Diplomacy and International Politics

The Middle East Initiative is pleased to announce that Dr. Omar Razzaz, former Prime Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, will serve as a non-resident Emirates Leadership Initiative Senior Fellow during the Spring and Fall 2022 semesters at Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative (MEI).

In this white paper, authors Melani Cammett and Evan Lieberman try to shed light on what social solidarity is, how it might affect attitudinal and behavioral change; and given its desirable properties, what strategies impede and which facilitate the building of solidarity, particularly given the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hong Kong is unique. While the writer Han Suyin’s description—“a borrowed place, on borrowed time” —seemed redundant upon the return of the territory to China on July 1, 1997, the former British colony appears to be perpetually exposed to uncertainty over its future. Despite long months of sociopolitical crisis and violence, Hong Kong has once again shown that it has lost none of its personality. Amidst the climate of upheaval and faced with a Chinese regime determined to obstruct any hopes of democracy, the people of Hong Kong have managed to attract international and media attention, marking them out from any other Chinese territory—including those that enjoy special status: Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Macao, and even Xinjiang, where nearly a million people from the minority Uyghur ethnic group are confined to “re-education” camps. No other Chinese region has been able to attract such attention.

Egypt's only democratically elected president died on Monday while attending a court session in Cairo.

Understanding the ongoing conflict in the middle east is complicated. Differences in ideologies have resulted in wars and impact the entire world.  Rami Khouri is a journalist who has spent 50-years working in the middle east.  Burns Hargis sat down with Khouri to get his perspective on the conflicts in that region.

Love. Music. Freedom. These are the universal themes at the heart of “We Live in Cairo,” a new musical by Daniel and Patrick Lazour, which is having its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater. Set during the January 25 Revolution, the 2011 uprising in Egypt, the work, under the music direction of Madeline Smith and music supervision of Michael Starobin, celebrates the hope and exuberance of the uprising, even as it acknowledges the turmoil that has followed.

Audio recording of a May 1, seminar with Hugh Roberts, Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History, Tufts University.

Audio recording of an April 29, seminar with Dr. Randa S. Hamadeh, Director, Primary Healthcare and Social Health department, Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon.

Co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Audio recording of an April 9, seminar with Ambassador Husam S. Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom; Strategic Affairs Advisor to the President of the Palestinian National Authority and State of Palestine.

Co-sponsored by the CMES/WCFIA Middle East Seminar and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Audio recording of a March 1, 2019 seminar with Lama Mourad, Research Fellow, Middle East Initiative and Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.