The Takeaway: Would Hamas complicate US plans for reset with Palestinians? Also: the back story on the spat between Israel and Jordan; Gulf post-COVID economic trends; Turkey’s Kurds; Egypt and Somalia; and more! Originals
Egypt sentences activist Sanaa Seif to 18 months in prison Seif, who had been in pretrial detention since June, was convicted Wednesday of spreading false news and misusing social media. Egypt
Ukraine rejects Iran's final report on downed passenger plane The Iranian government said last year's shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was the result of a human error. Iran
Palestinians receive first batch of vaccines through COVAX More than 60,000 doses of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived in Ramallah on Wednesday. Palestine
Congress forces Trump to restore Palestinian aid Congress has a plan to restore some of the Palestinian aid that President Donald Trump eliminated. Palestine
Intel: Pentagon refuses to put timeline on Syria mission Defense Secretary Mark Esper refused to put a timeline on the Pentagon’s scaled-down mission to defeat the Islamic State and guard Syrian oil fields at the agency’s last press briefing of the year. Syria
UAE insists it’s not lobbying for sanctions against Turkey after all Lobbyists for the UAE embassy in Washington have clarified their talking points to Congress. United Arab Emirates
Turkey’s Libya gambit raises stakes in eastern Mediterranean Turkey’s military commitments to Libya’s Tripoli-based government have escalated the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey
Potential oil spill disaster looms off Yemen's coast, but who’s to blame? Calls are rising to separate the politics of the military conflict in Yemen from the issue of an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea, in light of a looming ecological disaster that could affect the entire region. Saudi Arabia
Tunisia's Ennahda vacillating over leader's future in the party Ennahda is slated to elect a new leader in May, but some members want the vote moved forward in light of the movement's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, now also serving as speaker of parliament, but others appear to want bylaws to be changed to allow him to remain as movement head. Tunisia
Potential consensus candidate helps Hamas, Fatah communicate The name of Nasser al-Din al-Shaer, former deputy prime minister in the government of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been coming up as a potential consensus candidate in the Palestinian elections, given that he is close to both Hamas and Fatah. Palestine
Arab parties stand to gain from political chaos in Israel The Arab Joint List seeks to boost its number of seats in the Israeli Knesset in the March election by increasing turnout in the Arab community, with the ultimate goal of dealing a fatal blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, preventing him from forming a government. Palestine
Inside the US-Iran prisoner swap, and what comes next Can Washington and Tehran build on the success of the Swiss facilitated exchange? United States
Will Supreme Court force Netanyahu to 'go do other things'? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the criminal indictments against him shouldn't disqualify him from being eligible to form a government, but he was singing a different tune when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert merely faced the prospect of indictment. Israel
Iran condemns UN human rights resolution Iran has rejected a UN General Assembly resolution calling on it to stop abusing human rights, arguing that it is based on double standards. Iran
Facing US sanctions, credit-fueled Turkish economy heads toward turbulence Through measures to free up capital flows, Turkey’s economy weathered the 2018 currency crisis, but analysts remain uncertain the nation’s markets can absorb more shocks as US sanctions loom. Turkey
