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Compiled by Ryder Zufi Hamas shocked Israeli political, military and intelligence leaders when it launched the vicious terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 Israelis and others and took more than 250 hostages. Although the mass operation of thousands of militants attacking from Gaza was a surprise, the objectives were consistent with […]

One of Israel’s greatest writers, Natan Alterman reminded Israel’s accusers in 1969, that well into the twentieth century the Palestinians did not even understand themselves as a separate people with a distinctive national identity marking them off from other Arabs. His argument, if framed as a question, might be formulated along these lines: If no one else, not least the Palestinians’ own ancestors, saw their own distinctive nation in Ottoman Palestine, how can the Zionists be blamed for not seeing one either? Thus, to fault the Zionists for failing to see what was not yet visible to anyone else, including the Palestinians, is to fault them, not for suffering from blindness, but for lacking clairvoyance.

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 […]

À medida que o sionismo avançava de forma contínua a partir do final dos anos 1800 com a ideia da criação de um lar nacional e até o estabelecimento do Estado judeu em 1948, a condição disfuncional da política árabe-palestina, aliada ao empobrecimento econômico incessante, arraigado em torno de divisões sociológicas, impossibilitou competir de forma […]

Scott Abramson y Ken Stein En su famoso ensayo de 2004 “Entre la derecha y la derecha”, el novelista israelí más célebre, Amos Oz , reflexiona sobre la sociedad israelí y resume a sus conciudadanos con esta valoración: “Lo que nosotros, los judíos israelíes, somos en realidad [es] un grupo de refugiados y supervivientes medio […]

Como historiador del Medio Oriente, Ken Stein analiza en detalle las negociaciones egipcio-israelíes de 1977-1979. Menciona la caída del Sha de Irán, su trabajo en el Centro Carter, la creciente visión negativa de Carter hacia Israel, su acercamiento a Hamás y el impacto de su controvertido libro antiisraelí de 2006, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

Abdullah II remains studiously noncommittal in support of Trump’s idea for the US to take over the Gaza Strip, rebuilding it, and relocating the Palestinians to other countries. With Jordan’s strong economic, strategic, and defense ties to Washington, no one expected the King to be effusive for Trump’s suggestions for Gaza’s future. Jordan lacks the economic and demographic absorptive capacities and, the political interest to take in another wave of Palestinians into its territory.

The clash of great powers to control the Middle East, particularly between the US and the USSR neither began after the end of WWII nor ended with the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Today, China, the US, Russia, and Middle Eastern regional powers vie to influence everyday politics and resources.

By Moshe Naor “Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War,” Journal of Contemporary History, 2008. The 1948 Israeli-Arab War is described in most research as a military conflict that began between two national entities in Palestine, and developed into a regular war between armies. This general description of the war presents a periodization […]

January 15, 2025, effective January 19, 2025 “Negotiations that take place not to reach a conclusion, but are undertaken to gain political credit, sustain positions in office, and obtain lots of cash are equivalent to giving gas in neutral.” — Ken Stein, January 19, 2025 On January 19, 2025, a Hamas-Israel war cease-fire agreement came […]

In a stunning commitment, Trump notes that U.S. intends to take ownership of the Gaza Strip. He announces withdrawal of US aid to UNWRA, imposition of maximum sanctions on Iran as Netanyahu states that Hamas will be gone from Gaza and the hostages freed. Both are hopeful for expanding the Abraham Accords.

By Aidan New and Michael Jacobs (updated April 9) President Donald Trump’s second administration had an impact in the Middle East even before his inauguration Jan. 20, 2025: Special Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff was widely reported to have pushed the Hamas-Israel cease-fire past the finish line during President Joe Biden’s final week in office. […]

Two major discordant issues that vexed Israel before October 7, 2023, continue to cleave Israeli society: a possible exemption from mandatory military service for the Haredim and the Netanyahu government’s persistent effort to wrench from the judiciary its independence, seeking to give the government with the parliamentary majority an opportunity to control who sits on the […]

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. 

Cohen shows regular Palestinian Arab collaboration with Zionists before Israel was established and asserts that local and family loyalties, with identity to villages, and not to a nation, did severe harm to the Palestinian struggle against Jewish nation building. (Presented with permission of the author, June 2024).

The head of Arab League says Palestine may be lost in a confrontation with the Zionists, but emphatically states that war is the Arab’s only option.

Assembled by Scott Abramson and Ken Stein, Center for Israel Education Daniel Ben-David, “Israel’s New US Ambassador Suggests Saudi Normalisation on the Brink,” Jewish Chronicle, January 28, 2025, https://www.thejc.com/news/world/israels-us-ambassador-saudi-normalisation-xyz5dgkb Ahmed Charai, “Look to Middle Eastern Diasporas for Figures to Inspire Change,” Jerusalem Strategic Tribune,  January 2025, https://jstribune.com/charai-look-to-middle-eastern-diasporas-for-figures-to-inspire-change/ Seth J. Frantzman, “After the Gaza Ceasefire, Watch […]

Our latest Whiteboard video explores the history and context of ultra-Orthodox deferments from the Israel Defense Forces. Beginning with the 1947 status-quo agreement between David Ben-Gurion and Agudat Israel, we explain the origins of the policy and why it has become so divisive in contemporary Israeli society.

At Israel’s inception, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Jacob Blaustein the head of the American Jewish Committee, disagreed, some say clashed on whether American Jews should now make their permanent home in Israel, as new immigrants Ultimately,the two Jewish leaders agreed on compromise language where Israeli and American Jews remained independent of one another, but still tied to common aspirations for freedom, liberty, and the the central concept of Jewish self-determination. From the 1950s forward significant numbers of American Jews did immigrate to Israel. Then, repeatedly over subsequent decades of Israel’s existence, American Jews and Israelis did openly interfere in trying to shape political outcomes in the other country, with resentment and appreciation resulting but never ceasing.

Since coming to office the first time in 1996, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has met with four presidents (Clinton, Obama, Trump and Biden) on 11 occasions. Four times he has addressed Congress, each time emphasizing some aspect of Israeli security needs: strengthening the bilateral relationship; the hazards of Iran’s nuclear program and particularly […]

El 28 de enero de 2020, el presidente de los Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, presentó su tan esperado Plan de Paz para el conflicto palestino-israelí. El plan, anunciado en Washington, llevó el título de “Visión para la paz, la prosperidad y un futuro más esperanzador para Israel y el pueblo palestino”. El Plan de Trump […]

US and Israeli Delgations Discussion of application of UNSC 242, at Camp David File Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1 Top Secret September 16, 1978 Participants: Vance, Mondale, Brzezinski, Lewis, Dayan, Barak and Dinitz  Barak:  Informs about the changes that were proposed last night and that we agreed upon.  Vance:   Relates to their version about Clause […]

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the Israel Delegation September 14, 1978 at 6:30 PM File Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1 At the Prime Minister’s Cabin Participants: Menachem Begin, Aharon Barak, Simcha Dinitz, Meir Rosenne, Abrasha Tamir, Elie Rubinstein, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance   Begin:  Barak reported to me about the new paper that you […]

Memorandum of Conversation between Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman with US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown at Camp David File Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1 September 7, 1978 By the time the American, Egyptian, and Israeli delegations convened at Camp David, dozens of […]

The Prime Minister Reports on his conversation with President Carter – File Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1 Reporting to the members of the Israeli Delegation, Camp David  September 5, 1978, at 11 PM The Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, reported to the members of the delegation on his two and a half hour conversation this evening with […]

The Israel-Palestinian Negotiations Background – Israel-PLO Recognition Recent years have witnessed a series of landmarks in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Following intense behind-the-scenes contacts between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Oslo, an agreement was achieved between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. On September 9, 1993, Chairman Arafat sent a […]

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 2024 Vol. 18, No. 2, 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/23739770.2024.2386757 El legado de Jimmy Carter en Oriente Medio Kenneth Stein Kenneth Stein es profesor emérito de Historia contemporánea de Oriente Medio, Ciencias políticas y Estudios de Israel en la Universidad Emory y presidente del Centro para la Educación de Israel con sede en […]

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 […]

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 […]

As Middle East historian, Ken Stein discusses in intimate detail the 1977-1979 Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. He touches on the fall of the Shah of Iran, his work of the Carter Center, Carter’s growing negative views toward Israel, his embrace of Hamas, and the impact of Carter’s controversial anti-Israeli 2006 book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.”