Al Majalla | The Leading Arab Magazine

Special coverage

US-Iran war and the regional repercussions

Red Sea defence alliance: opportunities and challenges

Does the declaration recently signed in Riyadh indicate a gradual transition towards a regional security architecture that will assume responsibilities long borne by external naval powers?

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb

Deena So'Oteh

Culture & Social Affairs

Timothy Zurabishvili dives into the darkness of man

'Plomb' is a dark, unsettling debut novel by the French writer that explains violence in language, body and consciousness

Antoine Jockey

Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot at a polling station in Jerusalem in the country's fifth election in less than four years on 1 November 2022.

RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP

Why Israel’s upcoming election might be its most pivotal

Politics

Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection as prime minister would hasten the illiberal drift

David E. Rosenberg

Settler attacks increase ahead of Israel election

Israel’s elections may be a verdict on political Judaism

The Middle East and Israel’s electoral reckoning

Is Gadi Eisenkot the general who knows how Israelis feel?

The victory that wasn't: Netanyahu and the Iran war

Roman Gofman: Israel's new Netanyahu-friendly Mossad chief

Latest

Politics

Why the United States keeps losing wars

Stephen M. Walt

Business & Economy

On trade with China, Europe is fighting yesterday’s war

Shirley Ze Yu

Profiles

Abdul El-Sayed: the progressive Michigander who beat the pro-Israel lobby

Tarek Rashed

Culture & Social Affairs

Rushdy Abaza: the Don Juan of Egyptian cinema

Wael Said

Business & Economy

How the Houthis built a parallel economy in Yemen

Rana Freifer

Politics

El-Obeid: fears of a new wave of brutality in Sudan

Shawgi Abdelazim

Popular
Editor's Pick

Eduardo Ramon

Politics

The Houthis: the final battle?

06 August 2026

Regional and global players have begun to realise that the threat posed by the Yemeni militant group requires comprehensive and decisive action

Al Majalla - London

Opinion

Finding an effective strategy to combat Iran and its 'axis'

03 August 2026

Regional states have come to the realisation that fighting 'axis' members individually will have little effect, and any tactical success will likely be short-lived

Ibrahim Hamidi

Workers are seen through a pipe at a construction site on the extension of Russia's TurkStream gas pipeline.

Reuters

Business & Economy

Getting the oil out: exploring Hormuz alternatives

03 August 2026

Al Majalla looks at potential new export routes that big oil producers can use to offset Iran's control over key regional waterways

Sharif Mohammad

A member of the Popular Mobilisation Forces monitors the Iraq-Syria border in Al-Qaim, January 23, 2026.

AFP

Politics

Iraq’s armed factions are still three steps ahead of Baghdad

03 August 2026

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has vowed to dissolve armed groups by the end of September, but this is highly unlikely. Al Majalla explains why.

Salam Zaidan

Migrants walk towards the Fnideq region in northern Morocco after leaving Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta following an attempted crossing at the Bab Sebta border crossing, on the outskirts of Fnideq, on 1 August 2026.

Abdel Majid BZIOUAT / AFP

Culture & Social Affairs

The Ceuta tragedy: illusory homelands and unattainable paradises

05 August 2026

Where social media offers magic solutions, the real world delivers slammed doors

Samer Abou Hawwach

A security pact for the region, by the region

Alia Mansour

What the Makkah Agreement means for Syria

Ibrahim Hamidi

Syria cannot build lasting stability in a political vacuum

Haid Haid

Decisive approach needed to confront the Houthi threat

Anwar Al-Ansi

Infographics

Russia, North Korea establish first road link

Politics

Why Israel’s upcoming election might be its most pivotal

Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection as prime minister would hasten the illiberal drift

David E. Rosenberg

Red Sea defence alliance: opportunities and challenges

Does the declaration recently signed in Riyadh indicate a gradual transition towards a regional security architecture that will assume responsibilities long borne by external naval powers?

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb

US President Donald Trump addresses members of the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka Naval Base on 28 October 2025.

Why the United States keeps losing wars

Washington has a long record of fighting the wrong war for the wrong objective

Stephen M. Walt

The Houthis: the final battle?

Regional and global players have begun to realise that the threat posed by the Yemeni militant group requires comprehensive and decisive action

Al Majalla - London

Profile

Abdul El-Sayed: the progressive Michigander who beat the pro-Israel lobby

Come November, the Egyptian-American epidemiologist could become the first Muslim senator in US history, despite $70mn spent to defeat him in the Democratic primary

Tarek Rashed

Israeli politician and former military chief Gadi Eisenkot meets supporters at a conference in Dimona, Israel, on 6 July 2026.

Is Gadi Eisenkot the general who knows how Israelis feel?

The former army chief is standing against Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's election in October and is currently polling higher than the prime minister. What Eisenkot has been through may help him

Michael Horowitz

US Vice President JD Vance is advocating ideas that are refining American conservatism.

JD Vance and the reinvention of US conservatism

When James David Vance emerged as one of the Trump administration’s principal advocates of negotiations with Iran in July 2026, the dispute…

Stefanie Butendieck Hijerra

FIFA President Gianni Infantino attends a Youth festival opening ceremony in Doha on November 17, 2022, ahead of the Qatar 2022 World Cup football tournament.

Gianni Infantino: controversial FIFA boss reflects political change

Gianni Infantino is no stranger to controversy. Since becoming FIFA president in 2016 he has, among other things, been accused of cosying up to…

Christopher Phillips

Documents & Memoirs

The last days of Ali Abdullah Saleh

27 Jul 2026

Based on years of reporting and interviews, this account reconstructs how Yemen's former president forged an alliance with the Houthis, why it collapsed, and the events that led to his death

Anwar Al-Ansi

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Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani hold a document on the formation of a joint Syrian-Lebanese committee as they meet in Beirut, Lebanon, July 2, 2026.

Reuters

Documents & Memoirs

Syria and Lebanon relations as seen in two agreements

21 July 2026

An accord from 1991 reinforced Syrian tutelage in Lebanon, but the days of the Assad regime and the occupation of its smaller neighbour are long gone. Will the 2026 accord usher in a new era?

Fayza Diab

US Navy sailors send signals to an E-2D Hawkeye aircraft, 124th Airborne Command and Control Squadron, as it walks on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, on 28 February 2026.

Reuters

Documents & Memoirs

Could the US-Iran war spark World War III?

16 March 2026

The current conflict is unlikely to go global for now, but the speed at which it has spread regionally is alarming. A look at history shows the geopolitical factors that led to world wars.

Christopher Phillips

culture & social affairs

Timothy Zurabishvili dives into the darkness of man

09 August 2026

'Plomb' is a dark, unsettling debut novel by the French writer that explains violence in language, body and consciousness

Antoine Jockey

Lina Jaradat

Culture & Social Affairs

Rushdy Abaza: the Don Juan of Egyptian cinema

Born just over 100 years ago, Al Majalla takes a look at the life and career of the handsome lead actor

Wael Said

Abdel Majid BZIOUAT / AFP

Culture & Social Affairs

The Ceuta tragedy: illusory homelands and unattainable paradises

Where social media offers magic solutions, the real world delivers slammed doors

Samer Abou Hawwach

Axel Rangel García

'The Odyssey': the Greek epic that has survived millennia

Christopher Nolan’s new film revives a story long confined…

Bahaa Iy'ali

Interview with Maxime Prévot - Belgium's Minister of Foreign Affairs

Science & Technology

The AI alliance rewriting Washington’s Gulf strategy

As artificial intelligence reshapes global power, the US and Gulf states are forging a new strategic partnership built on chips, data centres, and digital infrastructure

Marco Mossad

A HALO for NATO: the Alliance is sharing its space assets

Military satellites of eight NATO states will be pooled, connected, and networked by the countries that own them to create a constellation, spreading both cost and reach. Others have had the same idea

Marco Mossad

The Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space (HALO) initiative will combine the individual military satellites of eight NATO member states into a larger constellation.

Eduardo Ramon

Firing up: the effects of heat on the body at the 2026 World Cup

With several matches being played in extreme heat, teams and players are having to prioritise safety, as science sheds new light on how sport played in oppressive weather pushes the limit of biology

Alaa Emara

Heat is the unseen participant in a match. Its effects appear in heart rate, fluid loss, reaction speed, pressing intensity, and decision-making.

Scarlett Yang

How nuclear radiation affects human DNA

From Los Alamos to Chernobyl, the 20th century offered several examples of high-dose radiation poisoning, and the effects are well-known, but what is happening on a cellular level?

Alaa Emara

Human DNA is affected by exposure to nuclear radiation.

Olga Aleksandrova

Business & Economy

On trade with China, Europe is fighting yesterday’s war

Brussels has finally agreed a raft of measures aimed at sectors that Beijing no longer considers to be its strategic industries

Shirley Ze Yu

How the Houthis built a parallel economy in Yemen

The UN says the group draws upon substantial domestic sources of finance, while the US believes that part of its funding moves through oil-smuggling and money-laundering networks linked to Iran's IRGC

Rana Freifer

Al Majalla

A tool rarely used: historic US intervention to save the yen

The Federal Reserve worked with the Bank of Japan last week to help lift the yen, after it hit nearly 40-year lows against the dollar. Has it succeeded?

Rana Freifer