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The ultimate result of September’s election in Israel is still unclear. We do not yet know what type of coalition will be formed, when it will come together, or who will head it. We do know, however, that Israeli democracy had dodged a bullet. This is because, no matter who takes the reins of government or even if Israel holds a third round of elections, a radical assault on our judicial system has been halted.

The discharge of men inducted into the IDF from July 2015 began in March 2018, after 32 months of compulsory service (compared with 36 months until then). A law stipulating a further shortening of compulsory service for men is supposed to apply to those drafted from July 2020, such that they will serve 30 months. However, according to media reports, the past year has heard dissenting voices within the military against adopting this shortened service, in view of the increasing security challenges.

Given the turmoil in Syria, sectarian violence in Iraq, Lebanon’s economic woes, Turkish military adventurism, and Iran’s regional mischief-making, the October 2019, US bipartisan congressional delegation visit to Amman made great sense. It emphasized that for Washington, Jordan is a critical geographic and political asset for America and, for anyone else interested in preserving some measure of regional stability in at least part of the tumultuous Middle East.

In Israeli history books, the term is conjured every time the nation faces a major juncture that requires individuals and factions to transcend partisan loyalties. Judging from their behavior in the recent elections, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz both appear to be fuzzy on the meaning of the word.

David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon would have faced up to the moment. Even though they did not share the same ideologies, they did share a common view of leadership and the role of the prime minister. First and foremost, they understood what was important. They never shied away from making painful decisions in which they put the state, not their political needs, first.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to take the hardline Iranian stance regarding anything related to the management of the nuclear crisis with the West. After the failure of attempts by French President Emmanuel Macron, which “nearly” led to a meeting between Presidents Trump and Rouhani, the Iranian Supreme Leader stated at a meeting of the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that Iran would continue with its policy of reducing the level of its commitments to the nuclear deal: “The policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran as a way to force it to compromise has been a resounding failure.”

Watch as two pioneers of Israeli-Jordanian peace assess the state of their countries’ relations on the 25th anniversary of their historic 1994 peace treaty.

Fears of a potential military conflict with Iran may have opened the door to a Saudi-Iranian dialogue against the backdrop of a rethink of US military logistics, involving at least a gradual partial relocation to the US of command and control operations based in the Gulf for almost four decades.

On October 9, Turkey launched its long-expected military operation into north Syria with the goal of undermining the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG). Why did Ankara act now? What are the operation’s tactical objectives? And how does the decision fit into the Trump administration’s own objectives in Syria?

After the British suggested partition of Palestine into two states in July 1937, Weizmann, among Zionists, was least opposed to a Jewish state in less than all of western Palestine.

Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s calls to invite Israeli Arabs to live and work in Saudi Arabia could be either a diplomatic breakthrough or a cynical ploy. If the former, it could indicate that at long last, the Arab world is awakening to the possibility that to fully enter the modern world, it must normalize relations with Israel.

Anti-Israel mobilization and rhetoric have always been a prominent feature of official Arab discourse, regardless of political orientation. Islamist, nationalist, and secular parties have all seen vocal hatred of Israel as a cornerstone for rallying support and a vehicle to spread unrelated political messages to achieve related objectives, with unrelated acts being framed as forms of ‘resistance’ against Israel. However, the Syrian civil war has slowly shifted the dynamic of who is considered ‘enemy’ in the Arab world.

Assembled by Ken Stein and Eli Sperling Emory University and Center for Israel Education kenstein@israeled.org or kstein@emory.edu Einat Admony, “How Celebrity Chef Einat Admony Learned to Love Israeli Food,” Daily Beast, September 17, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/an-essay-from-chef-einat-admonys-new-book-shuk Tony Badran, “Welcome to the End of the Process,” The Caravan Journal, September 26, 2019. https://www.hoover.org/research/welcome-end-process Dany Bahar and Zvi […]

September 2019 Israeli Voice Index found that a majority of Israelis prefer a unity government. Additionally the majority of Israelis do not think the State should offer Benjamin Netanyahu a plea bargain or that he would agree to one. In the September survey we found a significant increase in the rate of Israelis who are optimistic about the future of democratic rule and about the future of Israel’s security. The increase is evident particularly on the left and in the center and does not exist in the right-wing camp (Jewish Israelis) where there was a decline in optimism.

Vladimir Putin sees an opportunity in escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf, but his attempts to make the most of it have been clumsy and could be self-defeating. When Saudi Arabia’s six battalions of US-made Patriot batteries recently failed to detect drone and missile attacks on two of the country’s key oil facilities, knocking out half of production, Putin saw an opportunity, and urged the kingdom to move ahead with the acquisition of Russia’s much-touted S-400 anti-missile defense system.

There is much discussion around the world about how to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But few, if any, international bodies deal with the question of how to prepare for the day Iran achieves such capabilities, if that day has not already arrived.

The study finds that most Arab Israelis are in favor of the Arab parties joining the government, but do not recognize Israel’s right to define itself as the nation-state of the Jewish People. Additionally – 65% of Arabs are proud to be Israeli – the highest since 2003.

The present volume of the Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann begins with the Allied victory in Europe and ends in the investigation of the Palestine problem by the United Nations Special Committee. Within this period Weizmann was reduced from being the President of the Jewish Agency and the acknowledged leader of his people to a lonely figure, virtually retired from public life. This was because he continued to place his faith, at least until the summer of 1946, in cooperation with Great Britain, the Mandatory Power, while his principal colleagues in Zionism were adopting the ways of violence in Palestine.

After an unprecedented second round of elections – the final outcome is still unclear. We’re now entering the next stage of the political lifecycle: coalition negotiations. The Israel democracy Institute provides detailed analyses of this election’s outcomes compared to others in Israel’s history.

This election will be less about which candidate ends up as prime minister, but rather the real possibility of radical judicial reforms that might soon pass in the Knesset and which would limit the Supreme Court’s ability to perform crucial oversight over the political system.

The relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community has been central to the ability of both communities to develop and flourish over the past 70 years; it is likewise vital to the national security of Israel and the entire Jewish people. The current generation has witnessed increasing trends of distance and alienation between Israel and American Jewry, a weakened connection and sense of mutual belonging, and the decline of responsibility and involvement between the two communities. These join the challenges concerning the continuity of the American Jewish community and its political and social influence within the United States.

The opening of this volume finds Chaim Weizmann in the United States, facing two urgent tasks: the rallying of American Jewry into a single, united front behind a Zionist platform; and the winning over of the Roosevelt Administration to the Zionist position. Following the breakdown of talks between Zionists and non-Zionists in the autumn of 1942, the Bnai Brith organization was asked by the Zionists to set up a preliminary meeting of American Jewish organizations that would prepare for a democratically-convened conference. This body would then appeal to the American Jewish community over the heads of its established leaders.

We have seen from the previous volume in this series how support for the partition of Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states, with substantial portions retained under the Mandate, had waned in the British Cabinet during 1938. Chaim Weizmann had struggled throughout that year to keep the scheme alive, but to no avail. The Technical Commission under Sir John Woodhead, which had been in Palestine ostensibly to produce a detailed plan, pronounced the scheme unworkable in any form. Thus, as 1939 dawned, the Zionist leader faced the unwelcome prospect of a conference at which Arabs and Jews would meet with British representatives to seek a compromise solution to the problem based upon a unitary Palestine.

Hezbollah responded with restraint to Israel’s three-pronged attacks over the past two weeks in Syria, Iraq, and, above all, a neighborhood in Dahiya, the vast Shiite area in Beirut where Hezbollah is headquartered. The organization’s effort to avoid escalation reflects its demographic problem in Lebanon.

This whiteboard video explains the structure of Israel’s education system, including the country’s commitment to early childhood learning programs, challenges of educational equality and funding for different segments of the population, and a comparison of Israel’s academic success with other nations.

The two and a half years covered by this volume of the Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann introduce a period of unparalleled tragedy for the Jewish people, with, ironically, the Zionist move­ment in deep conflict with Great Britain, for most of the time the only Power actively engaged in the struggle against Jewry’s enemy, Adolf Hitler. Despite ever-increasing evidence of Nazi intentions towards the Jews, British immigration policy as regards Palestine remained tied to the rigidly-enforced limits set by the White Paper issued by the Chamberlain Government in May 1939.

With the emergence of new parties and alliances, changes in party leadership, and maneuvering of party list order, we have updated our biographies of candidates to know about for the September 17th election.

An Israeli invention that pulls water from air will be deployed in Nigeria following a meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York regarding the freshwater crisis in the Chad Basin of Africa. Lake Chad is the main source of drinking water for millions of people in Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

As mirrored in this volume of his letters, the years 1937-38 were for Chaim Weizmann the most critical period of his political life since the weeks preceding the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in November 1917. We observe him at the age of 64 largely drained of physical strength, his diplomatic orientation of collaboration with Great Britain under attack, and his leadership challenged by a generation of younger, militant Zionists. In his own words he was ‘a lonely man standing at the end of a road, a via dolorosa. I have no more courage left to face anything—and so much is expected from me.’