Author: Muhittin Ataman
A three-phase cease-fire was reached between Hamas and Israel last weekend, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The first phase began last Sunday when Israel released 90 Palestinians from prison in response to Hamas’ release of three Israelis. The Israeli forces ceased their genocidal attacks on the Gaza Strip and the Gazan people breathed a sigh of relief, at least temporarily. Israel promised to allow the entrance of 600 aid trucks daily and to reopen Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt on the seventh day of the agreement and at the last phase, to withdraw its forces from Gaza.…
The year 2024 has been recorded as one of the most brutal years for the Palestinian people and the Middle East. Israel insistently continued its genocide in Gaza and its expansionist and aggressive policies toward other regional states. Furthermore, it continued to recklessly violate the basic principles of international law and human rights. It seems that the year 2025 will not bring any change for the Palestinian people. Their destruction and resistance will continue. Israel has been targeting the Gaza Strip for more than 450 days. It has been killing about a hundred innocent Palestinians on a daily basis. However,…
The year 2024 has been recorded as one of the most critical years of modern times for the Middle Eastern region. It was full of conflicts, wars, humanitarian and economic crises, political devastation, mass killings and even genocide. The regional political developments were largely under the influence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its expansionist and aggressive policies toward other regional states. In other words, other developments were derivatives of Israel’s aggressive and expansionist policies. In this article, I will highlight the three most significant developments in the Middle East in 2024. The most crucial event in the Middle East…
The collapse of the 61-year-long Baath regime initiated a new political process for the Syrian state. The Syrian opposition led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew Bashar Assad’s regime on Dec. 8 when they took control of the capital city of Damascus. The opposition took over the administration from the Assad-era prime minister. There are many discussions going on about the future of the state. At the same time, some claim that the despotic regime is over and a bright future awaits the Syrian people. Some others have concerns about the future of the state since there are different…
The Baath regime in Syria has ended after a 13-year revolution. After the Syrian opposition forces captured the capital city of Damascus on Dec. 8, Bashar Assad, together with his family, left the country and went to Russia, one of its main supporters. The latest development is a great success for the revolutionary Syrian people, who the regime had oppressed for 61 years. I am quite optimistic about the future of the Syrian state since the Syrian people have a long tradition of peaceful coexistence. Today, I will briefly underline that culture’s history and the Syrian people’s anti-imperialism. The Syrian…
The Middle Eastern developments continue to set the agenda of international politics. The Al-Aqsa Flood has become a turning point for the whole region. The ongoing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people and the Israeli aggression against the sovereignty of regional countries, directly and indirectly, influence all regional dynamics. Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian proxies in Syria have dramatically changed the Syrian context as well. As a result of the shifted regional balance of power, the opposition forces, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA), initiated a military operation against…
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited various countries on different continents in the last month to attend the summits of six regional and global international organizations. Erdoğan attended the BRICS summit in Russia, the 11th summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Kyrgyzstan, the European Political Community (ECC) Summit in Hungary, the Extraordinary Joint Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League in Saudi Arabia, the World Leaders Climate Summit of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Azerbaijan…
Last week, I discussed the likely and expected direction of American foreign policy during the second Donald Trump term. I compared Trump’s foreign policy with that of the Bush administration, analyzing three key factors that shaped American foreign policy in the first decade of the 21st century. I also explored how these factors may shape United States foreign policy under the next administration. Today, I will examine the remaining three factors that will shape the American foreign policy orientation. Imperialism The first factor is the imperialist policies of the U.S., which the colonial European powers have followed for centuries. The…
The United States has been putting pressure on the Arab states in the Middle East to take adequate measures against anti-Israeli forces, especially Iran and its regional proxies, namely Hezbollah, Ansarullah and Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq. Similar to its stance in the Ukrainian-Russian war, the U.S. government has been representing the most hawkish position toward the current crisis in the Middle East. While the U.S. government has been providing unconditional military, political, diplomatic and economic support to the Israeli government, it has been discouraging and deterring any country that attempts to take anti-Israeli position. Within this context, it has been…