Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Political correctness is what dictates conduct in the highest echelons of leadership in the United States.

The most important question is how will the new Egyptian government conduct itself, when for the first time in modern Egyptian history ("Since the days of Pharaoh", in the words of the head of the elections committee) it represents the people in a fair way.

The crisis in Port Said has exposed deep problems in Egypt's political system.

Egypt is like a car with ninety million problems, and to describe it as a 'total loss' is to understate the situation.

Politicians and European public figures, who have no desire to open the wounds of the past and stand in front of the mirror of history that will reveal their great wealth from Africa and their ethical nakedness, searched out a scapegoat, onto whom it would be possible to place all of the sins of their colonialism. Together with Arabs -themselves descendants of slave traders- they found the sacrificial victim: Israel

Any real and workable solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict must be based upon this sociological fact: tribalism and loyalty to traditional religious and sectarian frameworks are the prevailing cultural and political framework of the Middle East.

Where Iran and Armenia traded $350 million worth of goods in 2021, the expectation is that this figure will rise to $1 billion this year.

The crowds in the streets of Egypt will increase during the month of Ramadan, which begins on July 9, and religious sensitivities will be heightened as well.

If the world does not wake up in time to see the danger, Syria will be only the first domino to fall.

{Reposted from the BESA website} On January 20, 2021, President Donald Trump is slated to exit the scene and perhaps even the stage of history—but...

The State Department and the White House fear Islamic terror more than anything else.

Visits of Western leaders complicate old problems and create new ones, and moreover, the chances that these visits will yield a positive effect or result in a real solution to any problem, is quite low.

The civil servants at Israel's foreign ministry seem to believe it is their job to shape government policy rather than to be faithful to it.

The Gaza Strip is no different from the rest of the Arab world, so tribal culture is alive and kicking there. Ever since the Hamas movement took control of Gaza trip in 2007, it has transformed itself from a gang of jihadists into a ruling government, a standard Arab state. The minor movements - Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committeess - function like tribes, challenging the authority of the state. Today, these groups are doing to Hamas what Hamas did to the PLO twenty years ago when it was in power.

The constitution, as important as it may be, is not a cure for the genetic illnesses of the states of the Middle East.

The Islamic State has started a fashion trend among Middle East jihadists; beheading is rapidly becoming the murder method of choice.

Lately, the pro-Western coalition has begun to crumble, and two key countries - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - are searching for a new political crutch.

Turkey, no doubt, is an important regional power, and Israel must weigh its steps carefully when dealing with it, because of the changes that are occurring in the region and in light of the unsolved difficulties with Turkey – the flotilla two years ago and the gas in the future.

The situation in Syria is deteriorating quickly, and the state is literally disintegrating. The cracks in the government are widening; ambassadors, generals and soldiers are deserting, some branches of the Ba'ath party are announcing their secession from the regime, the Russian advisers are fleeing for their lives and the feeling that the end is near is taking hold more and more. Not the end of Asad, but of Syria. Not the regime, but the system.

Since Qadhaffi was overthrown a year ago, conflicts have broken out between the tribes and the main ethnic groups in Libya, Arabs and Berbers, and it was clear that the new political framework, in order to be an acceptable and legitimate system, must consider the social, tribal structure of the population and not try to fight it.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran has failed to achieve its goals, whether in the domestic, regional or global sphere. Their last chance for salvation is the nuclear project, which still wins support from China and Russia.

Saddam fell, the evil regime that he established fell with him and the people of Iraq could finally breathe freely.

The Shi'a ethnic-religious tradition of pretending to be Sunni in order to avoid violent attack, even death, has resulted in a culture of deception which continues today, especially in Iran. This is reflected in Iran's dealings with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the West regarding its nuclear program and more recently when it hosted the Non-Aligned Movement conference in its capital. At the conference, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi - a Sunni - attacked Iran's ally Bashir al-Assad and his regime for slaughtering its own citizens in Syria as well as Assad’s unnamed supporters, i.e. Iran. Iran purposefully mistranslated the speech in Farsi to make it seem that Morsi was talking about Bahrain, not Syria.

In the arid, forsaken and violent area that we live in, if you beg for peace you get a kick in the behind and thrown out of the arena.

Many of the problems of the Middle Eastern states can be traced to the mistakes of the European state charged with developing them between the World Wars. The fierceness with which the Alawite minority - led by Bashir al Assad - will fight to retain control can be explained by their fear of Sunni Muslims. Way back in 1936, Assad's grandfather, Suleiman Assad warned France, which was then the power in charge of Syria, of the dangers of a Sunni Muslim takeover of Syria in 1936. He also spoke warmly about Jewish accomplishments in then Palestine and the injustice of Arab-Muslim violence towards Zionism.

To date, all the Bedouins’ legal land ownership claims that reached the courts have failed.

The target of the car bomb attack was the Center for Islamist Cooperation, the operational center for many of Hezbollah's offshoot organizations.

Since its establishment, the Kingdom of Jordan has suffered from a split personality between two identities, the Jordanian and the Palestinian, that are intertwined like a pair of Siamese twins who hate one another, but cannot part from each other. The source of the problem is the fact that most of the citizens of the Hashemite Jordanian monarchy define themselves as "Palestinians", but their state is "Jordanian". So how should they relate to it - as their country or as a foreign interloper?

When the borders of a state are breached, its existence as a state is undermined.

Muhammad As’ad Bayoudh al-Tamimi is a Palestinian columnist living in Jordan. In the past he has often clearly expressed the opinions of the man...