stop and ask themselves a question before they rush in: what are they actually hoping to achieve? After all, the United States' approach to Syria and its pattern of failed strategies does not inspire much confidence. The US has pursued three distinct policies in the country over the last five years: its diplomatic process was designed to lead to a post-Assad era of democracy. That failed.

Turkey and Russia back different sides in the Syrian conflict, but they do agree on one thing: the role of the United States in Syria has grown too large. This view accounts for the recent Turkish incursion against US-backed Kurdish militias in Afrin, in northern Syria. As well as taking military action, Turkey's politicians are now also growing in confidence in speaking out against the US. The country's deputy prime minister, Bekir Bozdag, is the latest to do so, warning US soldiers in Syria against wearing 'terrorist uniforms' of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). He went on to say: 'If US soldiers wear terrorist uniforms or are among the terrorists in the event of an attack against the army then there is not going to be the chance to make a distinction.

The last Isis-held town in Iraq, Rawa, has fallen; across the border in Syria, the Russians declared a 'total rout of the terrorists'. But this tough fight, which has taken three-and-half years, could all be in vain: the coalition which has driven Isis out now faces the gloomy prospect of winning the war and losing the peace. While Isis has been defeated, the next big challenge – how to address the Iranian drive for dominance in the Middle East – goes unanswered.  By ignoring this issue, the West is failing to learn one of the key lessons of the last three years: don't treat each country as a vacuum. Isis's ability to spread quickly and snatch territory across the region was a direct result of the weakening of state power in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut.

The Machko teahouse in the centre of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, has seen much of the area’s history. Founded in 1940, it survived Saddam Hussein’s oppression and years of privation. On September 25th, it was packed with patrons gathering to watch the latest chapter in the Kurdish region’s long history unfold. Since June, when Kurdistan Regional president Masoud Barzani announced a referendum on independence, the eight million residents of this autonomous part of northern Iraq have been waiting to see if the vote would take place. On September 25th, it happened. Initial figures showed a 76 per cent turnout.

After six years of fierce fighting and with hundreds of thousands dead, the Syrian civil war finally appears to be settling down. The country is now divided into various pockets of influence, with Turkish-backed rebels in the north, US-backed Kurdish forces and their allies in the east and the Syrian regime and its Iranian-backed militias in the centre and the capital, Damascus. This now gives Iran, with the influence it already has in Lebanon and Iraq, a sphere of authority stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea. The spread of Iranian influence in the region is largely a result of the country's ability to capitalise on the tumultuous recent history of the Middle East.

Towns on Ukraine's ceasefire line are marking three years since some were retaken by government forces from pro-Russian separatists. But there is little cause for celebration: houses in Marinka, Krasnogorovka and Avdiivka bear the scars of war. Some of these scars are recent, including a large house with nine apartments that was destroyed in shelling in late July. The war in eastern Ukraine is a forgotten conflict in many ways. It is talked about as “frozen” or “hidden” yet there is little recognition that the fight is still rumbling on. Unlike Bosnia or the border between Georgia and the breakaway statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, eastern Ukraine witnesses dozens of exchanges of fire a day.