A year has passed since I started Invisible Boundaries, an effort - at the suggestion of some former students - to regularly pen my thoughts on developments in Israel and the Middle East as well as share some content that I thought was valuable.
Well today I get to say thank you.
Thank you for continuing to tune in and read my newsletter, and thanks to all of you who have responded with questions and comments. Your support is really appreciated.
Plenty has changed since Invisible Boundaries took off. At that time, much of the world was paralyzed by the Covid-19 epidemic. International travel ground to a halt. There was no vaccine, and precious little hope. Israel was just starting to reopen after its first nationwide lockdown.
Many surprises awaited. The UAE and Bahrain agreed to sign agreements with Israel that would normalize diplomatic relations. Morocco and Sudan were not far behind. We all had a sense that another Israeli election awaited us, but few believed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be dethroned, especially by a coalition of eight parties with diverging ideological beliefs and agendas.
That’s not all. The pandemic disrupted global energy prices, quickening the West’s turn towards renewables and giving the Middle East’s oil and gas producers reason to reassess their short and long term strategies. Biden defeated Trump, bringing the US back into nuclear negotiations with Iran - but not delivering the immediate return to the JCPOA that many predicted would happen. And as Lebanon sank into its worst economic crisis in decades, negotiators met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the delimitation of their disputed maritime boundary.
Just when you think you have the region figured out, someone goes ahead and surprises you.
Of course, some developments over the last year were easier to foresee. Following the cancellation of Palestinian elections and a series of rash Israeli policy decisions, Hamas launched rockets upon Jerusalem, triggering an escalation of violence that reminded everyone that the more things change the more they stay the same. Conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Libya persisted despite the spread of disease. Iran continued to find ways of evading international sanctions. The gap between the haves and have not widened.
The Middle East is a fascinating place to live in and to follow as an analyst. Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, I maintained constant dialogue with colleagues across the region, largely due to advances in technology (thank you Zoom) and a collective willingness to find solutions to the shared challenge of not being able to board an airplane. I spent the year locked in my office, staring out the window and watching the clouds shift from west to east towards Jordan, and yet still felt connected to the developments - both significant and mundane - in Israel and across the region. I hope that Invisible Boundaries offered at least a taste of what has been taking place, and I encourage you to keep reading and sharing with friends and family. I anticipate the coming year to be just as surprising as the last and look forward to continuing this important exercise together with you.
Want me to discuss a specific topic in the coming weeks? Don’t hesitate to write me!
Here is some summer reading for those of you who manage to steal off to the beach or some other peaceful location:
If you missed David Ignatius’ recent Washington Post piece on Jordan’s palace intrigue and its connection to the Abraham Accords, I highly suggest you catch yourselves up. I’ve twice written over the past year about the need to pay attention to Israel’s eastern neighbor (here and here), and as was reported this week by Barak Ravid, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett secretly met with King Abdullah II at the royal palace in Amman. Both Jordanian and Israeli leaders are expected to visit Washington DC later this month.
Reem Kasis wrote a mouthwatering feature in Newlines Magazine on the role of eggplant in Arab cuisine. Anyone who has traveled the region will appreciate her farm-to-table description of this quintessential FRUIT.
I am going to write a complete newsletter on climate change issues in the coming weeks, but consider this sharp analysis in Atlantic Council’s MENASource on sustainable energy security in the Middle East by Ariel Ezrahi, Director of Energy at the Office of the Quartet in Jerusalem, an appetizer. Climate change is going to be one of, if not the, primary global issue in the coming decade and nowhere are the effects of global warming felt more than the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Not directly related to the Middle East, but Julia Ioffe’s feature in Vanity Fair on Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alex Navalny, is just spectacular.
I hope you find this week’s content engaging.
Best,
Gabi