Securitarian, humanitarian, and economic concerns concur in defining a country's migration policies. The political upheavals and conflicts in the MENA region and the resulting outflow of refugees highlights how migration policies and foreign relations - both domestic and external dimensions - are strictly interlinked. In the middle of the refugee crisis, with the Mediterranean becoming the “graveyard” for thousands of migrants and Libya plunging into chaos, Italy sought a new approach to border control with the Mare Nostrum operation. Was it an ephemeral response to the public outcry or should it be considered a call for a more coordinated and coherent European effort?

2014 is the year in which old and new challenges will arise for Israel. As the state heads towards the 66th anniversary of its independence, it faces roadblocks that – in a nutshell – impede the urgency of its finding a solution for its political, financial and refugee crisis. This article lays out the current major issues that confront Israel, prompting a discussion of potential avenues which it can pursue as it heads towards its elections.

Unlike the majority of protesters in the Arab Spring, protesters in Kuwait have rallied against their government on issues anchored in basic human rights rather than on material needs.[1] Instead of trying to topple the government, the focus has been on checking the authority of the ruling family and holding it accountable to its citizens. Arising from these efforts is the plight of the “Bedoon” – the stateless - of Kuwait, who despite living there for decades, hold no nationality. The Arab Spring protests of 2011 invigorated their demands for citizenship but after months of rallying and campaigning, what progress have they achieved?

With Emiratis constituting only 15% of the total population of UAE, the majority non-citizen residents have come to be perceived as a challenge to both national security and emergent identity. This dual threat has been responsible for the UAE’s use of highly restrictive migrant labor policies for which it has been so widely criticized. Although it is necessary and inevitable that the UAE address the human rights concerns arising from this, this article focuses mainly on the factors that have created the need for these labor policies, clarifying the role of securitization discourse in the creation of their terms.

Migration is as old as the his tory of humanity and migrants have been and will always be a permanent reality with a potential to trans form countries and regions around the world. E urope and the Middle E as t have always had population trans - fers between them through the passing of c enturies but during the las t years they have been trying to regulate these movements. T he “Arab Spring” added a new pressing fac tor on that proc ess. Henc e, decision-makers should work hard to formulate a pragmatic and fair migration s trategy that would give benefits to all the E uro-Mediterranean sides.