Friday, December 26, 2025
Happy Holidays!
2025 will go down as one of the most eventful in recent Middle Eastern history. Conflicts, latent or active, have shattered the decades-long status quo and reshaped alliances and balances of power.
Today we look back at this year – in large part to look forward.
MBN Editor-In-Chief Leila Bazzi asks whether the Middle East ends the year in better shape than it began, and comes up with a more surprising answer than even she expected. We share the top five stories and videos that our audience consumed the most. Andres Ilves lists the seven events that remade Iran, and reshaped its role in the region, in 2025.
The MBN Friday Briefing features the best of the journalism produced by the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the premier Arabic-first news and commentary platform about the region. You can read the Friday Briefing in Arabic here or check out our flagship Alhurra.com site (also in English). If you were forwarded this newsletter, subscribe here. We want to hear from you at thebriefing@mbn-news.com.
This Year on MBN
Post-War Middle East. Maybe.
To paraphrase that old oneliner from Ronald Reagan, is the Middle East better off now than it was at the start of 2025? Look at the ceasefire in Gaza. The new more hopeful political order in Lebanon and Syria. The Gulf countries blazing ahead on AI and open to deeper reconciliation with Israel. Iran, the source of so much mischief in the region, weakened and withdrawn into its own domestic pains. Then the answer is plainly yes. But now ask if we are seeing durable political settlements and strong sovereign institutions take root, and you think maybe not — or at least it is too soon to tell whether 2025 will go down as the year the region turned a historic corner.
Read MBN Editor-in-Chief Leila Bazzi on the great ambivalence about the Middle East’s prospects.
What You Liked Most
Israel fights with China over Taiwan. Egypt’s strongman frees a democratic activist. Yemen considers a two-state solution of its own. President Trump makes the Gulf his first overseas stop. While the biggest news events of the year were the conflicts in Israel, Sudan and Yemen, you were also drawn to other storylines.
Read and watch the most popular articles and videos of 2025 on MBN.
Seven Stories That Explain Iran’s 2025
This was quite the year for Iran. A war, a drought, and a blow to the nuclear program. Over a thousand people executed and a rial nosediving in value, while the regime lost sway over its proxies in the Middle East and turned toward Russia and fellow pariah states.
Andres Ilves breaks down the seven most important events that made for Iran’s annus horribilis.
The Levant’s Outstanding 2025 Deadlines
The year isn’t over and some of the most important decisions may come in the days before the New Year. This is a make-or-break kind of moment for Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
MBN Agenda, our Tuesday newsletter on the week ahead in the Middle East, broke down the three deadlines that could still remake the Levant in 2025.
Bibi and Trump Head to Florida
The most important event left on the news calendar is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump in Florida next week. They will talk about the next steps for Gaza peace, as well as what’s next for Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. A lot of what will shape 2026 may be determined by the outcome of this U.S.-Israel summit.
Watch MBN’s Yehia Kassem discuss the meeting and its potential consequences with former Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren.
Closer
“The very theme at the heart of Christmas — the miraculous birth of Jesus — is not just a Christian but also an Islamic article of faith.”
— Mustafa Akyol, writing on Dec. 22 in MBN Magazine
