Anti-government protesters shout slogans during a rally to demand the ouster of Yemen's President Saleh in Sanaa (Khaled Abdullah Ali Al Mahdi/Courtesy Reuters)
Gregory Johnson on Saleh’s return to Yemen.
Khodor Salameh writes on “the joke of Palestinian statehood.”
An injured anti-government protester rests by a burned out bus, used as barricade, alongside the Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square in Cairo (Yannis Behrakis/Courtesy Reuters)
This article appears here on ForeignPolicy.com.
Egypt's Prime Minister Essam Sharaf (R) and his Turkey counterpart Tayyip Erdogan walk after a news conference at the Prime Minister's office in Cairo (Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Courtesy Reuters)
The following article was posted here on foreignaffairs.com today.
As Cairo’s citizens drove along the Autostrad this week, they were greeted with four enormous billboards featuring pictures of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With Turkish and Egyptian flags, the signs bore the message, “With United Hands for the Future.” Erdogan’s visit marks a bold development in Turkey’s leadership in the region. The hero’s welcome he received at the airport reinforced the popular perception: Turkey is a positive force, uniquely positioned to guide the Middle East’s ongoing transformation.
New York skyline before September 11, 2001 Attack (Enrique Shore/Courtesy Reuters)
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Trapped in the War on Terror by Ian S. Lustick
An Israeli protester chats to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man near tents pitched on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard as part of a demonstration (Nir Elias/Courtesy Reuters)
Enjoy the guest post today from my dear friend, Brad Rothschild, who just back from three weeks in Israel.
This past Saturday night, 450,000 Israelis, representing over six percent of the country’s population, took to the streets to demonstrate for social justice in the largest rally in the country’s history. This event, known locally as the “March of the Million,” was the culmination of weeks of protests throughout the country, with tent cities popping up in every major population center. In the days leading up to the demonstration, one question lingered: could the “Israeli Summer” survive into the Fall?
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu speaks during a news conference in Ankara (Stringer Turkey/Courtesy Reuters)
Last Friday, the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, announced what had long been coming—the end of Turkey-Israel relations. Although it is not a total breach, Israel’s ambassador in Ankara is no longer welcome there and the IDF mission in Turkey was terminated. All official business will now be conducted at the level of second secretary, which in the military is equivalent to a major or Lieutenant Colonel. The foreign minister also warned that the Turkish Navy would defend the freedom of navigation in the international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean, conjuring images of a naval confrontation between the Israelis and the Turks. As Davutoglu explained to the gathered press, Israel had not met Turkey’s demands for an apology from Jerusalem for the notorious Mavi Marmara incident of May 2010. The Turks had also demanded compensation for the killed and injured as well as a lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, after 15 months of on-again, off-again negotiations, the Turks and Israelis could not come to a mutually acceptable formula for averting the collapse of their bilateral relations.
The Turks had long let it be known what the consequences would be if Israel refused Ankara’s demands, making Davutoglu’s announcement less surprising than shocking (mostly in tone), but there was something else behind Ankara’s ire. Indeed, the announcement came after the New York Times published a leaked version of the UN’s Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident (aka, the Palmer Report), which vindicated many aspects, but by no means all, of Israel’s account of the incident and the legal issues surrounding it. The Turks and many others have already contested the underlying logic of the Report, the central issue of which is the legitimacy of Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. Sir Geoffrey Palmer and his colleagues concluded that 1) although Gaza is not a state, Israel and Gaza are in an international conflict; as a result 2) the Israelis’ claim that they have a right to self-defense in this situation is entirely legitimate, and 3) the naval blockade is an acceptable means to achieve that end. In order to reach these conclusions, Palmer et al affirmed Israel’s position that the naval blockade is fundamentally separate policy from the land cordon the Israelis established around Gaza since 2007.
An Israeli warship arrives at an Israeli navy base in Eilat (Amir Cohen/Courtesy Reuters)
Yesterday brought news that the Israeli navy was deploying two warships to an area near the Egyptian border in the Red Sea, citing concern over potential terror attacks on Israel from the area and Iranian naval maneuvers. It is not clear what the warships would do against terrorists, unless they were being positioned as a platform for special operations forces. The Israeli deployment likely has to do with the Iranians, but it speaks more broadly to the complexities of Egypt-Israel relations against the backdrop of Egypt’s evolving political environment.
The unprecedented (since 1979) tension between Cairo and Jerusalem in late August was a reminder that the predictably stable relationship between Egypt and Israel over the last 30 years is now over. Egyptian public opinion wouldn’t have it any other way and it is clear that Egyptian politicians are responding to this sentiment. When Israeli forces accidentally killed five Egyptian soldiers, including an officer, a variety of would-be Egyptian presidents were quickly outmaneuvering each other to sound tough on Israel. Interestingly, the most muted response was from the Islamist end of the political spectrum, most likely because they do not need to prove their anti-Zionist bona fides. In any event, even the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has confirmed (and reconfirmed) that Egypt will uphold past agreements, warns that Israel must, for example, seriously negotiate on the Palestinian front, otherwise implicitly suggesting that there are consequences of ignoring public opinion for them and for Israel.
I am away on vacation at an undisclosed location. Below please find a list of what I am reading while I am away, though I am open to suggestions. There is a very good bookstore in a nearby town. Cheers!
I am finishing Collapse by Jared Diamond.
Man reads Koran beside shelf stacked with them at Masjid Al Kabir, also known as Grand Mosque, during Ramadan in old city of Sanaa (Jumana El-Heloueh/Courtesy Reuters)
Tik Root, on Al Jazeera, discusses the role of the youth in Yemen’s uprising, and their important role in forming a more stable Yemen.
Daniel Serwer looks at what’s to come in Libya.
Flames rise from an Egyptian pipeline distribution station after an attack in the Sinai peninsula (STR New/Courtesy Reuters)
Let’s review what’s happening in the Middle East: Syrian forces are attacking peaceful protesters throughout the country; Iraq is cleaning up from one of the worst days of violence in recent memory; Libyan rebels are knocking on Tripoli’s door; former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s trial for murder and corruption was adjourned until September 5; Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is turning up the heat on revolutionary activists with the arrest of Asmaa Mahfouz; and in what has been dubbed “Operation Eagle,” Egypt deployed approximately 2,500 troops and somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 armored vehicles, including tanks, to al Arish, Sheikh Zuwayd, and Rafah deep into the Sinai. Just another week… Wait, the Egyptians did what? They sent thousands of troops into the Sinai? That’s not supposed to happen, right? The Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty limit Egyptian military forces to an area about 30 miles east of the Suez Canal. This is a huge story and besides a brief article in the Washington Post, a report on CNN.com, and an article in Time (yes, Time) the media has largely ignored the deployment. Sadly, deep fried butter on a stick at the Iowa State Fair has received way more coverage over this weekend than a military move that has the potential to alter longstanding agreements between Egypt and Israel.
Here is what is happening: Since Mubarak’s departure for Sharm el Sheikh on February 11th and the collapse of the Ministry of Interior, the Sinai has grown increasingly chaotic. In the last six months, Egypt’s pipeline infrastructure in the region has been attacked four times, there was a brazen assault on the port of Nuweiba, a call for the establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Sinai, and the implementation of shari’a. The Sinai has long been a hotbed of smuggling—weapons, drugs, and people—a hideout for extremists (reportedly including elements loyal to al Qaeda); and anger on the part of Bedouin groups over the way they are treated at the hands of the police and intelligence service. Beyond these immediate problems, the Sinai is the least developed part of the country and as a result, has the highest unemployment rate among all of Egypt’s 29 governorates. Many of the Bedouin in the Sinai have no particular allegiance to Egypt.
 Steven A. Cook
Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Complete Bio Subscribe to this blog 
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New Blog Post: Weekend Reading: Saleh Comes Home, Palestine is Born?, and Redistricting in Lebanon http://t.co/Cn1R9Zvg
Not for nothing, but I remember being told that the Saudis would "NEVER let Saleh go back to Yemen." #yemen
RT @mosaaberizing: @abuaardvark Though it's believed to be a well crafted, emotional stunt, Naser kind of did and resigned after the 1967 defeat.
