Newsletter Archive
Below are all the Arab Digest newsletters going back to 17 June 2013
![Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets Russian President Vladimir Putin before a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 6, 2023. [photo credit: Sputnik/Kremlin]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Putin-MBS-300x200.jpg)
Quick trip, big message
Summary: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin surprised observers with a quick trip this week to meet with the UAE’s MbZ and the Saudi Crown Prince MbS. The warm and effusive welcomes that greeted him in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh bode ill for the Biden presidency.
![On Wednesday Hezbollah announced four attacks on bases in northern Israel [photo credit: IRNA]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lebanon-Hezbollah-300x173.jpg)
Lebanon in the shadow of the Gaza war
Summary: with a caretaker government and a wrecked economy Lebanon can ill-afford another war between Hezbollah and the IDF but as the Israelis pursue their destruction of Gaza the risk continues to rise.
Winning the battle, losing the war
Summary: Israel has said it will win its war in Gaza and destroy Hamas; Tarek Megerisi dissects the three brutal scenarios by which Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu could claim a ‘win’.
![A satellite photo dated November 17, 2023, shows a crowd gathered on the Salah al Deen road, which is used as a population evacuation corridor in the southern Gaza Strip [photo credit: Maxar Technologies]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Maxar-Gaza-300x175.jpg)
The fracturing of the Sisi / Bibi love affair
Summary: Israel’s aim of destroying Hamas is unlikely to be realised yet in the drive to do so Benjamin Netanyahu seems ready to accept heavy damage to relations with Egypt and other Arab states.
The UAE has a bad news week
Summary: the UAE as it opens COP28 in Dubai finds itself entangled in a number of controversies from pursuing oil and gas deals under cover of the climate summit to AI dealings with China and a bid to buy The Telegraph that has stirred up a hornets nest of angry Tories.
![An Israeli infantry soldiers take part in a live firing exercise near the border in readiness for possible deployment across the border into Gaza on November 20, 2023 in Southern Israel [photo credit: @ahnouch_hassana]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Peace-in-the-Middle-East-300x200.jpg)
Peace in the Middle East: a suggestion
Summary: a Jewish Canadian who has written plays about the Israel/Palestine conflict offers insights and calls for international intervention as neither side is capable of finding a road to the fair and equitable peace that the majority on both sides yearn for.
Controversy at COP28
Summary: the UAE has just slipped on a banana peel as COP28 is about to get underway in Dubai, raising more questions about the suitability of ADNOC’s Sultan al-Jaber as the climate conference president-designate.
COP28: UAE Statecraft and Climate Diplomacy
Summary: the UAE is using clever statecraft and COP28 to position itself as the champion of climate action for the Global South while further enhancing its international political clout.
![111 Palestinians are buried in a mass grave in Khan Yunis, November 22 [photo credit: Andalou Agency]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Israel-genocide-300x262.jpg)
The Genocide Debate
Summary: those who call what the IDF is doing in Gaza a genocide are accused by supporters of the Israeli war effort of being anti-Semites and that charge can be enough to stifle legitimate criticism.
![The raid on Israel by the Palestinian resistance on October 7 has created an unprecedented opportunity for a change in the balance of power not just in the Palestinian struggle but against dictators across the Arab world [photo credit: Saray Al Quds]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Hamas-Saraya-Al-Quds-300x160.jpg)
How Israel could lose
Summary: Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is estranging itself from its international partners and turning it into an international pariah creating an unprecedented opportunity for a change in the balance of power not just in the Palestinian struggle but against dictators across the Arab world.
![Hamas' shock 7 October military offensive abruptly put an end to the dynamic of de-escalation and avoidance of conflict [photo credit: @Aldanmarki]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Hamas-and-resistance-300x199.jpg)
Gaza and the Regional Order: Back to the Drawing Board… Again
Summary: as the Gaza wars rages on a lesson that should be remembered is that after a decade of upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa states in the region used diplomacy, not military action, to ease tensions and achieve a stable regional order.
![Growth in non-OPEC+ production is currently on track to see global output outpacing demand through 2024 [photo credit: OPEC]](https://arabdigest.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Oil-lower-for-longer2-1-300x163.jpg)
Oil: lower for longer?
Summary: although OPEC+ will almost certainly extend existing cuts at its 26 November meeting and might agree modest additional trimming, growth in non-OPEC+ production is currently on track to see global output outpacing demand through 2024.
