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Middle East

EU bans Iranian oil; Iran again threatens to close Hormuz: Tensions between Europe and Iran keep ratcheting up, with Iran this week again threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to a Western oil embargo. On Monday, European Union foreign ministers agreed to place a ban on Iranian oil imports in an effort to stop Tehran’s nuclear program. European nations will immediately cease signing new oil contracts, with states having the option of honoring current contracts through to July 1. This will affect some 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports. The EU also froze the assets of Iran’s central bank, and put sanctions on its state-owned Bank Tejarat, the country’s third-largest bank. Iran reacted defiantly, with Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi telling the official irna news agency on Tuesday: “The West’s ineffective sanctions against the Islamic state are not a threat to us.” Emad Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s energy committee, said that Iran retained its threat to shut the Persian Gulf to shipping. Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, deputy head of Iran’s committee on national security, said Monday the Hormuz Strait “would definitely be closed if the sale of Iranian oil is violated in any way.” The Associated Press writes: “The escalating confrontation is fraught with risks—of rising energy prices, global financial instability, and potential military activity to keep the strait open” (January 23).

Final results of Egypt’s election are in: Islamists have won nearly three quarters of the seats in the lower house of parliament, according to official figures released last Saturday. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 47 percent of seats, and the ultraconservative Salafist al-Nour Party took 25 percent. This will give these parties a dominant role in drafting Egypt’s new constitution, which will be written by a body appointed by parliament. No women were elected to parliament, though the ruling military council, which has appointed the final 10 members of the 508-seat chamber, has selected three women. When parliament convened for the first time on Monday, Muslim Brotherhood member Saad al-Katatni was elected as speaker of parliament. Islamists also succeeded in adding Islamic religious references to the oath of office. A presidential election is scheduled to be held before the end of June, when the country’s military leaders are due to step down.

Anti-Semitism surges in wake of “Arab Spring”: Democratic freedom has led to an explosion of anti-Semitic sentiment in the newly liberated nations in the Middle East whose dictatorships have been toppled in the past year. That was the conclusion of a report released on Sunday by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry. “[While] the popular uprisings in the Arab world do not represent a general change in attitude towards Israel, Zionism and the Jews, it seems the anti-Semitic discourse and incitement have become more extreme and violent,” the report said. “Charges of an international Jewish conspiracy have been a central motif in the anti-Semitic propaganda that has accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings.”