MUST-READS

• US State Dept’s Middle East spox resigns over Gaza policy

  The U.S. State Department's spokeswoman for Middle East and North Africa announced her resignation on Thursday, in protest of Washington's policies regarding the Gaza Strip, amid Israel's atrocities. "I resigned April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy. Diplomacy, not arms. Be a force for peace and unity,” Hala Rharrit wrote in a LinkedIn post, according to Al Arabiya.

• Book Review: The Conflicts Shaping the Middle East

  The recently released book “Battleground – 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East” by historian Christopher Phillips provides a useful overview of ten ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.  The author takes an ambitious approach to explaining these conflicts, trying to pack in a great deal of information into ten chapters that describe the conflicts and countries involved.

• Opinion: By cracking down on the Gaza protests, US universities are betraying their core mission

  Huge coalitions of US students have united against Israel’s rampage that has targeted not just Hamas but Gaza society generally, damaged or destroyed the vast majority of buildings, and killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians. The slaughter has been shocking, even given the vicious savagery of the October 7 attack.

• Greg Norman ‘open-minded’ to altering LIV’s signature 54-hole format

  His comment is significant because, like LIV Golf’s team competition and shotgun starts, the 54-hole length of tournaments has been a defining feature, with “LIV” coming from the Roman numeral for 54. Jon Rahm, a star player whose switch to LIV in December was a jolt to the PGA Tour, said he hoped a 72-hole format might help unite the established and upstart tours.

• Israel says it is poised to move on Rafah
   Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said on Wednesday, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
  A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said Israel was "moving ahead" with a ground operation, but gave no timeline.
  The defence official said Israel's Defence Ministry had bought 40,000 tents, each with the capacity for 10 to 12 people, to house Palestinians relocated from Rafah in advance of an assault.

• Saudi giga-project Diriyah Gate targets 2027 completion

  Diriyah Gate, one of the first Saudi giga-projects, said this week that it was on target for completion by late 2027. The opening of the project’s first hotel is now rescheduled for later this year. “We’re looking forward to the conclusion of our project, probably toward the end of 2027,” said Andrew Tonnor, Diriyah Gate’s chief delivery officer, in a presentation to potential vendors. “We’re one of the five PIF giga-projects, we’ve been incorporated since 2019 when we were founded as a project and development company.

• ‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower

  More than 200,000 people converged at the conference, including Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, who announced a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia for data centers and artificial intelligence technology. Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, spoke of what a government minister called a “lifetime friendship” with the kingdom. Executives from Huawei and dozens of other firms made speeches. More than $10 billion in deals were done there, according to Saudi Arabia’s state press agency.

• Saudi Arabia welcomes panel’s report on UNRWA’s performance

  Saudi Arabia welcomed the results of an independent committee’s report on the performance of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the results of the report confirm the agency’s main role in supporting the relief, humanitarian and development efforts of the Palestinian people.

• Trump looms large over Biden’s long-shot talks on Israel-Saudi normalization

  Sitting together last month, Graham and MBS spoke with Trump for roughly five minutes, two people familiar with the call told CNN. The conversation was friendly and consisted mostly of exchanging pleasantries and casual chatter about the US presidential election. At one point, Trump touted his poll numbers, one of the people said. Not once did the normalization deal come up, both sources said.

• Saudi Arabia’s booming hospitality sector to add 320,000 hotel rooms by 2030

  Saudi Arabia is projected to have 320,000 new hotel rooms by 2030 across the country to accommodate an influx of 150 million domestic and international tourists annually, according to a new report.

  This expansion, according to the figures by global property consultancy Knight Frank, will boost the nation’s travel and tourism industry which already accounts for nearly six percent of Saudi Arabia’s GDP today and is central to achieving the government’s goal of tourism contributing 10 percent to the economy by 2030.

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