Berlin-born Rafael made a career in diplomacy after time as a soldier with the Haganah and the British. He was part of the Jewish Agency‘s U.N. delegation in 1947, was a founder of the Foreign Ministry in 1948, and served as the ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg and to Britain. As ambassador to the United Nations, he defended Israel during the 1967 war and worked on Security Council Resolution 242.
Photo: Israeli Government Press Office
October 9, 2025 After negotiators meeting in Egypt reached agreement October 8, 2025, on the first phase of the 20-point U.S. plan to end the Gaza war and rehabilitate the coastal enclave, the following statements…
President Trump issued a presidential order placing Qatar under the military protection of the United States. He did not submit his policy for U.S. Senate ratification, as would be necessary for the staying power of a treaty. The U.S. had never offered such protection to an Arab country, let alone one that sits across the Persian Gulf from Iran. The action was viewed as a direct response to Israel’s intrusion into Qatar’s sovereignty three weeks earlier in a failed attack on Hamas leaders in Doha. But the order might have been a step toward including Qatar in the Abraham Accords. And Qatar is potentially a key funder in rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
“Israeli Culture and Society: 1880-Present” Eli Sperling, Emory University, Spring/Fall 2019 Upon its inception, Zionism needed more than political and financial solutions to actualize a Jewish home in Palestine. It was necessary for the architects…
“Zionism: Ideology and Practice in the Making of a Jewish State” Scott Abramson, UCLA, Winter 2020 This course tells the biography of Zionism. Uniting social, intellectual, cultural and political history, it exhibits its subject in…
CIA Director George Tenet proposes a cease-fire to stop vicious Palestinian-Israeli violence that carries on for four more years. The plan seeks to restore Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation, end incitement, arrest militants and establish mechanisms for accountability through the U.S.
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu explain their expansive vision for a peaceful Middle East through the implementation of a 20-point U.S. plan to end the Gaza war with the support of many Arab and Muslim countries.
A comprehensive U.S. plan to end the Hamas-Israel war is unveiled eight days before the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
Maya Rezak and Ken Stein, September 30, 2025 Oded Ailam, “Hostages, Rival Clans, and Empty Promises: The Next Middle East Flashpoint,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, September 30, 2025. Neil Bar and Harel Chorev Halewa,…
Divine, Donna Robinson, Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power, Lynne Reinner Publishers, Boulder, 1994, pp. 191-215 (with author’s permission, September 2025) This is a rigorous analysis of the struggles of…
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