“As the country becomes less attractive to foreign investors and workers, Emirati officials and executives may seek out more extractive economic arrangements in places where the UAE has the leverage to drive a hard bargain, particularly in Africa.” - ✍️ @andrewleber.bsky.social

Pew: Across 36 countries polled a median of 67% of all adults have an unfavorable view of Israel

The IDF has been accused of horrific war crimes in Gaza by the UN Human Rights Council & Amnesty International. It is just common sense that those involved in war crimes should be held to account.

Sort of funny how they want to sneak anger over Gaza into this, unfortunately for the Economist anger over Gaza has actually proven to be pervasive across the political spectrum for younger people. And in the US, polling actually suggests it changed older people's opinion of Israel the most.

EU’s statement on lebanon is truly disgraceful, contributing to the foment of civil war, and ignoring the wanton belligerence of israel. really really gross.

Kuwait may join on to the Abraham Accords, argues @miraalhussein.bsky.social, under Iranian attack as it aligns with UAE and sheds what remains of its democratic institutions and strips citizenship from anyone who objects www.972mag.com/abraham-acco...

3 arguments: 1. The Abraham Accords are a forward-defence architecture for Israel, promoted under the guise of peace + economic integration. 2. The Accords did not protect from external aggression, nor from the belligerence of fellow signatories (UAE in Sudan). 3. The UAE will rope in Kuwait.

Rights group PEN America says Douma's 'case embodies part of an escalating crackdown on writers in Egypt'.

Cannot believe we're still treating Axios reports about shouty phone calls between the US president and Netanyahu as anything other than political theatre. People should be embarrassed to share this stuff by now. Should have been seen as disqualifying by 2025, tbh.

Netanyahu & Israel Katz say they will strike #Beirut’s southern suburbs, following major escalation over weekend in south & forced displacement orders for towns around Sidon, ~40 minutes from Beirut. Yet some media continue to call these acts of war a ‘fragile’ ceasefire #lebanon

I wrote a piece looking at why Israel is attacking Nabatieh so relentlessly in south Lebanon www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/...

New @hrw.org report exhaustively details how an Emirati private security company with close ties to the highest levels of the UAE government recruited Colombian mercenaries, trained them at a UAE military base, and deployed them for the siege and capture of El Fasher, Sudan.

They’ll sanction ICC judges and UN rapporteurs, but no visa for you Ben Gvir.

Extremely exciting news. New report out: Enabling Atrocity in the MENA and #Sudan The report documents three large-scale influence networks operating across MENA on X/Twitter, involving 27,000+ inauthentic accounts and over 250,000 posts across multiple languages. www.sc.edu/study/colleg...

Hm, sounds to me as if a case for resuming the war is being made here. The timing of this report comes at a critical moment (once again) in the region: edition.cnn.com/2026/05/21/p...

Take note of how almost nobody in Europe or Israeli society said a word about how Ben Gvir treats Palestinians who are illegally detained in his fascist prisons. As soon as he records himself doing a tenth of this kind of torture to Europeans, everyone is uproar. Good, but maybe expand the outrage.

There.

If Gulf states spoke to Trump at all, a consensus that has Qatar, Saudi and UAE on one side demanding some sort of action would most certainly have them agitating over the nuisance the Hashd of Iraq appears to represent. UAE’s Barakah plant story may have been intended to shift attention to Iraq.

Zeina Khodr: "This used to be a health clinic, a clinic that provides vital medical services to people who remain in southern Lebanon.. what [people] tell you is they believe this is part of a policy, a strategy to depopulate southern Lebanon, to make the area uninhabitable"

Here I am on the Lede - the podcast of New Lines Magazine - discussing my new book The Blood Between Us with Faisal al-Yafai. ://qunfuz.com/2026/05/18/when-is-a-revolution-over/

'Gulf militaries must be retuned for warfighting. For decades, the monarchies have outsourced their security to international partners ... [their forces are] optimized for diplomatic signaling and partnership maintenance rather than the hard demands of regional defense.' @drdavidroberts.bsky.social

NEW: An aid flotilla headed to Gaza has been intercepted by Israel 🚨 The National has been sent pictures of a warship approaching the aid boats Read more as we have it: www.thenational.scot/news/2...

*Hijack Hijack not intercept.

This is entirely warranted and justified. And I really don’t want to see anyone complain this is a result of antisemitic double standards from the ICC, which also issued a warrant for Yahya Sinwar. One legacy of the Shoah is that international law matters. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

At this point, “UAE said” is as good as “Israel said”. Journalists aren’t doing their job to verify. We’re supposed to believe there was a drone attack that didn’t trigger alarms but left surface damage, no injuries, no leaks, because belligerent actors in the region are always careful like that.

UAE official accounts implying Saudi Arabia is behind the alleged drone attack--an attack that hasn't been independently verified. MoFA statement claims said drone entered the UAE from the 'western border'. I'm often inclined to suspect Israel, but this time I don't even think there was an attack.

I have a hard time believing this. No live footage, no eyewitnesses, no satellite image confirmations. Just the government’s claim. And the fact that there’s no sense of alarm or emergency. Not even talks about contingencies, and the need to possibly distribute masks. An excuse to escalate.

In the absence of any other great power willing or able to serve as an ordering hegemon, it is the loss of consistency rather than the disappearance of US power that will have the greatest implications for global order and drive the emergence of alternate approaches to ordering interstate behavior.

Today marks Nakba Day, an annual day of remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed.   Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us.

A. lived in Germany since he was two months and last year gained German citizenship. Now he’s been stripped of it because of pro-Palestinian Instagram posts, in a disturbing legal case that points to the rise of citizenship-on-probation. My latest @jacobinmag.bsky.social jacobin.com/2026/05/germ...

I obliquely refer to 1959 because that was the year that Walid Khalidi (may his soul be resting in peace) published this, decades before the wave of the Israeli New Historians did anything themselves.

Since Nakba Day is tomorrow (US time), I thought it would be a good time to remind people on here that "the Arab states told Palestinians to flee on army radio" is a definitively disproven myth and has been disproven since at least 1959. Even Israeli historians admit it is untrue today.

That the UAE "decided to release images of arrested individuals before they have undergone a fair trial suggests a verdict has already been reached to villainize them and their communities,” said DAWN fellow @miraalhussein.bsky.social, responding to reports of targeted repression of Shiites.

This couldn’t have been leaked against the UAE’s wishes. They’ve repeatedly said that the US-Israeli war on Iran will only strengthen their cooperation with Israel. They’ve been wanting to invite an Israeli military base in the UAE, and now they can do so openly.

The EU just sanctioned violent Israeli settlers and settler groups, but critics call it a “smokescreen” meant to delay imposing sanctions on Israel where it hurts: its longstanding economic relationship with Europe. mondoweiss.net/2026/05/the-... #Palestine #Israel

“The UAE’s efforts to establish itself as a regional player have left war and devastation in its wake, most calamitously in Sudan.. it has been supported in that by the US and UK, not only political allies but financial beneficiaries.” @nesrinemalik.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

FairSquare is holding an online media briefing at 2pm (UK) tomorrow to connect journalists to experts on the civil war in Sudan and the UAE's connections to the Rapid Support Forces accused of genocide. Email [email protected] for registration details.

“papers explore the dynamic political changes across Islamist movements like Ennahda but also with a particular eye on processes and movements which often fall beneath the radar for not (yet) amounting to revolutionary political transformations.” New stuff! abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/political-mo...

Bahraini authorities arrested dozens of Shia clerics in sweeping raids overnight on Saturday amid an intensifying crackdown triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran:

Israel built a military post in another country and it’s not even in the top 100 most fucked up things Israel has done this year

This morning in Lebanon, courtesy of the genocidal Israeli regime (Via Lebanese-French journalist Nada Maucourant Atallah)

Extraordinary visualization of the starvation campaign in Gaza by Liat Kozma and Lee Mordechai (Hebrew U): bearing-witness.com/starvation-s...

They came for the so-called “Muslim Brotherhood”, and I said nothing, because I was not one of them. Then they came for the Shia, and I am saying something, even though I am not a Shia.

Sudan openly lashed out at Ethiopia, accusing the country of allowing Emirati backed RSF forces to use Ethiopian airbases as launching pads for drone strikes. No evidence was provided, but the accusation isn't outlandish & could be accurate. Sudan has hinted that it may retaliate. @aljazeera.com

APNewsAlert: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Arab Emirates says its air defenses are responding to new Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The United Arab Emirates' air defences intercepted several missiles and drones launched from Iran on Monday morning, the country's defence ministry said. ft.trib.al/SvgI7cA

APNewsAlert: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Missile alert sounded in United Arab Emirates for the first time since ceasefire in Iran war.

"For Gulf leaders, the war in Iran is the latest, and perhaps clearest, evidence that their interests do not align with Israel’s. Many of them believe that Israel persuaded Trump to attack Iran...forcing Gulf countries to pay the price of a war they never wanted." @drhahellyer.bsky.social

@alomran.me reports: “As trade routes shift and regional dynamics evolve, Port of NEOM is emerging as a key gateway,” Neom’s social media team posted on X last week. “Strategically positioned on the Red Sea and fully operational, the port is already enabling faster, more connected trade.”

@zackpolanski.bsky.social : "Antisemitism and Jewish safety is not some abstract concept for me. In fact, in the last 6 weeks alone 2 people have been arrested in relation to antisemitic actions towards me and yesterday the Times newspaper published a vile antisemitic cartoon.."