SUSTG.com / Research

Discover stories, topics, and more about Saudi Arebia faster.

Recent stories from sustg

MUST-READS

  • U.S. Census changes how it identifies people by race and ethnicity, creates Middle Eastern category for first time

    For the first time in 27 years, the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity, an effort that federal officials believe will more accurately count residents who identify as Hispanic and of Middle Eastern and North African heritage. The revisions to the minimum categories on race and ethnicity, announced Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget, are the latest effort to label and define the people of the United States. This evolving process often reflects changes in social attitudes and immigration, as well as a wish for people in an increasingly diverse society to see themselves in the numbers produced by the federal government.

  • Gaza hostage talks deadlock and spark U.S.-Israel blame game

    U.S. officials, together with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, pushed hard in recent days for a deal, stressing it is the only way to reach a six-week ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed.

  • Majority in U.S. Now Disapprove of Israeli Action in Gaza

    After narrowly backing Israel’s military action in Gaza in November, Americans now oppose the campaign by a solid margin. Fifty-five percent currently disapprove of Israel’s actions, while 36% approve.

  • U.S. to review Israeli assurances it is not violating international law

    The department now has until early May to formally assess whether those assurances are “credible and reliable” and report to Congress under a national security memorandum issued by President Biden in February. If Israel’s pledges are found wanting, Biden has the option at any point of suspending any further U.S. arms transfers.

  • Dana Stroul: The U.S. Defense Strategy in the Middle East

    What senior leaders articulated in early 2021 and throughout 2022 is that the United States remained invested and committed to this part of the world, but it was going to do it in different ways. So, it was going to focus on diplomacy, not military solutions.

  • Why Chuck Schumer’s Break With Netanyahu Seems Like a Turning Point in the U.S. Relationship With Israel

    In a speech delivered Thursday on the Senate floor, Schumer declared that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremism, especially in his refusal to tone down the bombing of Gaza in the war with Hamas, is turning the Jewish state into a “pariah” nation. The speech set off political earthquakes in both capitals—the Israeli newspaper Haaretz called it a “watershed moment” in relations between the two countries—noting that Schumer is not only the Senate majority leader but also a longtime stalwart supporter of Israel and “the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history.”

  • U.S. presses for Gaza truce amid reports talks deadlocked

    Hopes for reaching a six week Gaza truce and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas seemed uncertain on Wednesday, though the United States said it did not think a deal was out of reach and would continue to work for one. “We continue to believe that the obstacles are not insurmountable and that a deal can be reached, and a deal is in the interest of Israel, it’s in the interest of the Palestinian people, and it’s in the interest of the broader region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists at the department press briefing Wednesday (March 6).

  • Commentary: Why the U.S. and Saudis Want a Two-State Solution, and Israel Doesn’t

    Amid the war in Gaza, a major crisis has been brewing, largely behind the scenes, between the United States and Israel over the need for a Palestinian state. The two governments’ positions have long diverged—except during the administration of Donald Trump, whose peace proposal envisaged Israel annexing an additional 30 percent of the occupied West Bank and enveloping a conditional Palestinian state in an even more empowered Greater Israel. Now that divergence has a harder, sharper edge than ever: Washington’s strategic goals in the region require a Palestinian state in the long run and Israeli acknowledgment of that aim in the short run; the Israeli government is having none of it.

  • Israel-Hamas war live updates: U.S. pushes for temporary Gaza cease-fire at U.N. Security Council

    The U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza. Algeria introduced the resolution in the hopes of showing how broad the support for a cease-fire is. The U.S. has circulated an alternative draft resolution, which instead calls for a temporary pause in the fighting as part of hostage negotiations and opposes any ground operation in Rafah.

  • Iran’s Rise as Global Arms Supplier Vexes U.S. and Its Allies

    Iran’s arms industry is growing rapidly, turning the country into a large-scale exporter of low-cost, high-tech weapons whose clients are vexing the U.S. and its partners in the Middle East, Ukraine and beyond. The transformation of the industry, accelerated by Russia’s 2022 purchase of thousands of drones that altered the battlefield in Ukraine, has helped Tehran scale up its support of militia allies in Middle East conflicts that have intensified alongside Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. One of Iran’s top arms exports, a Shahed suicide drone, designed to carry explosives and crash into its target, was used to kill three American servicemembers in Jordan in an attack by an Iraqi militia group on Jan. 28, U.S. officials said.