Slide 1

The 26th Knesset elections, scheduled for 27 October 2026, is taking place at a time unlike any previous election cycle. They are the first general election since 7 October 2023 and the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and the spread of the conflict to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. They also follow the rift caused by the…

Against the backdrop of changes in European Israeli relations and the escalation of Israeli policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip particularly the use of settlement expansion as a means of undermining the two state solution, eliminating the practical possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and advancing displacement eleven European countries,…

The Yemeni arena is witnessing a highly dangerous military and security transformation, as the Houthis advance along the western coast and take control of sites and areas of strategic importance. Discussion of the city of Mokha, expansion toward Bab al-Mandab, and access to the archipelago, Mayyun Island, and adjacent coastal areas means that current developments go beyond a change in…

A policy paper published by the Politics and Society Institute has called for the adoption of a unified national strategy to transform Jordan from a transit corridor for goods into an integrated regional hub for trade, logistics, manufacturing, and re-export. The paper stresses that capitalizing on shifts in regional trade requires linking the movement of goods to productive activities that…

Introduction The Syrian-Israeli meeting held in Amman on August 23, 2026, under Jordanian auspices and with US mediation, brought the prospect of a security agreement between the two sides back to the forefront. The meeting followed Israel’s strike on Abu al-Duhur airbase and came against the backdrop of understandings announced in Paris earlier in the year that had produced neither…

What is happening today in the West Bank and Jerusalem may appear to be simply an escalation of the familiar policies pursued by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government: expanding settlements, undermining the Palestinian presence, altering realities in Jerusalem, and using legislative, administrative, security and political tools to impose new facts on the ground. Yet such a reading risks overlooking a more consequential…

It is the practices of a party, i.e. how it is organized and how it campaigns in the first rounds of elections that in the end outlast the founders of a party. Thus for a country llike Jordan, parties experiment still formative, and reforming institutions is more important than anything else. The Royal Committee to Modernise the Political System was…

This paper was prepared based on a dialogue session convened by the Politics and Society Institute with journalist and U.S. affairs expert Imad Al-Rawashdeh, with the participation of a group of researchers, politicians, and journalists, to discuss the U.S. elections and their regional implications. Introduction The ongoing transformations in American politics reveal a landscape far more complex than the traditional…

Executive Summary This paper argues that, after 2026, Jordanian foreign policy entered a phase that requires a shift from managing balances to managing Jordan’s own position within the regional conflict system. Over the past decade, Amman succeeded in preserving stability, defending its red lines on Palestine and Jerusalem, and consolidating security and economic partnerships that gave the state a high…

On Thursday evening, August 6, 2026, the city of Jaramana in the Damascus countryside witnessed an improvised explosive device (IED) blast inside a public minibus operating on a local transit route near Al-Rawda intersection in the city center. Casualties reported during the initial hours varied; while preliminary reports indicated two fatalities and 13 injuries, the Directorate of Health in the…