Prioritizing Palestinian Self-Determination is Long Overdue

By Omar Auf /

The discussion about a one-state or two-state solution must be preceded by efforts to facilitate exercise of the right to self-determination by the Palestinian people. Only then can a realistic solution be genuinely pursued.

The War in Sudan—with Amira Ahmed and Manuel Schwab: CR Amplified ep. 2

By Abigail Flynn /

The war in Sudan is entering its second year. In 2019, Sudan witnessed a massive popular revolution that ousted its former president, Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled for over two decades. Sudanese civilians were key in bringing down al-Bashir and establishing a civilian government in his place. Two armed organizations also played an important role in the revolution: the government’s military, called Sudanese Armed Forces, known as the SAF, and the paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, » Read more about: The War in Sudan—with Amira Ahmed and Manuel Schwab: CR Amplified ep. 2 »

Egypt’s Balancing Act

By Karim Haggag /

Jon Alterman: Karim Haggag, welcome to Babel.
Karim Haggag: Thank you Jon, thank you for having me. It’s great to be with you.
Jon Alterman: Egypt has had a security focus on the Israeli border since the creation of Israel in 1948. Help us understand the context. How does the current Egyptian concern over Gaza rank among the various crises that Egypt has felt on its border with Israel over the last 75 years?
Karim Haggag: This is a fundamentally different challenge than the large-scale armed conflicts that Egypt fought with Israel over the years, » Read more about: Egypt’s Balancing Act »

War on Palestine Underscores the Supremacy of Geopolitics

By Omar Auf / Spring 2024

Why do states ignore violations of international law in Gaza?

In Targeting UNRWA, Israel Aims to Destroy the Right of Return

By Daoud Kuttab / Spring 2024

Hoping to capitalize on world sympathy after October 7, Israel tried to use its allies to defund and dismantle the UN relief agency.

Showing Palestine Refugees that Americans Care

By Omar Auf / Spring 2024

The Cairo Review asks the UNRWA USA National Committee questions about its purpose, processes, and operations amid the existential crisis UNRWA is facing.

The Gendering of Sudan’s Brutal War

By Nafisa Bedri and Tamsin Bradley / Spring 2024

Any analysis of the sexual violence and unfolding genocide must highlight the extent to which the media is still using an orientalist gaze to report on the war in Sudan

Navigating the Politics of Humanitarian Aid in Gaza

By Shatha Abdulsamad / Spring 2024

Despite Israeli efforts to destroy it, UNRWA remains an embodiment of international responsibility for the question of Palestinian refugees, and a reminder of their inalienable right of return.

UNRWA After October 7: Building a Comprehensive Response Framework for Palestinian Refugees

By Lex Takkenberg / Spring 2024

UNRWA’s future cannot be considered in isolation—a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder approach, with displacement issues at its center, is now necessary.

Scrolling Social Media Sentiments on the Gaza War

By Ayusha Chalise /

Despite efforts of platforms like Meta to curb political content generally, frustration and sympathy for both sides of Israel’s War on Gaza continues to run deep among users

UNRWA Funding is Burdened with Conditionality

By Anne Irfan / Spring 2024

The UN agency’s essential humanitarian role lies in the balance thanks to the political contingencies of its donors.

Hegemonic Reasoning Fueled the Russia-Ukraine War

By F. Andrew Wolf Jr. /

With the Cold War at an end for over 30 years, how is it that the US still perceives Russia as a threat?

The Implementation Crisis—with Richard Falk

By Omar Auf /

International law scholar Richard Falk discusses international law and politics as they pertain to the ongoing genocide committed by Israel in Gaza and the wider Palestinian plight, in addition to UN reform.

A World that Ended Apartheid can do the Same for Israel’s Occupation

By Abderahman Salaheldin /

Ending the Israeli occupation and forging a Palestinian state requires a unified effort that parallels the process which ended racial segregation in South Africa.

In Darkness All is Black: Exploring the Realities of Violence by the Israeli State and Hamas

By Erwin van Veen /

The events of 7 October and beyond raise a major ethical question: by what standard is the violence that Hamas uses against Israel different from the violence that the Israeli state uses against Hamas?

Radicalization and Regional Instability: Effects of the Gaza War

By Mamoun Fandy / Winter 2024

As Israel attempts to reestablish its identity as a regional deterrent by destroying Gaza, the effects of its campaign cascade through the region, shifting political alignments, and generating new concerns over radicalization and conflict spillover

U.S. Position on Gaza Risks Wider War in the Middle East

By Karim Haggag /

Just days before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan proclaimed a “quieter” Middle East, and, with faintly concealed satisfaction, declared how little attention he – and thus the nation – needs to devote to the region’s myriad geopolitical headaches.
But now, Israel’s war on Gaza has dragged the United States back to the Middle East, and the Biden administration finds itself sucked into the vortex of multiple regional flashpoints revolving around Gaza. » Read more about: U.S. Position on Gaza Risks Wider War in the Middle East »

Genocide on the Docket at the Hague

By Omar Auf / Winter 2024

International law is a tool for both oppression and emancipation, says AUC law professor Thomas Skouteris in this Q&A as he breaks down the intricacies of the ICJ’s January 26 order for provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel, and elucidates the present and future of international law.

Gaza: Israel’s Unwinnable War

By Richard Silverstein / Winter 2024

Even if, for argument’s sake, it achieved its war goals, Palestinian resistance will exist wherever there are Palestinians—whether in Sinai, Beirut, Ankara, Tehran or Amman

Hamas, ISIL, and Israel: An Exercise in Comparison

By Ayman Zaineldine / Winter 2024

One of Israel’s main responses to the October 7 attacks was to declare that “Hamas is ISIL,” and that the world should thus unite in support for Israel to eliminate it. But others are not sure, and ask whether Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, and its practices as an occupying power, is even more worthy of global sanction

Covering the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict: Between Exasperation and Empathy

By Lawrence Pintak / Winter 2024

A personal reflection of American involvement in the region’s wars through the eyes of a correspondent

Security and Peace After the War in Gaza

By Ibrahim Awad / Winter 2024

Is the two-state solution feasible? In order to pursue such a policy, the international community must be able to overcome three main points of contention: Israeli occupation, the creation of a Palestinian state, and the role of Hamas

Israel’s Ever-Existing Plan to Depopulate the Gaza Strip

By Nadia Naser-Najjab / Winter 2024

The recent violence in Gaza may be unprecedented in its intensity, but the Zionist rhetoric underlying Israel’s current brutal strategy has roots going back much earlier than October 7

A Palestinian Gandhi or an Israeli de Gaulle? Why the Context of Violence Matters

By Sharif Elmusa / Winter 2024

Questioning why there hasn’t been a Palestinian Gandhi or Mandela ignores the history and context in which Palestinian resistance occurs, especially the abiding violence visited on the Palestinians since 1917

The EU’s Response to the Gaza War Is a Tale of Contradiction and Division

By Martin Konečný / Winter 2024

In the face of worst-ever Israeli–Palestinian violence, Europe’s selective moralism has also led to strategic blindness

Voices for Peace – with Lara Friedman

By Nadeen Shaker /

Young progressive Jews calling for a ceasefire in Gaza spent weeks since October 7 shutting down U.S. train stations, highways, and government buildings. But can their messages of solidarity reverberate beyond these demonstrations to cause change within government and Congress, especially as criticism of Israel is being increasingly shut down and classified as anti-semitism by US officials.

Today’s episode is with Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), a nonprofit organization working to promote peace between Israel and Palestine/peaceful future for Palestinians and Israelis.

Expelling Palestinians From Gaza Is Playing With Fire

By Karim Haggag and Omar Auf /

A mass population transfer of Palestinian refugees in Gaza to Egypt would not only entail significant security risks for Egypt, but also make Egypt complicit in Israel’s policy of bringing about a second Nakba

From Gaza to Regional War? – with Abdalhadi Alijla

By Nadeen Shaker /

What is the next step in the Gaza War now that an Israeli drone has killed a Hamas leader in Beirut? A spillover in Lebanon? The entire region? Europe? The United States has a role to play in preventing the war from escalating, but what if it does not intervene? Today’s episode is with Abdalhadi Alijla, Palestinian political scientist and rebel governance expert, who tells us more about the worst-case scenarios of the war on Gaza, and how the war’s objectives are slightly shifting.

Nakba 2.0 – with Sharif ElMusa

By Nadeen Shaker /

For almost all Palestinians, the current war on Gaza strongly evokes the Nakba, when Palestinians were forced to flee their homeland in 1948 following the creation of the state of Israel. As 1.9 million people are currently displaced in Gaza, many believe they are reliving the Nakba in its worst forms. In today’s episode, we hear from Sharif ElMusa, professor emeritus at the American University in Cairo, Palestinian poet, and Nakba survivor.

“We Lost Our Dignity in this War” – with Nour Swirki

By Nadeen Shaker /

Some analysts have called Gaza a “news grave” because of the killing of journalists and their families, and the destruction of media outlets and communication infrastructure. For journalists on the ground in Gaza, the barriers are insurmountable, especially when they are fighting to survive themselves. On today’s episode, we hear from Nour Swirki, one of the few last standing journalists in Gaza about her own story of displacement, and about how she is able to continue doing her job during what she calls “a war against anything Palestinian…against our existence.”

Gaza Conflict Cascading Effects: The Rafah Question

By Maryam El-Prince /

Egypt has described the latest suggestions by members of the Israeli Knesset for a “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians across the world as a “full-fledged war crime”. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry lambasted the idea—endorsed by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—and said that Israel’s “deliberate targeting” of civilians is tantamount to a forced evacuation.
The idea that Palestinians should find somewhere else to call home has resurfaced as Israel’s bombing of Gaza enters its sixth week, » Read more about: Gaza Conflict Cascading Effects: The Rafah Question »

Failures of International Law and Violence in Gaza

By Abigail Flynn /

The recent attacks on Gaza have raised important questions regarding the effectiveness of international law in preventing violence

‘I Just Wish Palestinians Would Disappear’

By Geoffrey Aronson / October 26, 2023

The war being fought today offers the latest evidence that the brutal reality of Palestinian dispossession has changed little in the decades since Israel’s founding

Biden Aims to Contain Violence in Israel/Palestine. His Policy May Be Stoking It Instead

By Shibley Telhami / October 26, 2023

Biden’s recent attempts at deescalation do not challenge or overturn decades of America enabling Israel’s violent occupation of Palestine. Instead, Biden has continued to systematically dismantle any non-violent avenues for Palestinian resistance while strengthening the militant Israeli far right.

Miscalculations and Legacies: A Look Back at the 1973 War Half a Century On

By David Makovsky / Fall 2023

Historians continue to debate “what if” scenarios about the pivotal conflict which reshaped the Middle East

The 1973 October War and the Soviet Union

By Vasily Kuznetsov and Vitaly Naumkin / Fall 2023

The Soviets tried to work out viable policies to deal with the fallout of the October War and Egypt’s pivot to the West

Shifting Tides: Egypt’s Unexpected Path After the 1973 War

By Ali E. Hillal Dessouki / Fall 2023

What prompted Egypt to move from a socialist state to a capitalist one, from Israel’s adversary to its reluctant diplomatic partner, from being a country with a strong national identity to a deeply divided one? The answer is war

Israel and the United States Did Not See the 1973 War Coming

By Zaki Shalom / Fall 2023

Israel’s mistaken pre-war assumptions about the 1973 War caused it to fail to foresee the potential outbreak of a war with Egypt and Syria. What were these calculations based on and why did the United States follow suit?

We Downplayed the Signs of Peace, Then Downplayed the Signs of War

By Yossi Alpher / Fall 2023

The October War came as a shock to the Israeli leadership and security community. Their failure to take Sadat’s peace approaches and the imminent threat of war seriously led to changes to both the regional and domestic Israeli political landscapes

Delivering the Palestinians to Israel: The Lasting Effects of the 1973 War on the Palestinian Question

By Khaled Elgindy / Fall 2023

In the years following the creation of Israel, the United States became the game master of the Arab-Israeli peace process. For Palestinians, this meant that they would not have a seat at the table for decades to come

The 1973 War and its Aftermath: The View from Damascus

By Murhaf Jouejati / Fall 2023

Syrian gains in the conflict were elusive as a unilateral strategic move from the Egyptians put them in jeopardy

What if the October War Had Happened Differently?

By William B. Quandt / Fall 2023

Four “what if’s” that could have changed the course of history

1973—A Global Paradigm Shift

By Nabil Fahmy / Fall 2023

The outcomes of wars are evaluated based on how close any of the warring parties come to reaching their objectives. In the case of Egypt in the October War, it is undeniable that the country fulfilled its objectives

October 6, 1973: The War for Peace

By Firas Al-Atraqchi and Karim Haggag / Fall 2023

Over the years, we have dedicated the pages of the Cairo Review to commemorate historic milestones that have altered the course of events globally and regionally. Few such milestones can compare to the momentous and transformative impact of the 1973 October War on Middle East regional politics, as a major turning point in the Cold War, and as a defining case study in the diplomacy of war and peace.
This month marks fifty years since Egyptian troops broke through the Bar-Lev defensive line on the east banks of the Suez Canal. » Read more about: October 6, 1973: The War for Peace »