More aggressive to US enemies, arguably more erratic with US allies and with the financial benefit to the US at the centre of his foreign policy, Trump’s involvement in the Middle East has not been a stabilizing factor in one of the most turbulent periods of the region’s recent history. With at least two years left in the White House, it is too early to say what his lasting legacy in the Middle East will be, but the signs do not point to a positive one.

She used her international profile to found Nadia’s Initiative, an organization that campaigns for and provides assistance to victims of sexual violence. She promised in her first press conference after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize to use all of her prize money to support the organization and use her voice to defend the rights of persecuted people around the world.

What Oslo did not do was provide a detailed road-map for final status negotiations, which were to be completed within five years. This would deal with the vexed issues of refugees, Jerusalem, demilitarisation of the Palestinian areas in the event of a two-state settlement, and anything but an implied acknowledgement of territorial compromise, including land swaps, that would be needed to bring about a lasting agreement.

The Syrian regime wanted to stay in power at all costs, whereas the opposition wanted to topple the regime with the help of foreign military and political support, and kept insisting that this was its aim, even after it was on the verge of losing the war. The opposing political positions remained too far apart for any real negotiations to be able to be successful. Apparently, there was not any mediating party that was able to induce either side to moderate its position so as to be able to reach a compromise. Both sides considered it to be a struggle for life or death with hardly any room for compromise. With the increase of the numbers of deadly victims, refugees and destruction, the room for compromise – if there had ever been any room for compromise in the first place – ceased to exist.

Russia is back in the Middle East, and is close to regaining the position it had until 1973, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat switched allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States of America (US).

With the lifting of American sanctions, Sudan will, for the first time since the 1990s, be able to trade with the US, allowing it to buy much-needed equipment and spare parts and to attract investment to its collapsing economy. In return, Sudan has agreed to improve access for aid groups, stop supporting rebels in neighbouring South Sudan, cease the bombing of insurgent territory and cooperate with American intelligence agents.

Today, Russia has a presence in almost all of the Soviet Union’s former zones of influence, namely Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Algeria. Furthermore, it is getting closer to the other non-Arab hegemon apart from Iran; Turkey. The Middle East therefore represented the best forum for a show of force by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ironically, it is the Arab Spring – which Russian media outlets criticize continuously – that has allowed Putin to achieve his goal.

Obama’s strategy of avoiding direct military engagement in conflicts in the Middle East was a departure from his predecessor’s policy, whose invasion of Iraq in 2003 many consider as having directly led to the birth of ISIS. Instead, the president has encouraged his allies in the Middle East to take the lead in “fighting their own battles” against terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere instead of “spoon-feeding them” with the military assistance to which they had grown accustomed.

The right of return of Palestinian refugees has always been a crucial issue in all peace efforts. The failure of Israel and the Western powers to appreciate the importance of this right for Palestinians has been one of the main causes of the failure of all peace negotiations conducted to date.

The claims concern first those properties lost after the armistice of 1949 in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem after their annexation by Jordan, as well as those lost in Gaza when it came under Egyptian rule. The second kind of counterclaims concerns properties left behind by Jews in the various Arab countries after they immigrated to Israel in 1948.