Middle East Forum

09/10/2026

189 pages on the global jihadi movement. Just three mentions of Qatar—and no serious scrutiny of its role.

MEF Executive Director Gregg Roman examines what the Soufan Center’s new book leaves out, alongside a $500,000 annual fee agreement with a Qatari academy that supplied 48% of the Center’s 2024 revenue.

Can a research institute hold its patrons to account? Roman makes the case for scrutiny and disclosure.

Read more:
https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/the-soufan-center-will-not-judge-qatar

Its New Book on the Global Jihadi Movement Is a Study in Omission

09/10/2026

25 years after 9/11, follow the networks—and the money.

MEF is opening the nation’s largest counter-Islamism clearinghouse to researchers, with more than 4 million data points drawn from public records.

Scholars, investigative journalists, national security analysts, and Muslim reformers can now apply to examine Islamist organizations, funding links, and foreign influence networks.

Read more:
https://www.meforum.org/press-releases/25-years-after-9-11-mef-opens-nations-largest-counter-islamism-clearinghouse-to-researchers

PHILADELPHIA – September 10, 2026 – On the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Middle East Forum today opened applications for research access to its Counter-Islamism Research Clearinghouse. Built by the Forum’s Islamist Watch project since 2006 and containing ...

09/09/2026

Iran’s rulers have missiles. Their greatest threat may come from their own streets.

MEF Executive Director Gregg Roman joins guest host Jim Hanson on Salem News Channel to explain why economic pressure must be matched by support for Iranians’ ability to communicate and organize.

Can the regime survive when its own people are ready to act?

Watch the full interview:
https://salemnewschannel.com/watch/us-blockade-in-iran-is-working-6aa000ebd40473fc532b2a6d

09/09/2026

Pakistan signed defense pacts with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, then stayed out of the fight when Iranian-backed missiles struck Saudi infrastructure. In the Middle East Forum Observer, Islamabad-based journalist Kaswar Klasra explains the gap between declaration and operational reality.

Pakistan's Gulf role is internal security, training and territorial defense inside host nations. It shares a 560-mile border with Iran across Balochistan, houses a significant Shi'a population, and keeps diplomatic channels open with Tehran. Offensive operations against a third state sit outside the deal.

What Islamabad does sell is capacity: experienced personnel, flight instructors and naval tacticians, plus hardware. Two new plants come online this year at the Wah ordnance complex, and export negotiations are under way with up to 13 countries covering the JF-17, trainers, drones and air defense.

Pakistan Actively Courts Gulf Arab Investment and Enters Defense Frameworks, but Avoids Regional Proxy Conflicts

09/09/2026

Ali Khamenei died on February 28, 2026. His son Mojtaba missed the funeral, and in the six months since there has been no video, no audio and no handwritten note from him.

In the Middle East Forum Observer, British-Iranian investigative journalist Potkin Azarmehr examines the regime's three attempts to prove Mojtaba is alive: undated IRGC appointment statements attributed to him, a silent video among seminary students with no time or place given, and President Pezeshkian's account of a seven hour meeting. In leaked remarks Pezeshkian had said he was blindfolded, taken to an undisclosed location, and communicated only through notes passed back and forth.

Azarmehr's point is that an absent Mojtaba still serves a purpose. His name legitimizes appointments and keeps factions in line. Once that fails, the question of who really runs Iran comes into the open.

Each Time Pressure Builds for Proof That He Is Alive, the Regime Produces Another Proof-of-Life Claim

09/09/2026

Britain's sanctions on Israel cover settlement-origin trade worth just over 50 million dollars in 2025. In the Middle East Forum Observer, MEF writing fellow Jose Lev Alvarez argues the sum is symbolic but the legal precedent for a wider embargo is not, and that Israel's response so far, closing the British Consulate in East Jerusalem and expelling British officers from a Gaza coordination cell, changes nothing in London.

His counter-strategy runs through the South Atlantic, where Tel Aviv-based Navitas Petroleum holds 65 percent of the 1.7 billion barrel Sea Lion field and Argentine prosecutors are preparing charges over its British licenses. Alvarez proposes a trilateral charter with American majors, Argentina's YPF and Navitas, backed by US and Israeli normalization of Argentine claims to the Falklands, plus a freeze on Mossad cooperation with British services against IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas networks in the UK.

Israel and the U.S. Must Normalize Argentine Claims to the Falklands in Return for Shared Exploitation of Oil and Gas Fields

09/09/2026

Israelis vote on October 27, 2026 in the first Knesset election since October 7, 2023, and the first in which a parliament has served a full four year term since 1988.

Writing for Middle East Forum Online, Amine Ayoub argues the Gulf capitals are grading a different exam than the domestic campaign. For Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Manama the question is whether the next government in Jerusalem retains the deterrent capacity and the will to use it.

The common view holds that normalization requires Israeli restraint and progress toward Palestinian statehood, and Riyadh does still tie formal normalization to that. But Arab monarchies build policy on regime survival against Iranian missiles, drones and proxies. In Ayoub's reading, drawn from Jabotinsky's Iron Wall, a strong Israel that causes friction is an asset, and a hesitant Israel offering concessions is deadweight that pushes Gulf states to hedge toward Tehran, Beijing and Moscow.

If Israeli Voters Elect a Government Committed to Unyielding National Resolve and Military Capability, Israel’s Strategic Value Across the Middle East Will Remain Intact

09/07/2026

Saudi oil activity fell 24.7 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2026, dragging real GDP down 4.8 percent, the deepest contraction since the pandemic. Military spending rose 26 percent to about 17.2 billion dollars in the first quarter, and the second-quarter budget deficit came to 9.1 billion dollars.

Writing for the Middle East Forum Observer, energy strategist Umud Shokri traces what Riyadh is doing about it: an approach to banks on August 31 for a loan of at least 8 billion dollars, separate Aramco talks, and close to 58 billion dollars in 2026 financing needs already met in part by bonds and by Public Investment Fund borrowing. The whole first-half shortfall was financed with debt rather than reserves.

His assessment is that Saudi Arabia can absorb this pressure, but only by deciding what Vision 2030 protects. Pipelines, ports, storage and power networks cut exposure to another Hormuz closure; projects that spend for years before earning will be harder to defend. The IMF expects government debt near 44 percent of GDP by 2031.

Read the analysis:

The Kingdom Can Withstand the Current Pressure Caused by the Iran War, but Only If It Defines Its Priorities

09/07/2026

288,856 euros in EU money between 2007 and 2019. Conferences on European Parliament premises. Then a July 7 expulsion. Six weeks later, EU support again.

Reporting for Focus on Western Islamism, Jules Gomes finds the European Union is again backing the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations, which has announced a European Action Day Against Islamophobia for September 21, 2026, and credits EU co-funding for a seminar that gathered 36 young Muslims from 15 organizations. FEMYSO says it holds no direct EU grant and that the money comes through a consortium. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler told FWI that EU co-funding and hosting supply the institutional legitimacy the network is seeking.

EU Makes U-Turn After Parliament Expelled Islamist Youth Organization

09/07/2026

Iran's oil does not move itself. Someone flags it, insures it, fuels it and services it.

Writing for the Middle East Forum Observer, MEF writing fellow Jose Lev Alvarez traces that support chain: 116 of 542 tracked shadow tankers flying Panamanian flags in August 2025, 77 vessels found in January 2026 using forged Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten papers, one cache holding documents for 63 tankers, and the tanker Al Jafzia broadcasting a Nicaraguan flag from a registry the International Maritime Organization does not list. Alvarez argues Washington should go after the servicing layer, fining private registry companies, denying blacklisted tankers insurance and credit without an independent audit, and tying enforcement files to permanent hull numbers so a new name or flag changes nothing.

The United States Should Deny Blacklisted Tankers Coverage and Credit Unless They Clear an Independent Audit