Know your past, own your present, assure your future.
From the end of World War I until the June 1967 war, American Jewish attitudes toward Zionism moved from lukewarm embrace to full-throated support. The debate of American rabbis in the 1940s exemplified by this letter reflects attitudinal differences. The Holocaust, Israeli statehood and Israel’s stunning military success in June 1967 established Israel as a valued element in American Jewish identities.
Washington Institute Senior Fellow Michael Eisenstadt speaks about the regional effects of the 2023-2025 Hamas-Israel war and the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran war in March 2026.
President Trump’s speech a month into the war makes the case for Iran as a longtime U.S. enemy and argues that the war has largely succeeded and will soon be over.
Maya Rezak and Ken Stein, March 31, 2026 Videos and Multimedia Phillip Brown, “Middle East Oil,” Congressional Research Service, March 3, 2026. Yonit Levi, Nadim Koteich, Amer Al Sabaileh and Robert Satloff, “How Middle East…
Using published archives, press conferences, speeches and numerous interviews, this compilation of quotations traces how official American views on Zionism and Israel have evolved over a century.
No document better reveals the hostility which most Arab leaders and Arab states had in 1947 for Zionism and for a possible Jewish state. The Saudi King notes “that US support for Zionists in Palestine is an unfriendly act directed against the Arabs.” The King’s views were totally supported by US State Department officials including Loy Henderson and George Kennan who advocated strongly against Truman’s support of a Jewish state.
Loy Henderson, Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, U.S. State Department, to U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall
Writing two months before the U.S. voted at the United Nations in favor of Palestine’s partition into Arab and Jewish states, Henderson voices profound dislike for Zionism and a Jewish state. He advocates for cultivating positive relations with Muslim and Arab states. He is one of many at the State Department at the time who saw Zionism as contrary to American national interests.
Prime Minister-elect Begin rebukes President Carter’s assertion that Israel will need to withdraw from almost all the lands Israel secured in the June 1967 war, especially Jerusalem and the West Bank. Begin is adamant opposed to dealing with the PLO. Begin refuses to relinquish Israeli decision-making to US preferences or dictates. These fundamental policy disagreements will remain unresolved between Begin and Carter for the duration of Carter’s presidency, and years after.
The plan builds on previous proposals for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and contains a US-Israeli agreement that sets forth final borders for two states. The plan contains multiple prerequisites for Palestinian behavior before either the US or Israel might agree to Palestinian statehood as well as a proposed $50 economic development package to be allotted over a decade.
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.
In the waning days of the Reagan administration, Secretary of State George Shultz pushes for U.S.-mediated peace negotiations, including Palestinians, and offers the outlines for a resolution to the conflict.
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…
Quietly pursued in the past, long-standing strategic ties between Israel and Gulf states have become public. Building on the historic Joint Agreement signed between Israel and the UAE in August 2020, the Abraham Accords serve as a framework for normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
After the horrific Hamas attack on Israel, President Joe Biden unequivocally categorizes Hamas’ brutality as “pure, unadulterated evil” and reiterates that the U.S. will “stand with Israel.”
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…
The 1929 Palestine and Near East Exhibition was the last of four smaller exhibitions which would eventually become (in 1932) the Levant Fair or Orient Fair (Yerid Hamizrach).
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.
