Dr. Mordechai Kedar

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.

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

In Lebanon there is a rare opportunity to cut off a significant part of one of the most important arms of the Iranian octopus, which comprises Syria and Hezbollah.

Whoever wants to bring Iran down must support those rebelling against Asad. The leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan understand this, and their support for the rebels may save them and the Gulf from the Iranian octopus. The question is how much time will it take for the sleeping Europeans and the dreamers in the White House to understand the complicated Middle East reality, and when will they begin to take action in order to bring Iran down?

Today's anti-democratic glue is apparently better than the glue of Slavic identity that formed the "Warsaw Pact" because it is a world view and a cultural perspective.

All of the universities in Israel are political, and moreover, all of the colleges, yeshivas, hospitals, prisons, factories, homes, roads, trees - everything that we have established, built, and planted in Israel - everything, but everything, is political. The whole Zionist enterprise is a political project because it is the political and nationalistic manifestation of the desire of the Jewish people to return to its land and to renew within it its national life, its independence and its sovereignty.

In light of the situation in which the kingdom must stand up to external challenges - principally an Iranian threat to the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia - it is not clear whether the population of the kingdom will indeed lend strong support to the leadership of the ruling family.

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...

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

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

Many Israelis do not know the rules of the game of the Middle East: the more we show enthusiasm for something, the higher its price rises, and the opposite holds true as well: the less interest we express in something, the lower the demanded price will be. If we announce day and night that we want peace with our enemies or to obtain the release of a kidnapped soldier who is in their hands - the price for the peace or the soldier will be more than we can pay.

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

Al-Jazeera again appears to be promoting Islamic violence these days, in Egypt and in Israel.

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?

This past month several dozens of jihad organizations operating in Syria came to the conclusion that the disagreements among them harm their fighting cause and strengthen Asad.

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.

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.

In Washington there are deep differences of opinion as to how to address the growing jihadi influence in Africa.

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

The Arab states are no longer a single bloc opposing Israel but are divided into two coalitions. One is on Iran’s side; the other is against it. Israel, which in the past was perceived as the problem, has become part of the solution.

Throughout all of history, did an Emir, Sultan Caliph or Arab or Islamic King rule in Jerusalem even for one day?

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 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.

The Palestinian youth sees what has happened in the Arab world and despite the suffering, has the feeling of "yes, we can," even if it requires blood.

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.

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.

General al-Sisi and is not about to give in to American pressure regarding the Muslim Brotherhood.

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

The visit of the Emir of Qatar to the Gaza Strip is certainly an important landmark on the course that the Hamas movement has been advancing since it took over the Strip in June of 2007. Hamas is trying its utmost to establish the independence of the Gaza Strip, vis à vis the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, the Arab world and everyplace else as well.

The coalition that Iran built, whose center is Syria, is currently undergoing a tremendous jolt. The fall of the Syrian regime - which the Arab world is stabbing in the back - is only a matter of time estimated at a few weeks.