Latest

Professor Ken Stein spent decades working with and researching the presidency and post-presidency of Jimmy Carter and shared many of his insights with the media and fellow scholars after the 39th U.S. president died Dec. 29, 2024, at age 100.  “I think he was unprepared to be president because I don’t think he had enough […]

Dan Senor and Ken Stein on the “Call Me Back” podcast discuss many aspects of Jimmy Carter: the Camp David peace process, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the work of the Carter Center, Carter’s views toward Israel and Hamas, and the issues and attitudes brought forward by the 2006 book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.”

January 10, 2025 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 president in American history. He was the only U.S. president elected from Georgia. How his presidency and post-presidential life are evaluated remains dependent […]

In this animated white board video, we explore Jimmy Carter’s efforts at achieving peace in the Middle East. Beginning with the origins and formulation of Carter’s foreign policy as he prepared to run for President in 1976, the video emphasizes the influence of Zbigniew Brzezinski on Carter’s evolving Middle East policies. These included appeasing Arab countries, embracing Egypt’s Anwar Sadat as he turned away from the Soviet Union, and emphasizing Palestinian rights. It covers the fraying US-Israeli relationship through the end of the Carter administration.

Jimmy Carter, “The US- Iran relationship, the Shah’s downfall, Khomeyni’s rise to power, and the Hostage Crisis,” an Emory class presentation, Atlanta, Georgia, March 24, 1985, recorded and transcribed with permission.

Our second animated white board video covers in detail what took place during the thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David in September 2018. The video begins with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s priority on getting back the Sinai Peninsula which Egypt lost to Israel in the June 1967 War and the origins of direct negotiations between Israel and Egypt following Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.

Assembled by Scott Abramson and Ken Stein, Center for Israel Education Kaasra Aarabi, “I Spoke to Khamenei’s Foot Soldiers. He Is in Trouble,” The Jewish Chronicle, December 19, 2024, https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/i-spoke-to-khameneis-footsoldiers-he-is-in-trouble-uowe2t5a Ofra Bengio, “Vindicating The Poisoned Chalice: Iran’s Creeping Invasion of Iraq,” Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, December 15, 2024, https://dayan.org/content/vindicating-poisoned-chalice-irans-creeping-invasion-iraq Avishay […]

Having made human rights a central pillar of his foreign policy, Carter nonetheless seemingly ignored the abuses the Shah of Iran imposed upon his own people. Carter’s unctuous praise for the Shah at this state dinner angered Iranians in general, the clerical regime that replaced the Shah in 1979, resulting in negative consequences for Carter as he went into the 1980 presidential election.

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 prioritized Middle East peace upon taking office. Carter’s approach diverged from his predecessors’ step-by-step diplomacy, favoring a comprehensive solution. Influenced by […]

Kenneth Stein is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science, and Israel Studies at Emory University and President of the Atlanta-based Center for Israel Education. He is the author of The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939 (1984) and Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin, and the Quest for Arab–Israeli Peace (1999). From 1982 to 2006, while teaching at […]

Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s chief political adviser, warned the president to halt the administration’s anti-Israeli actions. Nonetheless, they continued to diminish Carter’s support among American Jews through the 1980 re-election campaign.

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.

History remembers the following lecture (translated into English for the first time) not only as one of Amos Oz’s most celebrated, but also as his last. Regardless of whether he intended it as such, the lecture represents a summation of his insights on the subjects he had engaged with throughout a career that spanned a half-century.

January 6, 2025 CIE President Ken Stein is interviewed about Jimmy Carter by Foundation for Defense of Democracies Executive Director Jonathan Schanzer on the “FDD Morning Brief” on January 6, 2025. Jonathan Schanzer: It’s now time for my conversation with Professor Ken Stein. I’m proud to call Ken a friend and a mentor, although if […]

January 6, 2025 CIE President Ken Stein addressed “Jimmy Carter’s Middle East Legacies” during a webinar hosted by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East in cooperation with the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa on January 6, 2025. Dr. Stein took audience questions from moderator Asaf Romirowsky, the executive director […]

Ken Stein discusses Jimmy Carter’s Camp David success with WSB radio’s Scott Slade in an interview that aired shortly before Carter’s state funeral.

Ken Stein, December 24, 2025 Summary: Ripe conditions that prefaced the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty are almost totally absent in 2025 that might presage additional Arab-Israeli agreements. Why? Today, there is a an absence in political will, courage, and foresight of leaders to change the non-war status quo;  dysfunctional structural weaknesses are present among all parties […]

“Bendeciré a los que te bendigan, y maldeciré a los que te maldigan.” –Génesis 12:3 (versículo comúnmente invocado por los evangélicos en apoyo de Israel) En 1917, el general Edmund Allenby recibió el mando de las fuerzas británicas en Oriente Medio y la orden de conducirlas a la victoria sobre el Imperio otomano. Pero, cuando […]

First published at Fathom Journal: https://fathomjournal.org/fathom-long-read-islamophobia-and-antisemitism-a-false-equivalence/ This essay is a rebuttal of the increasingly common comparison between antisemitism and Islamophobia, refuting it on five grounds in particular:  Fathom Long Read | Islamophobia and Antisemitism: A False Equivalence Introduction A trend in Western discourse has developed in the past few years, observable in full vigour since […]

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse.” — Genesis 12:3 (verse commonly invoked by Evangelicals in support of Israel) In 1917, General Edmund Allenby was given both command over British forces in the Middle East and an order to lead them to victory over the Ottoman […]

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. Linking people to the land, building and preserving Israel, is the dynamic of Zionism. 

The period of the New Yishuv lasted from the last 40 years of Ottoman rule in Palestine through the British Mandate until the establishment of Israel in 1948. It saw the growth of the Jewish community from 24,000 in 1882 to some 650,000 in May 1948, while the Arab population increased from 300,000 to approximately […]

O período do novo Yishuv durou desde os últimos 40 anos do governo otomano na Palestina, perdurando ao longo Mandato Britânico até o estabelecimento de Israel em 1948. Neste período, houve um crescimento da comunidade judaica, passando de 24 mil pessoas em 1882 para aproximadamente 650 mil em maio de 1948, enquanto a população árabe […]

Desde os tempos bíblicos até hoje, os judeus e o judaísmo têm uma ligação ininterrupta com o Sião, uma referência à Eretz Israel, a Terra de Israel, proveniente da colina no coração de Jerusalém. O sionismo foi e permanece sendo a meta judaica para ter e manter um Estado judeu na antiga terra dos judeus. […]

Ken Stein In the 1988 Hamas Charter and from remarks by it leaders and in other publications, they express hatred of Zionism, Israel and Jews. It is unmistakably clear that Hamas abhors Zionism, Israel and Jews in a sovereign state.  Hamas opposes any kind of negotiations that recognizes Israel as a reality or requires cooperation […]

Go to The Timeline starting at Era II Previous Era Next Era

Hafez Ismail was a close adviser of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Ismail carried out secret negotiations with Henry Kissinger before the 1973 war to see if the US would quietly start talks with the Israelis. Kissinger said no. Ismail provides notable insights into Sadat’s sophisticated decision-making.

For a century, Arab and Muslim attitudes toward Jews, Zionism, and Israel have evolved and lived together along a spectrum of outlooks that sees Jews, Zionism and Israel as threatening, disliked, barely tolerated, moderately accepted, recognized, collaborated with, and vigorously hated.

Compiled by Ryder Zufi and Aidan New Public expressions of antisemitism had been rising for years before Oct. 7, 2023. But since Hamas started a war that day with its terrorist invasion into southern Israel, anti-Jewish signs, statements and images have exploded to the point that hatred of Jews has become normalized, from the streets […]

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 a prime concern for Israel and the United States. Israel is believed to have made covert efforts to hinder Iran’s […]