Prime Minister Moshe Sharett Is Born
Moshe Sharett is born as Moshe Shertok in Kherson, Ukraine. Sharett’s parents were early Zionists, having been involved in the BILU movement in the early 1880’s.
Trump’s Vision for Middle East Peace at Sharm el-Sheikh, October 2025
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.
Netanyahu Thanks Trump for Extraordinary Friendship After Hostage Release, October 2025
In a Knesset speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu delivers effusive praise for President Trump’s Middle East peacemaking even though the U.S. plan appears to have put the support of key Muslim powers in the region ahead of sign-on from Israeli or Palestinian officials.
World Leaders React to Gaza Peace Plan, October 2025
October 9, 2025 Edited October 12, 2025, to add a comment from Pope Leo XIV. After negotiators meeting in Egypt reached agreement October 8, 2025, on the first phase of the 20-point U.S. plan to…
President Trump’s Executive Order Promising U.S. Protection for Qatar, 2025
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.
College Syllabus: “Israeli Culture and Society: 1880-Present”
“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…
College Syllabus: “Zionism: Ideology and Practice in the Making of a Jewish State”
“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’s Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire and Security Plan, June 2001
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.
Trump-Netanyahu News Conference, September 2025, “The Promise of a New Middle East Is So Close”
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.
Trump Plan to End Gaza War, September 2025
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.
#151 Contemporary Readings September 2025
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,…
Donna Robinson Divine, “Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power”
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…
Neil Bar and Harel Chorev Halewa, “Constructed Autochthony Palestinian Nationalist Historical Revisionism”
Palestinian elites re-engineer antiquity to deny Jewish connection to the ancient Near East. Arguments include denying Solomon’s Jewish Temple, Palestinizing Jesus and appropriating Canaanite ancestry. These and other claims challenge the historical record that Jews were an ancient nation in the Holy Land. With permission of the authors, The Journal of the Middle East and North Africa, May 26, 2025.
Palestinian Authority Cronyism, Monopolies and Patronage, 1990s-Present
In pursuing its central political objective to control and lead the Palestinian Arab quest for statehood, the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud Abbas is delighted to have multiple countries endorse a two-state solution. Affirming…
Mixed Muslim and Arab Views and Actions Toward Jews, Zionism and Israel, 1920s-Present
December 13, 2023, Poll of Palestinian Arab views, a survey completed two months after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israelis, Palestinians praised Hamas actions, with a vast majority not believing that Hamas carried out atrocities…
French President Macron’s U.N. Address on a Two-State Solution, September 2025
President Macron’s speech links the end of Hamas-Israeli conflict to the evolution of a of two-state solution. He acknowledges that Israel has the power to end the war and evolve a Palestinian state, asserting that if Israel does neither to the satisfaction of France and her European partners, Israel could pay an undisclosed price. He offers no such penalties to be placed on the PA for its failure to meet its commitments. Once again the Palestinian Arab national movement uses the international community to pressure Israel into concessions. On the same day, Israeli
Prime Minister Netanyahu emphatically rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. The Israeli
parliament in June 2004 rejected any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by a 68-9 vote.
U.N. New York Declaration on the Two-State Solution, July 2025
Seized by the severity of the Gaza war and nonmovement on a Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process, the U.N. offers a diplomatic road map to end the war and start negotiations. Led by France and Saudi Arabia, it asserts PA primacy as the legitimate Palestinian political representative, addresses possible Palestinian governance reform, seeks to empower a sovereign and economically viable state of Palestine living side by side in security with Israel, and contains other vague PA promises. Israel and the U.S. reject the Declaration. The Israeli government refuses to have outside parties determine the outlines or pace of negotiations with any country because negotiations impact Israeli security today and tomorrow.
Letter From PA President Mahmoud Abbas to French President Emmanuel Macron, June 2025
PA President Abbas makes requests and gives promises to the French president for the establishment of a Palestinian
state. His commitments were not negotiated with Israel. They are meant to seek support for the end of the Gaza war,
the affirmation of Abbas and the PA as the sole Palestinian political address, and international support for a Palestinian state.
As in the past, the PA and Abbas seek international support to pressure Israel into undesirable political actions.
Explainer: UN General Assembly Resolution 181 — Partition Plan to Create Arab and Jewish States With an Economic Union and Special Regime for Jerusalem
November 29, 1947 Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session Supplement No. 11,Volumes l-lV. Deteriorating Relationship Between Britain and Palestine The British intention (Peel Report in 1937) to partition Palestine into Arab and…
Explainer: Oslo II Agreement Between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, September 1995
September 28, 1995 After signing the Declaration of Principles (DOP) on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly known as the Oslo Accords, on September 13, 1993, Israel and the PLO reached three additional interim agreements before Oslo…
Oslo II Agreement Between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, 1995
This was the fourth Palestinian-Israeli Agreement signed that broadly extended Palestinian self-governing arrangements throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was promised, essentially only putting substance on the Palestinian autonomy agreement that Menachem Begin signed with Anwar Sadat in the 1978 Camp David Accords.
“Remember October 7th,” Rubio and Netanyahu Emphasize, September 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Israel was primarily prompted by American criticism of Israel’s airstrike on September 9, targeting Hamas leaders in Doha, the Qatari capital. Rubio arrived in Doha at the end of an emergency Arab-Islamic leaders summit that roundly condemned Israel’s attack. In Doha, he affirmed US interests in Qatar, with particular knowledge that it hosts America’s largest air base in the Middle East and the forward headquarters for the US Central Command. The US was seeking to balance its relationship with Israel and Qatar.
CIE’s Jewish Teen Israel Learning — Participant Responses
Teen participants have shown uniform enthusiasm for their interactive engagements with peers at Center for Israel Education programs. See their responses in their own words.
