Experts in the News

Seemingly taking a page from the Trump playbook, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has assailed the incoming administration and called the election that defeated him “the scam of the century.” Middle East fellow Gilead Sher said the fact that “no transition [of power] has begun by the prime minister, his staff or most of his ministers, is extremely unusual and counterproductive. What Netanyahu and his [Likud] party members have been saying is shameful." Sher, the former chief of staff to prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, said Netanyahu should “not try to cling to power.”

The situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is improving as the Biden administration overcomes a border learning curve, said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico. "Those who were waiting in Mexico are being let in, the flow is less, and the deportees are being processed more efficiently."

A new book edited by energy fellows Michelle Michot Foss and Anna Mikulska, as well as energy economist Gürcan Gülen, details the complexities of natural gas markets, where the drive for decarbonization and the need for human and economic development often collide. “Monetizing Natural Gas in the New ‘New Deal’ Economy” is available at Springer.  

Middle East fellow A.Kadir Yildirim and his co-authors discuss their recent study on the pandemic's impact on religious behavior in five Muslim-majority countries.

"I would suspect that we will see an election integrity bill pass, but some of the most egregious parts of it will be removed," political science fellow Mark Jones stated. "Both sides are engaged in hyperbole here."