Iranian leaders have reacted with fury to a new package of economic and political sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Monday on 9 individuals closely tied to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Earlier on Monday, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi had announced that the Islamic Republic is taking further steps to violate the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal. His statement was made in the context of ongoing celebrations in Iran to mark the takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran in November of 1979 and the subsequent taking of American staff as hostages.

Israel’s northern neighbor Lebanon continued its descent into turmoil on Monday, with street demonstrations, including increasingly violent clashes with security forces, continuing despite desperate promises of reforms and pleas for patience from establishment figures and dark threats of a violent crackdown by the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terror militia Hezbollah. In Iraq, security forces once again fired live ammunition into crowds of protesters in Baghdad on Monday, shortly after four protesters were shot dead at a demonstration in Karbala, brining the death toll since protests started in Iraq on 1 October to 270.

Multi-national energy company Energean announced this week that it can confirm an additional 25 billion cubic meters (BCM) of recoverable natural gas from its Karish North field off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, along with 34 million barrels of light oil or condensate. The announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by analysts in Israel as another sign of the country’s improving economic outlook.

There were some contentious developments in Jerusalem this week, as the Housing Cabinet approved a plan on Monday to build a 1.4 km.-long cable car project for Jerusalem’s Old City meant to ease access to the Western Wall and residents of the Har Nof neighborhood reacted with outrage to an unexpected announcement that the neighborhood will soon have a new name. The cable car plan has been ridiculed and maligned for a variety of reasons while the changing of Har Nof’s name to “Neot Yosef” in honor of two prominent Orthodox Rabbis is being challenged because the decision to do so was made by the Mayor’s Office without consulting residents.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar gave a fiery speech Monday in which he warned that Hamas has “hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, hundreds of control rooms above and below the ground, thousands of anti-tank missiles and thousands of mortar shells…we can turn the enemy cities into ghost towns if they decide to attack us. The whole world must know that in Gaza there are about 70,000 armed young men from all the Palestinian factions, and we have young people who believe in the Palestinian cause and [will] achieve the purpose of the people.”

Energy is, of course, only one U.S. interest in a region that includes Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Jordan. In some cases, energy is probably a subservient interest—for example, with Turkey, Israel, and Egypt. And in some cases, like Cyprus, energy has brought new topics to the conversation and hence helped broaden a hitherto narrow bilateral relationship. In the Israel-Jordan-Egypt triangle, U.S. involvement has been more meaningful; there are also U.S. firms involved, which gives the U.S. government more tools for engagement.

The protests sweeping across Iraq and Lebanon have led observers of the Middle East to surmise that the region may be experiencing a second Arab Spring. Indeed, the unrest in Lebanon and Iraq comes on the heels of protests in Egypt and Jordan earlier this fall. What lies behind the latest round of social unrest? Dr. Sarah Feuer and Orit Perlov, research fellows at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank at Tel Aviv University, sit down to discuss the significance of the current upheaval, possible trajectories moving forward, and implications for Israel.