The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region. While still referring to most of the Middle East and North Africa together, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the grouping of countries that is known as the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world.
The dynamic between the League of Arab States and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been ambivalent, owing to the latter's varying bilateral conduct with each country of the former. Iran is located on the easternmost frontier of the Arab League, which consists of 22 Arab countries and spans the bulk of the Middle East and North Africa, of which Iran is also a part. The Arab League's population is dominated by ethnic Arabs, whereas Iran's population is dominated by ethnic Persians; and while both sides have Islam as a common religion, their sects differ, with Sunnis constituting the majority in the Arab League and Shias constituting the majority in Iran. Since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, the country's Shia theocracy has attempted to assert itself as the legitimate religious and political leadership of all Muslims, contesting a status that has generally been understood as belonging to Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, where the cities of Mecca and Medina are located. This animosity, manifested in the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, has greatly exacerbated the Shia–Sunni divide throughout the Muslim world.
Human rights in the Middle East have been shaped by the legal and political development of international human rights law after the Second World War, and their application to the Middle East. The 2004 United Nations Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) claimed that although Arab-Islamic tradition does hold unique importance for ideas of human welfare, History has proven that "they were not sufficiently prevalent in society to foster a culture based on a political contract, and allow for the legitimacy of differences of opinion, dialogue and transfer of power." Issues of the validity of democracy in the region and human rights are at the very centre of the challenges facing Middle Eastern society today.
The black scrub robin is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is found in Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Israel, Jordan, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Its natural habitat is dry savanna.
The desert hedgehog is a species of mammal in the family Erinaceidae.
Mormogystia reibellii is a moth in the family Cossidae. It is found in North Africa and the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula, including the northern part of Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.
Meharia semilactea is a moth in the family Cossidae. It is found in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Egypt, northern Sudan, Morocco and Mauritania.
Paropta paradoxus is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found on Cyprus and Rhodes and in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran and Jordan.
Semitocossus johannes is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in Israel, Jordan, south-western Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Holcocerus gloriosus is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, southern Kazakhstan, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, northern Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. The habitat consists of deserts.
Eremocossus vaulogeri is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and southern Iran.
Dyspessa kabylaria is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in Iran, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
The 2016 attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran was a mob action on 2 January 2016 by protesters against the execution of a prominent Saudi Arabian Shi'a cleric. Mobs stormed the embassy in Tehran and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad and ransacked them. The embassy building was set on fire with Molotov cocktails and petrol bombs. During the attacks, the police arrived and dispersed protesters from the embassy premises and extinguished the fire.
Saudi Arabia–Palestine relations refers to the bilateral relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Palestine. Their relationship has many facets, and is at best considered complex. The Saudi government struggles to balance the largely pro-Palestinian sympathies among its populace, with its interest in maintaining positive relations with the US in return for protection against hostile actors. There is also an increasing generational divide on the issue of normalization with Israel, with people under 30 more likely to support normalization and reject pan-Arabism than their elders.
The Arab–Israeli alliance, sometimes called the Israeli–Sunni alliance, refers to an unofficial security coalition comprising Israel and various Arab countries. Originally formed in the interest of the Gulf Cooperation Council, it is primarily focused on deterring the political and military ambitions of Iran, and has been actively promoted by the United States since the February 2019 Warsaw conference.
The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain on September 15, 2020. Mediated by the United States, the announcement of August 13, 2020, concerned Israel and the UAE before the subsequent announcement of an agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020. On September 15, 2020, the signing of the agreements was hosted by US president Trump on the Truman Balcony of the White House amid elaborate staging intended to evoke the signings of historic formal peace treaties in prior administrations.
