AboutArticles by Michael Jansen

The stakes for Mahmoud Abbas in Palestinian polls

14 Feb 2021

By scheduling elections for this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seeks to recover democratic legitimacy with disaffected Palestinians and impress the Biden administration in the hope Washington will seriously pursue...

Covid takes another hero

11 Feb 2021

Covid-19 is no respecter of persons. It infects rich and poor alike and kills persons who have both harmed and benefitted countries where they dwell. Last week the virus struck...

Trump may not be convicted of impeachment

07 Feb 2021

Donald Trump's impeachment trial formally opens in the divided US Senate tomorrow with little expectation he will be convicted. He faces the sole charge of "incitement of insurrection" which led...

Protesting for revolution

05 Feb 2021

Tunisia, the only democracy to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and Lebanon, a quasi-democracy where a political revolt was launched in October 2019, now face economic protests driven...

A good choice for the Iran deal negotiations

02 Feb 2021

Peacemakers have won the first skirmish in the Biden administration’s battle to re-enter the six-party 2015 deal with Iran for sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its nuclear programme....

A good start

29 Jan 2021

During his first days in office, US President Joe Biden has signed dozens of executive orders cancelling his predecessor’s most damaging decrees, including the ban on the entry of Muslims...

Biden must make crushing Daesh a top priority

24 Jan 2021

To stabilise the Greater Middle East the Biden administration will have to rein in the rise of Daesh in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Although President...

New beginnings

21 Jan 2021

Security arrangements for President Joe Biden’s inauguration mirrored the swearing in ceremonies of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, when the US was on the brink of civil war, and 1865,...

Grievances, gullibility and guns — a lethal mix

17 Jan 2021

The mob that mounted the January 6th assault on the Capitol, the home of the US legislature, was powered by three “gs,” grievance, gullibility and guns. Grievance begins with...

A big disgrace

14 Jan 2021

Defeated and humiliated as a “loser” Donald Trump has learned nothing from the Jan.6 invasion of the Capitol, home of the US legislature, by his rowdy supporters and has called...

Michael Jansen

The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.