Know your past, own your present, assure your future.
House testimony from a Treasury Department official during the 2015 Iran nuclear negotiations shows that U.S. priorities and nonmilitary approaches toward Iran remain the same in 2026.
Jimmy Carter, “The U.S.-Iran Relationship, the Shah’s Downfall, Khomeyni’s Rise to Power, and the Hostage Crisis,” an Emory class presentation, Atlanta, March 24, 1985, recorded and transcribed with permission.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a treaty in 1983 through U.S. mediation, only for Syria’s dominance and Lebanon’s dysfunction to block ratification.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlights strategic if incomplete achievements in wars fought since October 2023 while working to solidify his political support before fall elections.
Before Israel’s establishment, Zionists in Palestine had contacts with Lebanese and Syrian officials, seeking information about anti-Zionist attitudes and understanding of these Arab states’ military capabilities against Israel’s establishment and survival. Since 1949 and the…
Conclusions suggest that Israel has no direct responsibility for the massacre of
Palestinians in refugee camps in Beirut; Defense Minister Sharon resigns for ignoring the danger of potential
bloodshed.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a treaty in 1983 through U.S. mediation, only for Syria’s dominance and Lebanon’s dysfunction to block ratification.
The Second Lebanon War begins when Hezbollah launches Katyusha rockets and mortars at Israeli border towns and Israel Defense Forces positions, a diversion for a raid across the border to ambush an IDF patrol. What…
This U.N. resolution ends the 33-day Israel-Hezbollah war but fails to bring the Israel-Hezbollah conflict to conclusion. Hezbollah fighters are not prevented from reoccupying the Israeli-Lebanese border areas, leading to repeated cross-border attacks and ultimately intensification after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
July 12, 2019 will mark the thirteenth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War; August 14 will mark the anniversary of its end under Security Council Resolution 1701; and discussions will be held at the United Nations headquarters regarding a renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate for another year. The bottom line: another war between Israel and Lebanon did not erupt, mainly due to both sides’ desire to avoid it and, to some extent, also due to UNIFIL’s help in preventing escalation resulting from tactical incidents.
The waves of protests in Lebanon in recent weeks and the country’s political instability stem primarily from fundamental problems in the local economy, including the absence of reforms and the rampant corruption among the ruling elite and all government institutions. These developments are highly problematic for the country’s decision makers, including Hezbollah. Israel, for its part, is monitoring the developments, which inter alia could lead to a strengthening of Hezbollah.
Washington Institute for Near East Policy Since the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has made five public appearances to address the group’s own confrontation with Israel along the…
Hezbollah has used its stronghold in southern Lebanon to launch continual attacks on northern Israel since October 8, 2023. Hezbollah says it is motivated by its support for Hamas, a fellow member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance surrounding Israel. While Hezbollah is Shia and Hamas is Sunni, both are devoted to Israel’s destruction, and both receive funding from and coordinate with Iran.
While too much is unknown after a week of fighting to make definitive statements about the war, certain possible outcomes can be explored.
The first meeting of the Board of Peace convened under the Trump ceasefire for Gaza offers grand plans for reconstruction and a vibrant, peaceful future for Palestinians but depends on the disarmament of Hamas.
The U.N. Security Council voted 13-0 on November 17, 2025, to adopt Resolution 2803, endorsing the 20-point Trump peace plan to end the Hamas-Israel war. The precedent-setting resolution provides a pathway to stability in the Gaza Strip and offers a chance for less violence in the Palestinian-Israeli relationship.
Updated January 5, 2026; originally posted October 2023. By Ken Stein CIE+ Reliable resources for deeper Israel understanding Embrace informed content on Israel, the Middle East and the Diaspora. Begin with 7 days free to…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio explains the urgent need to establish the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force for Gaza to move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 in the ceasefire, but he also warns that the work likely will last longer than the Trump administration.
Former US President Jimmy Carter embraced Hamas as a legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. His motivations possibly stretched from intentional to misguided to malevolent. Hamas leaders who were engaged in inter-Palestinian struggles remained pleased with the recognition he gave them. American officials and Israelis were keenly perturbed by the courtship he gave them.
In multiple worldwide realms, the magnitude of hate for Israel and Jews soared after October 7, 2023.
Watch our collection of weekly Wednesday webinars with expert analysis and insights into the war and related topics, and register for the next webinar.
Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. It opposes any kind of negotiations or agreements that recognize Israel as a reality, and its more extreme spokesmen regularly incite or celebrate the killing of Jews.
As a militant Islamic Palestinian national organization, Hamas believes that Israel is illegitimate and should be destroyed through Jihad. Hamas opposes all recognition and negotiation with Israel and opposes PLO/PA leaders who have negotiated and collaborated with Israel from time to time. The Hamas-PA competition severely fragments the Palestinian political community.
The U.S., Turkey, Qatar and Egypt commit to trying to implement President Trump’s vision for enduring peace in Gaza and the entire Middle East without offering details or obtaining the sign-on of Israeli or Palestinian officials.
Iran’s relations with Israel and the Jewish people from ancient times to the present day. June 23-June 24, 2025 — At the request of President Donald Trump, Iran and Israel enter a cease-fire to end…
President Trump announces precision U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites, citing Iran’s four-decade-long hatred of the U.S. and killing of Americans and others. He thanks the U.S. military, the Israeli military and Prime Minister Netanyahu, warning Iran to pursue peace because more targets remain.
For those looking for the best reads and watches on Iran and its relations with Israel, the United States and the Jewish people, CIE has compiled analyses, videos, documents and books.
The U.N. Security Council, on a 13-0 vote with two abstentions and with 135 co-sponsors from U.N. member states, enacts a resolution condemning Iran’s airstrikes on Arab states and its threat to the Strait of Hormuz.
Professor Meir Litvak, Tel Aviv University, for the Center for Israel Education In this extraordinary review, Professor Meir Litvak unfolds the ideological origins and development of the Iranian regime’s stark hatred of Zionism and Israel….
President Donald Trump announces Operation Epic Fury, the second U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in eight months, and urges the Iranian people to overthrow their Islamic regime.
Hamas’ terrorist assault Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and kidnapping more than 240, was the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, but the night of April 13-14 could have been worse when Iran attacked Israel…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces Operation Roaring Lion and briefly explains why Israel, with U.S. help, has attacked the nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities of Iran. He also encourages the Iranian people to topple their regime.
A week of unrest in Iran does not guarantee a revolution even if 85-plus million Iranians are angry at the country’s autocratic, theological rulers. Iran is a security-clerical oligarchy where kleptocracy, cronyism and authoritarianism have…
In their fifth U.S. meeting of 2025, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu show unity on Gaza, Hamas, Iran and their mutual appreciation for each other but offer glimpses of differences on Turkey, Syria and the West Bank.
The Declaration recounts the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the birth of Zionism and U.N. recognition of a Jewish state’s legitimacy. It also promises that the state will be a democracy for all its citizens.
From biblical times to the present, Jews and Judaism have had an unbroken connection to Zion, a reference to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, derived from the hill at the heart of Jerusalem. Zionism…
If one wants to start from scratch or build on an already sophisticated knowledge base about Zionism, modern Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, we believe that the books in English here have significant value. While…
In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.
Eventual founding leader of the World Zionist Organization Theodor Herzl says a Jewish state is need in response to antisemitism.
Steady disintegration of Palestinian Arab society from 1945-1949 is detailed by five Arab and non-Arab historians citing local social cleavages, economic impoverishment, fear, indebtedness, and political dysfunction.
By Shlomo Avineri “Zionism as a National Liberation Movement,” Jerusalem Quarterly 10 (Winter 1979): pp. 133-144. CIE+ Reliable resources for deeper Israel understanding Embrace informed content on Israel, the Middle East and the Diaspora. Begin…
Novelist Amos Oz’s final speech provides a summation of a lifetime of insights into Israeli society and a vision for what Zionism has yet to accomplish.
From 1898 to 1948, Zionism evolved from an idea to a concrete reality: the actual establishment of the Jewish state, Israel. Slowly, a few immigrating Jews created facts by linking people to the land. For half a century, fortuity and fortitude made the Zionist undertaking a reality. They exhibited pragmatism and gradually constructed a nucleus for a state. Through perseverance Zionists empowered themselves.
Rabbi Michael Berger, a professor in Emory University’s religion department, and CIE President Ken Stein, an Emory emeritus professor, trace 3,000 years of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and the strategies that prepared…
At Ben-Gurion Airport, five recently released Soviet Jewish prisoners are welcomed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin and cheering crowds. The five had been convicted in a 1970 hijacking plot, attempting to escape the anti-Semitic policies of the Soviet Union at the time.
During the 2019 CIE/ISMI Educator Workshop on Modern Israel, Emory University Professor Michael Berger traces the evolution of religious Zionism from its roots in Europe to its participation in current Israeli politics.
In less than 45 minutes, Israeli educator Susan Nachman Fraiman presents a taste of the variety of voices in Israeli art that have emerged in the past 20 years: female, religious, Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Israeli-Palestinian, all of which are rich subjects in themselves. We examine a few examples of works from each of these sectors and try to understand the rich background from which they come. This video is from a session July 25, 2022, at the 21st annual CIE/ISMI Enrichment Workshop on Modern Israel.
In multiple worldwide realms, the magnitude of hate for Israel and Jews soared after October 7, 2023.
Dan Senor, co-author of The Genius of Israel and Start-Up Nation, brought Center for Israel Education President Ken Stein on his Call Me Back podcast on Jan. 9 just hours after the state funeral for…
Compiled by Aidan New Iran lies behind much of what Israel has battled since Hamas launched its brutal terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023. By theology and ideology, Iran is committed to Israel’s destruction. By policy…
Can a radically hateful ideology ever be neutralized by rationality and logic?
Compiled by Aidan New Iran’s development of a nuclear weapons program began in the late 1990s, accelerate in the early 2000s, and has remained a focal point for regional tension and international sanctions. It is…
This episode focuses on the first Arab-Israeli peace breakthrough, the Camp David Accords of 1978. Camp David resulted from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s electrifying visit to Jerusalem. Host David Makovsky discusses this major decision point with Dr. Ken Stein, who has been a professor of contemporary Middle Eastern history, political science, and Israel studies at Emory University for forty-three years.
Iran’s move to assert sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz has short- and long-term implications for the Islamic regime and the world economy.
While too much is unknown after a week of fighting to make definitive statements about the war, certain possible outcomes can be explored.
By Ken Stein The Jewish growth in Mandatory Palestine in the period of the New Yishuv to establish a Jewish territory for a state had significantly developed by 1939. Arab leadership in 1938 acknowledged privately…
By Ken Stein, October 28, 2024 When Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter became the 39th President of the United States in 1977, he had little foreign policy experience, particularly regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite this, he…
Where you choose to begin or tell or remember it shapes the history and politics you do or do not want to convey. What you include and what you leave out reveals your knowledge,
biases, and political intentions.
The notion of a two-state solution remains front and center as the most often discussed and endorsed solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dimension of the conflict in the Middle East. So why has it not happened?
In two books written sixty years apart, When Prophecy Fails, 1957 (Festinger, Riecken and Schachter) and The Influential Mind, 2017 (Sharot, an Israeli neuroscientist), the conclusions were the same.
Context and perspective are key elements in understanding history. Zionism emerged in the 19th century because there was a unique Jewish identity built around belief, Torah, ritual, and community concern for one another. And second, the presence of wretched anti-Semitism. Nordau gave an impassioned speech about the Jewish condition at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in the late 19th century making the case for a Jewish national home. Nordau energized the audience and the Zionist movement.
By Dr. Kenneth Stein, Emeritus Professor, Emory University As the 39th president of the United States, James Earl Carter held office from 1977 to 1981. Carter was the longest-surviving former United States president in American history….
In 2008 and again in 2012, President Barack Obama made lofty promises and gallant assessments about Iran and the Middle East respectively. His remarks to the annual AIPAC conference four years ago about Israel and Iran have proved to be out and out fictions. Who will hold the 45th President accountable for promises made but not kept?
The U.N. Security Council, on a 13-0 vote with two abstentions and with 135 co-sponsors from U.N. member states, enacts a resolution condemning Iran’s airstrikes on Arab states and its threat to the Strait of Hormuz.
Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak makes the case against the Netanyahu government’s efforts to overhaul the judiciary, arguing that Israeli democracy requires judicial independence and protection for minority rights.
Delivering the third address by a U.S. president to the Knesset, George W. Bush celebrates Israel’s 60th birthday by emphasizing the enduring U.S.-Israel relationship based on shared values.
In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.
Before a White House dinner, President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk about Gaza, Iran, Syria and Middle East peace.
Former US President Jimmy Carter embraced Hamas as a legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. His motivations possibly stretched from intentional to misguided to malevolent. Hamas leaders who were engaged in inter-Palestinian struggles remained pleased with the recognition he gave them. American officials and Israelis were keenly perturbed by the courtship he gave them.
Celebrating the creation and survival of the State of Israel, the yearbook provides a thorough history of the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to independence in 1948.
For more than a century, Arab and Muslim leaders have expressed hatred for Jews, Zionism and Israel, although some have pointed internally for the failures of the Palestinian Arab national movement.
With 20 maps and prose, trace the progression of Jewish physical and demographic growth toward state building from 1882 to 1948 (25,000 to 600,000), with two-thirds in place by 1940.
The US promises Israel $38 billion in military aid over a decade, the assistance promised despite Jerusalem and Washington periodically differing over matters relating to Iran and the Palestinians.
