Through a national-political lens, political cooperation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel seems unlikely, as their national issues seem to be insurmountable and of central importance. However, the formation of a mixed Jewish-Arab municipal coalition in Lod brings the supposed centrality of national politics into question, and points to cooperation on shared local issues.

On Jan. 29, 2019, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” However, experience helps us realize that the American intelligence community has a very problematic track record in revealing, on time, nuclear weaponization efforts of many countries (e.g., North Korea, India, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq) including Iran itself, so one has to be very humble about this kind of assessment.

In 2018, a record 4.1 million tourists visited Israel from all over the world. The figure is particularly impressive, given the security incidents in this period, the extensive coverage of security-related events by the foreign press and social media, and the BDS campaign. While global tourism between 2007 and 2018 increased 60 percent, tourism in Israel in the same period rose 100 percent.