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January 2021

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Robert Malley (Photo: International Crisis Group)

President Biden’s commitment to re-entering the Iran nuclear deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA—is already facing backlash from a motley crew of warhawks both domestic and foreign. Right now, opponents of re-entering the deal are centering their vitriol on one of the nation’s foremost experts on both the Middle East and diplomacy: Robert Malley, who Biden might tap to be the next Iran envoy.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hands over the election decree to the head of the Central Election Commission Nasser Hanna, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on January 15, 2021. (Photo: Thaer Ganaim/APA Images)

On January 15th Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held this spring and summer, 15 years after he was first elected for what was supposed to be a four-year term. Yumna Patel talks to Palestinians about their thoughts on the vote and many share the same concern — will they be a true chance to make their voices heard, or is it just another facade of democracy on part of the PA?

Yuli Edelstein

Andrew Marr of the BBC grilled Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein about why Israel is not extending its vaccination program to the Palestinian people in territories it occupies, and Edelstein said Israel has no more obligation to them than the Palestinian minister of health has to “take care of dolphins in the Mediterranean.” Yes, you heard that right.

Historian Jerome Slater reinterprets the Cold War in the Middle East: “It’s an easy case to make that it was the United States, specifically Nixon and Kissinger… who sabotaged Soviet inititatives that I think were very fair for a two state settlement guaranteed by the super powers.” The Soviets wouldn’t have been in the Middle East if the U.S. hadn’t supported Israel so vigorously, which left Arab states no choice but to align with the Soviet pole. But the Soviets pushed peace in an effort to thwart a global conflict.