OPEC+ Holds November Oil Targets: What It Means for Supply and Prices
Despite ongoing market volatility and efforts to recover supply, the major oil producers are taking a cautious stance, impacting global energy markets and regional trade.
Ahmed Balaha
Ahmed Balaha is the founder and editor of Middle East Window, where he covers the economies, markets and energy sector of the Arab world. He has written about crypto and digital-asset markets for Cryptonews.com, 99Bitcoins, BingX News and ICObench, with his analysis syndicated on Yahoo Finance. He also founded IQWealth (iraqsm.com), a platform for Iraq's stock market, currency and gold data.
67 articles
Brent Oil Hits $105: What Stalled Iran Talks and Hormuz Disruptions Mean for Your Business
Global oil markets are reacting to ongoing geopolitical tensions and reduced Gulf supply, pushing prices upwards. The UAE is investing in critical infrastructure to safeguard its exports.
UAE and India Target $200 Billion Trade: What It Means for Your Business
The two nations are boosting investment and promoting local currency trade, aiming for a significant increase in total commerce by 2032.
Egypt Targets 5.4% Growth, Attracts $15.5bn FDI: What it Means for Your Money
Egypt is aiming for solid economic expansion and attracting significant investment, but a depreciating currency could impact your purchasing power and business costs.
Middle East Oil Prices Top $100: What Strait of Hormuz Risks Mean for You
The ongoing Iran conflict has severely impacted global oil supply through the vital Strait of Hormuz, pushing prices significantly above pre-war levels.
Sami Hadawi: The Scholar Who Couldn't Go Home
The Jerusalem-born land expert who spent a century documenting Palestinian property, and most of it in exile, left behind records that historians and negotiators still rely on.
Christianity in the Gulf
Millions of Christians live and worship in the Gulf states, most of them migrant workers. Their churches sit on top of a far older Christian history in eastern Arabia.
A Just Israeli-Palestinian Peace: Jeff Halper's Integrated Strategy
The founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions argued that occupation is a system, and that only a strategy aimed at the whole system could end it. His thinking has travelled a long way since.
The One-State Solution: A Democratic State in Israel and Palestine?
Once a fringe idea, the call for a single democratic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean now features in mainstream debate. Where did it come from, and what are its critics' objections?
Alhurra and the Limits of America's Arabic-Language Broadcasting
Washington spent two decades and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win Arab audiences with a satellite channel. The story of Alhurra says a lot about how public diplomacy works, and how it doesn't.
March 14: How Lebanon's Cedar Revolution Ended Syria's Occupation
A month after Rafik Hariri's assassination, perhaps a million Lebanese filled central Beirut. It was the largest demonstration in the country's history, and within weeks Syrian troops were gone.
Divided at Home: How Israelis Saw the Iraq War
The idea that Israel pushed America into Iraq was popular on both the left and the right. The record at home was messier: Israeli opinion was split, and the government's calculations were more cautious than the neoconservative project.
Bahrain Unrest Brings Economy to a Standstill
The 2011 uprising hit Bahrain's banks, tourism and credit rating at once. More than a decade later, the island is still paying for the crisis in debt and dependence on its Gulf neighbours.
Samia Nasir Khoury: A Palestinian Christian Voice from Birzeit
Educator, community leader and writer, Samia Nasir Khoury has spent a lifetime building institutions in Palestine and describing life under occupation to audiences abroad.
100,000 Iraqi Dead: The Lancet Studies and the Media
In 2004 and 2006, two surveys in The Lancet estimated that the Iraq war had killed far more civilians than officials acknowledged. The fierce reaction to them became a case study in how wars are counted.
Saddam's Secrets: The Claim That Iraq's Weapons Went to Syria
A former Iraqi air force general wrote that Saddam Hussein had flown his weapons of mass destruction to Syria before the 2003 invasion. The claim sold books; the evidence never materialised.
Can American and Muslim Democracy Advocates Find Common Ground?
Washington's democracy rhetoric after 2001 raised hopes of a rapprochement with reformers in the Muslim world. The gap between words and policy made the partnership harder than it looked.
Rachelle Marshall and the High Cost of Occupation
A California writer and peace activist, Rachelle Marshall spent years chronicling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for American readers, returning again and again to one theme: what occupation costs everyone involved.
Occupation, Terror and the Geneva Conventions
Is it legitimate to compare the violence of occupation with the violence of attacks on civilians? The argument, made by Israeli activists like Jeff Halper, still divides opinion sharply.
A Jilted Lover Wooed Again: America and Pakistan
Pakistanis often describe their relationship with the United States as a betrayal by a partner who only calls when it needs something. The history explains why the anger runs so deep.
Stephen Sizer: The Vicar Who Took On Christian Zionism
An English parish priest became one of the best-known critics of Christian Zionism, and one of the most controversial.
For the Love of Blogging: How Jordan Built an Online Public Square
In the mid-2000s, a small circle of Jordanian bloggers created one of the Arab world's liveliest online communities, years before social media made such spaces commonplace.
Kurdistan Oil Exports: From 100,000 Barrels a Day to a Decade of Disputes
When the Kurdistan Region's exports first passed 100,000 barrels a day, it looked like the start of an oil boom. What followed was a long fight with Baghdad over who controls Kurdish crude and its revenue.
Archbishop Elias Chacour: Blood Brothers and the Schools of Ibillin
Expelled from his Galilee village as a boy in 1948, Elias Chacour became a priest, an educator and an archbishop, and one of the best-known Palestinian Christian advocates of reconciliation.
Khaled Salam: The Man Who Managed Arafat's Money
Mohammed Rashid, known as Khaled Salam, controlled much of the Palestinian Authority's commercial wealth in the Arafat years. The story of that money became a story about accountability.
Michael Jansen: Five Decades Reporting the Middle East
An American-born correspondent based in the region since the 1960s, Michael Jansen has chronicled wars, occupations and uprisings from Beirut to Baghdad for readers in Ireland, Jordan and the Gulf.
Emile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
Half a century after it was published, Emile Habiby's darkly comic novel remains one of the sharpest portraits of life as a Palestinian inside Israel.
Terrorism and Nonviolence: Two Paths of Resistance
Why do some movements turn to attacks on civilians while others choose nonviolent struggle? The Palestinian experience offers evidence for both, and a clear verdict on which path wins more support.
Review: Sharing the Land of Canaan by Mazin Qumsiyeh
A Palestinian scientist makes the case for one democratic state built on human rights. The argument has aged better than its critics expected.
Taybeh: The West Bank's Christian Village and Its Ancient Roots
Perched in the hills north-east of Ramallah, Taybeh traces its history to the time of Christ. Today it is known for its churches, its brewery, and the pressures facing its small Christian community.
Gaza Turmoil: How the 2007 Fatah–Hamas Split Happened
In June 2007 Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip after days of fighting with Fatah. The split that followed still defines Palestinian politics.
The Prophet Muhammad's Promise to Christians
A covenant attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, preserved for centuries at St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, promises protection to Christians. What does it say, and how authentic is it?
Libyan Revolutionary Forces Celebrate Gains as Fierce Fighting Rages in Gadhafi's Hometown
The battle for Sirte in 2011 was the last major fight of Libya's revolution. It ended with Muammar Gadhafi's death, and left a city in ruins and a country without a plan.
Archbishop Theodosios Atallah Hanna: A Palestinian Voice in the Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia is one of the most outspoken Palestinian Christian clerics, known for his defence of Jerusalem's Christians and his calls for Muslim-Christian unity.
Rev. Donald Wagner: An American Evangelical Critic of Christian Zionism
A Presbyterian minister and scholar, Donald Wagner spent decades urging American evangelicals to see Palestinian Christians, and Palestinians generally, as part of the story of the Holy Land.
Jerry Levin: From Hostage in Beirut to Peacemaker in Hebron
CNN's Beirut bureau chief was kidnapped by Hezbollah-linked militants in 1984. What he did after his escape surprised many who knew his story.
Maria Khoury: A Greek-American Voice from Taybeh
Writer, educator and village advocate, Maria Khoury has spent decades describing life in the West Bank's Christian village of Taybeh to readers around the world.
Jonathan Kuttab: A Palestinian Lawyer for Human Rights and Nonviolence
A co-founder of the human rights group Al-Haq, Jonathan Kuttab has spent a lifetime arguing for international law and nonviolence as the path to justice in Palestine.
How to Start an Uprising: Lessons from the Arab Spring
The uprisings of 2011 seemed to come from nowhere. In fact they drew on years of organising, economic grievance and a few crucial sparks.
Review: The Unfurling by Nimah Ismail Nawwab
A Saudi poet writing in English gives voice to women, faith and change in the kingdom, years before reform became official policy.
Rashid Khalidi: Facts About the Palestinian-American Historian
Columbia University's Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies is one of the most influential historians of Palestine, and a frequent target in America's political arguments about the Middle East.
Yasser Arafat Under Siege: The Last Years in the Muqataa
For almost three years, the Palestinian leader was confined to his battered compound in Ramallah. His isolation shaped the end of his life and the succession that followed.
Iraqi Court Sentences 15 to Die After Massacre
In 2011 an Iraqi court sentenced fifteen men to death for the massacre of dozens of people at a wedding during the sectarian war. The case illustrated both the scale of the violence and the shortcomings of Iraqi justice.
Saleh Set to Speak: Is a Power Transfer Imminent in Yemen?
In 2011, Yemen's long-ruling president repeatedly promised to hand over power, then backed away. The deal he finally signed led not to stability but to war.
Lessons of the 2006 Lebanon War
Thirty-four days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 ended with neither side achieving its aims. The Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab was among those who drew a simple conclusion: force alone would not solve the region's conflicts.
Fuel Theft Hits Iraq's Power Grid, Inspector Says
Stolen fuel, corruption and mismanagement have kept Iraq's electricity sector failing for two decades, despite tens of billions of dollars in spending.
Latest Developments in Arab Political Unrest, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf
A country-by-country guide to the uprisings of 2011, and where each ended up.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Questions of Strategy
Iran's combative president of 2005–2013 was often dismissed as a provocateur. His years in office reshaped Iran's nuclear standoff, its economy and its internal politics.
Middle East Historical Documents: The Texts That Shaped the Modern Region
A guide to the agreements, declarations and resolutions that are cited again and again in the region's conflicts.
Europeans Circulate New Syria Draft Resolution
In 2011 European governments repeatedly tried to get the UN Security Council to condemn Syria's crackdown. Russian and Chinese vetoes set a pattern that lasted the whole war.
France Sent Weapons to Libyan Civilians Under Siege by Gadhafi's Forces
In June 2011 France acknowledged airdropping weapons to rebels in Libya's western mountains, raising questions about the limits of the UN mandate.
A Biblical Reflection on Genesis 12:3
"I will bless those who bless you." Few verses are quoted more often in debates about Christians and Israel. Palestinian theologians read it very differently.
Israel 'Determined' to Halt Gaza Flotilla, UN Envoy Says
Since 2008, activists have repeatedly sailed toward Gaza to challenge the blockade. Israel has stopped every flotilla, and the 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara still shapes the debate.
Israel to Expel Pro-Palestinian Activists Detained at Airport
In July 2011, hundreds of activists tried to fly into Israel on their way to the West Bank. The 'flytilla' ended with detentions and deportations, and a debate about who controls access to the Palestinian territories.
Daoud Kuttab: A Palestinian Journalist and Media Pioneer
Journalist, columnist and founder of independent media in Palestine and Jordan, Daoud Kuttab has spent four decades fighting for free expression in the Arab world.
Israeli Activists Help Palestinians Harvest Olives
Every autumn, Israeli and international volunteers join Palestinian farmers in their olive groves, hoping their presence will deter attacks by settlers.
Northern Cement State Company Makes 13 Billion Iraqi Dinar Gains in First Half of 2011
Iraq's state cement makers profited from the post-war construction boom. Their story shows both the potential and the problems of Iraq's state-owned industry.
Dim Prospects for Syrian Dialogue
In the summer of 2011, the Assad government offered a 'national dialogue' while its forces kept shooting protesters. The opposition's refusal to take part set the course for years of failed talks.
Days of Penitence: Israel's 2004 Offensive in Northern Gaza
In the autumn of 2004, Israel launched its largest operation in Gaza since the start of the second intifada. Its name, and its toll, drew bitter criticism.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
The 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister triggered a revolution, a UN investigation and a special international court. Fifteen years later, the court named one culprit, and left the bigger questions open.