MUST-READS

• Israel-Palestine
  Experts: No 3rd intifada yet, but little hope either

  Recent incidents have stirred fears in Israel of a return to 2002, then in the midst of a second intifada, or armed uprising, when the Israeli government reported 452 people died in suicide bombings and other attacks. On Monday alone, an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death on a Tel Aviv street while three Israelis were stabbed -- one fatally -- at the same West Bank hitchhiking post where three Israeli teens were kidnapped earlier this year. This comes after several incidents in which drivers ran into crowds on busy streets.

  • Reuters - Kerry to Visit Jordan for Talks on Jerusalem Tensions: State Department
• Turkey's Borders
  Turkey’s border security problem

  A senior security official in Ankara who has dealt with border security both in the field and at headquarters summarizes the situation: “In Turkey, the military gives priority only to the security of the border strip to a width of up to 600 meters, as it has no legislative authority in border areas outside the border strip and customs gates. The Ministry of Customs is tasked with dealing with exports and imports. Border crossing security is its secondary mission. Police are responsible for law and order in cities, and their presence at the border crossings is a secondary function. In short, while in Europe borders are supervised by a single body, we do exactly the opposite. If you study how the Reyhanli bombing attack in 2014 was carried out, you will see that the Turkish security bureaucracy has miserably failed on border security.”

• Yemen
  AQAP continues escalation of attacks in Yemen, targets US ambassador

  Despite a Nov. 7 announcement that a new inclusive Yemeni cabinet was formed in an effort to defuse the ongoing political stalemate in the country, there has been no indication of a deescalation of terrorist activity by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

  • Reuters - U.S. imposes sanctions on Yemen ex-president, two rebel leaders
• Saudia
  Saudi Arabian Airlines takes off with MAM

  The aim of the project is to improve Saudi Arabian Airlines’ management and storage workflow, and to make the edited content easy to access for workers so it can be used and catalogued. For this purpose, VSN has deployed a MAM-Archive system with five users licenced in a first phase throughout its VSNEXPLORER interface.

• Al-Ahsa Terror Strike
  Al-Ahsa Terror attack ‘was funded from abroad’, source tells Asharq Alawsat

  The alleged perpetrators of last week’s attack in Al-Dalwah in Al-Ahsa received funds from abroad just days before they carried out their operation, an informed source from the security apparatus has told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News.

• U.S. Elections
  Power shift in U.S. Senate brings sterner tone to foreign policy debate

  The Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate will bring a tough new tone to the debate over Washington's foreign policy, with lawmakers expected use their new clout and power over the budget to promote a more interventionist foreign policy. While leaders of the Democratic-majority Senate mostly backed President Barack Obama's international goals, Republicans plan to pressure the White House to take a tougher line on Iran, Russia and Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

  • Stars and Stripes - Republican control of Congress could mean more military spending
• Global Oil Markets
  Crude oil hasn’t bottomed yet, traders say

  Crude oil may have found its way off of the multiyear low it hit on Tuesday. But according to two traders, bearish dynamics on the supply and demand sides mean it's too early to call the bottom just yet. "There are so many factors in the equation that are putting downward pressure," on crude oil, Brian Stutland said Thursday on CNBC's "Futures Now. "In the U.S., our oil drums are almost starting to fill up and hit max capacity. You have the Saudis now saying they're going to lower prices in the United States. You have weaker demand in China. And on top of that, a stronger dollar, and crude oil trades in U.S. dollars."

  • The Atlantic - $3 Gas Isn't Necessarily Good for America
  • The Street - What's Really Behind Saudi Arabia's Decision to Cut Oil Prices
• Lebanon and the Region
  Opinion: Tackling Islamic State: a message from Lebanon

  Barack Obama never understood properly the dangers inherent in the Syrian situation. Obama wants to defeat the Islamic State but he doesn’t want to do anything about the conflict in Syria: he has separated artificially the anti-Islamic State campaign and the conflict in Syria, as if these things were not intimately tied into one another. Three years ago a number of people were writing – I was only one of them – that you cannot do nothing in Syria, because the problem you’re trying to avoid today may be become a problem later that you simply cannot avoid.”

  • VICE News - The Islamic State Vs. Lebanon
  • NYT - Citing Volatility, Lawmakers in Lebanon Vote to Extend Their Term
• U.S.-Iran
  Secret White House Letter Highlights Iran’s Importance to Islamic State Fight

  It didn’t explicitly propose that the two countries directly coordinate their military activities, a step the White House has said that it is not prepared to take. Still, the person familiar with the letter said that was the “strong implication.” The disclosure of the letter is likely to raise the political pressure on the White House, which is already coming under fire from lawmakers in both parties concerned that the administration is prepared to make far-reaching concessions to Tehran in order to strike a landmark nuclear deal before a Nov. 24 deadline.

  • CNN - U.S. opens channels with Iran over ISIS
• Palestine
  What I saw in Gaza

  Throughout my career at the World Bank, and at the UN, I have come across many war zones but none compare to this.

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