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31. Israel’s Regional Foreign Policies: An Annual Assessment

Author:
Roee Kibrik, Colette Avital, Paul Pasch, Ksenia Svetlova, Michael Harari, Dan Catarivas, Ido Zelkovitz, Max Stern Yezreel, Lior Lehrs, Dahlia Scheindlin, Kamal Ali-Hassan, Nadav Tamir, Yair Lapid, and Susanna Terstal
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:
The Mitvim Institute 3rd annual conference provided an annual assessment of Israel's regional foreign policies. It was held in Tel Aviv on 14 November 2019, in cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. The conference included sessions on Israel's ties with its adjacent regions – moderated by Dr. Nimrod Goren, and participated by Amb. (ret.) Michael Harari, former Member of Knesset (MK) Ksenia Svetlova, Dr. Ido Zelkovitz and Dan Catarivas – and on the quest for IsraeliPalestinian peace in Israeli statesmanship – moderated by Yael Patir and participated by Dr. Lior Lehrs, Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, Kamal Ali-Hassan and Nadav Tamir. MK Yair Lapid (Blue and White party) and EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Susanna Terstal delivered the keynote speeches. This document summarizes the main points covered by the speakers.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Public Opinion, Conflict, and Hamas
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

32. Israel’s Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean

Author:
Michał Wojnarowicz
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The significance of the Eastern Mediterranean for Israel has increased in the last decade, an outcome of interlocking factors associated with the civil war in Syria, the deterioration of relations with Turkey, and discoveries of new gas fields. The effectiveness of Israeli policy, especially in energy issues, depends on strengthening relations with the states of the region, such as Egypt or Cyprus. Hence, regional cooperation will deepen, which may have a positive impact on Israel-EU relations.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mediterranean

33. Civil Society in a De Facto State-Northern Cyprus: Societal Dissent, Turkish Cypriot Trade Unions and Relations with Turkey

Author:
Ibrahim Ayberk, Sait Akşit, and Ali Dayioğlu
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This study presents the importance of patron states for de facto states within the context of Turkey-Northern Cyprus relations intending to highlight how and in what ways the Turkish Cypriot civil society is influenced by this relationship. It analyses the societal dissent in Northern Cyprus through a detailed study of the leading role played by trade unions given the conjectural developments since the early 2000s and argues that this differentiates Northern Cyprus from other de facto states. With the case analysis of Northern Cyprus, this study aims to contribute to the gap on the study of de facto states’ domestic affairs and the influence of patron states on the societal structures of these entities.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, State, Emerging States, and Unions
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Cyprus, and Mediterranean

34. Turkey between Qatar and Saudi Arabia: Changing Regional and Bilateral Relations

Author:
Birol Baskan
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This paper discusses how Turkey’s bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar have changed after the Arab Spring erupted and assesses how the Syrian conflict affected them. The paper argues that Turkey had developed excellent relations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the 2000s, but eventually fell out with Saudi Arabia and strengthened its relations with Qatar as the Arab Spring unfolded. The Syrian conflict, in which the three countries colluded to overthrow the Assad regime, has alleviated the deleterious impact of the differences between Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the bilateral relations or, to put it in another way, slowed down the deterioration of Turkey-Saudi Arabia relations. The paper also argues that the geopolitical landscape that pushed Turkey and Saudi Arabia apart also pushed Turkey and Qatar closer.
Topic:
International Relations, Regional Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Qatar

35. A Dance of Entanglement: The US-Turkish Relations in the Context of the Syrian Conflict

Author:
Burcu Sari Karademir
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Alliances under unipolarity operate with different logic than under bipolarity. Unipolarity makes the twin dangers of abandonment and entrapment more likely for the weaker states that need the unipole for the pursuit of their regional security interests. The article takes the US-Turkish relations within the context of Syrian conflict as exemplary and shows how the strategic discrepancies between the US-Turkish positions paved the way for Turkey’s abandonment in Syria. The article concludes that the unipole’s strategic alliance commitments are no longer reliable for regional allies to assume risky regional restructuring roles as they face the risk of abandonment on the halfway.
Topic:
International Relations, Alliance, Syrian War, and Unipolarity
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Syria, United States of America, and Mediterranean

36. Signalling for Status: UAE and Women’s Rights

Author:
Vânia Carvalho Pinto
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
That societies should be gender-equal is a prevailing normative ideal to which states at the very least pay lip service. The UAE as a highly globalised state that aspires to a superior status has not stood outside of these dynamics. Whereas in the decades since independence in 1971 women’s rights were emphasised as a sign of the country’s progress, nowadays, the UAE government portrays women’s rights as being advanced to such an extent that they are setting up a new gender empowerment benchmark for the Middle Eastern region. Additionally, the UAE has also proclaimed the goal of becoming one of the top 25 gender-equal states in the world by 2021. I suggest that these official proclamations are indicative of a signalling strategy whose aim is to advocate to an international audience that the UAE deserves a status higher than it currently holds. Based on Larson and Svechenko’s interpretation of social identity theory, I claim that the UAE’s strategy is one of social creativity. It rests on creating a new value – the Emirati standard of gender equality – within the Arab group. The former is operationalised through, on the one hand, ‘teaching to the test’ tactics in the area of women’s political participation, a field that can be easily regulated by the government. And on the other, on overemphasising the professional deeds of a small group of high-achieving women. In the latter case, as the numbers of females in employment are rather low, the government elects to call attention to women in specific and unconventional positions so as to lend greater credence to the existence of their own superior standard of gender equality within the Arab region.
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Women, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and United Arab Emirates

37. Reflections from Singapore

Author:
ONG Keng Yong
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Ambassador ONG Keng Yong, who graduated from MAAS in 1983, remembers his time in Washington and sheds light on Singapore’s “price taker” approach to foreign policy.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Middle East, Asia, Arab Countries, Singapore, and United States of America

38. Middle Eastern States in the Horn of Africa: Security Interactions and Power Projection

Author:
Brendon J. Cannon and Federico Donelli
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
In December 2017, at the end of a bilateral meeting, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Sudanese counterpart Umar al-Bashir announced a deal to restore Suakin, a ruined Ottoman port town on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. The agreement also gave Turkey the right to build a naval dock to maintain civilian and military vessels. More than one year later there are doubts as to how much work Turkey will do beyond restoring the Ottoman town. However, certain regional states are uncomfortable with the apparent consolidation of a permanent Turkish presence in the region, thereby feeding a process of perceived securitization in and around the Red Sea. A few months later, in April 2018, the flag of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began to flutter on the small island of Socotra. The position of this isolated Arabian Sea island makes it a strategic outpost for the conduct of ongoing UAE military operations in Yemen as well as control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the entrance, from the south, to the Red Sea. The two seemingly unrelated events are yet more evidence, for some, of a complicated game of chess between rival ideological and political blocs in the Middle East that now stretches into Africa. The Middle East region has been the scene, for decades, of political balancing acts amidst continuous power and influence scrambles due to its structural characteristics – a highly dynamic and amorphous regional system in which power relations are fluid and order is in short supply – and the lack of a clear regional hegemon. As noted by professor Fawaz Gerges, following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, a “psychological and epistemological rupture” has occurred in the Middle East.[1] Although mostly limited to the domestic dimension of the states, these dynamics appear to have taken on an extra-regional dimension that increasingly feeds perceptions and narratives of shifting distributions of power. A wide range of academic and think tank literature has emphasized these changes in light of an emerging identity Cold War pitting conservative Sunni monarchies against a revolutionary Shi’a Iran. Recent security interactions across the Red Sea seem to form part of this intertwined rebalancing dynamic across the wider Middle East regional security complex (MERSC).
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Power Politics, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, and Horn of Africa

39. Potential Gains: Why Did India Exempt the Iranian Oil Payments from Taxes?

Author:
FARAS
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Future for Advanced Research and Studies (FARAS)
Abstract:
India has recently exempted Iranian oil payments from taxes and fees, in a move aimed at fostering its relations with Tehran, in the wake of the US temporary waivers, in November, to India along with seven other countries from the sanctions on Iranian oil imports, in order to be able to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar. The US waivers have allowed India to resume trade and investment relations with Iran, albeit in a limited manner. However, despite the expected gains, economic relations between India and Iran will hinge on the extent to which the US administration will renew the waivers granted to the eight countries, to continue buying Iranian oil after the current grace period expires.
Topic:
International Relations, Oil, Sanctions, and Tax Systems
Political Geography:
Iran, South Asia, Middle East, India, North America, and United States of America

40. South Sudan and Israel: A love affair in a changing region?

Author:
Haim Koren
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Abstract:
Haim Koren analyzes the ongoing relationship between Israel and South Sudan. From the beginning, it made strategic sense for Israel to provide military aid to rebels in South Sudan. This would serve as a useful distraction to Egypt and Sudan, and would open a new and vulnerable front against the Arab World. However, it wasn’t until the June 1967 war that Israel truly acted upon this opportunity, following Khartoum’s decision to support Egypt in that conflict. [1] Joseph Lago, then the leader of the South Sudanese Anya-Nya ("Viper Venom") guerrilla organization, appealed desperately to Israel, asking it to help in preventing integration of Sudanese units within the Egyptian army by pinning them down in an ongoing conflict with the fighters of South Sudan. This would carry a number of advantages for Israel, including strengthening Israel’s operational connections with Kenya and Ethiopia, which were states within Israel’s geo-strategic ‘second circle.’ Providing such aid would also carry moral weight: Israel would help a nation struggling for independence against what south Sudanese felt to be Islamic “tyranny.”
Topic:
International Relations, Bilateral Relations, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Middle East, Israel, and South Sudan