The Takeaway: Would Hamas complicate US plans for reset with Palestinians? Also: the back story on the spat between Israel and Jordan; Gulf post-COVID economic trends; Turkey’s Kurds; Egypt and Somalia; and more! Originals
Egypt sentences activist Sanaa Seif to 18 months in prison Seif, who had been in pretrial detention since June, was convicted Wednesday of spreading false news and misusing social media. Egypt
Ukraine rejects Iran's final report on downed passenger plane The Iranian government said last year's shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was the result of a human error. Iran
Palestinians receive first batch of vaccines through COVAX More than 60,000 doses of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived in Ramallah on Wednesday. Palestine
Islamic Jihad to Run In Palestinian Elections Islamic Jihad's leader in Gaza, Khader Habib, confirms to Abeer Ayyoub that his faction intends to run for the first time in Palestinian National Council elections. Palestine
Egypt and the Rewriting of Mubarak Egypt's political and economic crises under President Mohammed Morsi have led some Egyptians to reconsider the Hosni Mubarak era, writes Bassem Sabry. Egypt
Self-Immolation Reminds Tunisians Of Dashed Hopes The Tunisian uprising, which started as a social revolution with a call for dignity and bread, has shifted to include not only economic grievances but a battle for the role of religion in the country, writes Fernande van Tets from Tunis. Culture & Society
Kirkuk Still Divides Arabs, Kurds in Iraq Despite the passage of more than 43 years since an autonomy agreement was signed between Iraq’s central government and the Kurds, tensions persist between Baghdad and Erbil, writes Abdel Hamid Zebari. Iraq
Bilingual School Teaches Lesson in Coexistence A bilingual school for Jewish and Arab children is showing promising results for tolerance even as random aggression toward Arabs has increased in Israel in the last three months without reaction from the government, writes Akiva Eldar. Israel
Salafist Factions on Rise At Palestinian Camp in Lebanon The historically contentious Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in southern Lebanon has been shaken up by the the surge in the proliferation of hard-line Islamism in the region, Nasser Chararah reports. Lebanon
Exclusive: Gaza Salafists Take Fight to Syria Asmaa al-Ghoul reports from Gaza on claims that Palestinian jihadist Salafist militants are fighting on the side of Jabhat al-Nusra in the Syrian civil war. Palestine
Iran and Egypt Chart New Course in Relationship Stronger ties between Iran and Egypt will improve regional stability, Kayhan Barzegar writes. Originals
Knesset Members Spend Big On 'Contact With the Electorate' Knesset Members spend unnecessarily large sums of money in the context of ''sustaining contact with the electorate," writes Idan Grinbaum. Israel
Baghdad's Residents Fear Renewed Civil War With the Sunnis in Anbar and Mosul demonstrating against what they call the Iraqi government’s sectarianism, Baghdad residents fear that their mixed city may once again become the main arena for civil war, writes Mushreq Abbas. Iraq
US Locked Into the Middle East While events will not allow the United States to pivot from the Middle East to Asia, the US still needs a coherent strategy for the region, writes Jean-Loup Samaan. Israel
