Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Mustafa Fetouri
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How to prevent Israel’s Arab friends from becoming its lobby in Algeria-hosted Arab Summit?
Re-emerging Algeria badly needs to host a major event like the summit of the League of Arab States (LAS) which is due to convene in the capital, Algiers, on 1 – 2 November. The country has been through almost three years of social disturbances that forced the former president...
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Why the Turkish-Libyan MOU has enraged Libyans and regional countries
On Monday, 3 October, Tripoli received a large, high-level Turkish delegation headed by Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and included Turkiye’s Energy, Defence and Trade ministers. In a news conference following the talks, it was announced that both sides have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on hydrocarbon between the...
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Why NOPEC is not a good idea to tackle the global energy crisis
You have probably heard of OPEC: Oil Producing and Exporting Countries. Nowadays, the news headlines are much about OPEC+, which includes OPEC members plus Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan and Sudan. These countries are not OPEC members but they are oil exporting countries playing...
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Many Libyans are enraged by HMS Albion’s visit to their country
The British warship HMS Albion docked in Libya’s Abu Sitta port on 28 September, just east of the capital Tripoli, for a routine courtesy visit. This is quite common between armed forces all over the world. However, the visit turned into a public relations disaster for the Government of...
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Israel exploits the Algerian-Moroccan rift to push them further apart
Since former President Donald Trump launched his Abraham Accords initiative to help Israel normalise ties with its Arab neighbours, the Apartheid State of Israel has been making gains and exploiting that initiative as much as it can. Lately, Israel is projecting itself as a military regional superpower, offering its...
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Qatar opens up to Libya’s eastern camp after years of animosity
The Speaker of Libya’s House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, visited Qatar on 10 September where he spoke with officials before meeting Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani. Saleh’s visit came two days after Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh left Doha, which suggests that the Gulf State is seeking to...
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How Sameh Shoukry created a storm in his own teacup
The Egyptian delegation, headed by Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, withdrew from the 158 meeting of the League of Arab States’ (LAS) ministerial meeting on 6 September, a rare Egyptian diplomatic step. The LAS meeting was chaired by Libya’s Foreign Minister, Najla Al-Mangoush, as her country assumed the position from...
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Is Africa witnessing a new cold war as the Ukraine conflict drags on?
One of the unintended consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now entering its seven months, is the emergence of new axes and allies rallying behind each other in a way reminiscent of the cold war days. Most world countries have condemned what Moscow calls “Special Operation” in Ukraine,...
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Who fought who in Tripoli last week, and why
Calm has returned to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, after two days of violent clashes between two militia groups that left 32 dead and 159 injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Tripoli. Most casualties were civilians, as the heaviest fighting took place in densely populated parts of the...
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Remembering Bloody August of 2011
On the night of 4 August, 2011, Mustafa Naji Al-Morabit, his mother Fatima ‘Omar Mansur, wife, Ibtisam, and three children: Mo’taz three, Mohamed six and Naji nine years old, were all asleep in Mustafa’s house in the Western part of Zlitin, a coastal city some 180 km east of...
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Is Kais Saied a popular dictator or a misunderstood reformist?
It is not unusual for presidents in the third world to write their own constitutions, once in power. They commonly do so to extend their presidency or make way for their preferred successors to take over after they are gone. How do they do it? Simple – once in...
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‘Libyan leaders love to court external actors, but blame them for mostly Libyan failures,’ says UN advisor
Stephanie Williams left her position on the last day of July, eight months after being appointed as the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Libya. In her final statement in the role she said that her top priority was to “listen to the millions of Libyans who registered to...
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Libya is a game of guns and militias with no end in sight
This week is the eleventh anniversary of the date that Libyan rebels armed, trained and supplied by Western countries entered the capital Tripoli under NATO air cover. The fall of Tripoli was a turning point in the conflict which ended with the murder of the late Libyan leader Muammar...
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Social taboos, outdated laws and a paralysed Judiciary continue to fail Libyan women
According to a statement published on 13 July by Ministry of State for Women Affairs in Libya, seven women in seven different parts of the country were murdered between 4 July and 8 July. The victims, ranging in age from early twenties to late forties, have been killed as...
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Biden’s Middle East visit: a failed lobbying trip for Israel, not the United States
Even before landing in Israel, the first leg of his Middle East tour, President Joe Biden was already preoccupied with three issues: integrating Israel into the wider region, rallying as many countries as possible against Iran and persuading the Saudis to pump more oil into the market to ease...
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Why would Arabs want democracy if it means unemployment, poverty, insecurity and corruption?
A recent study by Princeton University’s Arab Barometer network finds that the majority of Arabs believe democracy, as a system of government, has failed to meet their expectations, leading many to think it is not the right formula for their social ills. The study, in which 23,000 individuals across...
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Is Iraq’s notorious ‘oil for food program’ to be repeated in Libya?
The United States Ambassador to Tripoli, Richard Norland, who is also his country’s Envoy to Libya, has been openly pushing forward a plan to deny the Libyan State the freedom of using the oil revenues in accordance with Libyan sovereignty over its resource. Oil makes roughly 98 per cent...
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Algeria at 60: reflecting on history is good, but looking forward is better
This 5 July marks 60 years since Algeria got its independence from France, after an occupation that lasted over 13 decades, from 1830 until 1962, only to end with the French being defeated in a brutal liberation battle. When the Evian Accords were signed on 18 March 1962, in...
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Why do Libyans keep failing to settle their differences?
In a statement issued in the earlier hours of 20 June, Stephanie Williams, the United Nations Special Advisor on Libya, drew the curtain on the Cairo talks between Libyan rivals as they failed to reach an agreement on the constitutional framework for any future elections. The statement said “differences...
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Why do Arab ‘normalisers’ never seek their people’s approval of ties with Israel?
What is behind the sudden rush by four Arab states to normalise relations with Israel after decades of animosity, and what do countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan hope to achieve from embracing the Zionist state? Indeed, what are Israel’s immediate and long-term objectives in...
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The PLO at 58 and the ANC at 110: how they evolved and where do they stand today?
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is 58 years old this June, while the African National Congress (ANC) celebrated its 110th birthday last January. They are two of the longest liberation movements so far. They are as comparable as apartheid South Africa is comparable to its once close friend, Israel—who...
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Is Kais Saied’s incremental power grab failing to impress Tunisians?
President Kais Saied of Tunisia is still going, sometimes with an apparent strength, despite all the rejections and disdain he has received lately from different political quarters inside the country. His planned next step is to have Tunisians go to the polls for a referendum on a new constitution....
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Your Majesty: Say sorry to mark your Platinum Jubilee and help end that poisonous history
The British Empire once ruled over a quarter of the world’s population, from North America to India and from interior Africa to the Middle East. This June, the UK is lavishly celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years since she ascended the throne in 1952, after her...
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Libya in the prism of US’s Global Fragility Act
In the shadows of the war in Ukraine the Biden-Harris administration has released what amounts to a policy – but less than a detailed strategy – paper aimed at interrupting “potential pathways to conflict” around the world to keep such conflicts and their consequences from reaching the United States’...