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Read the terrorist organization’s own words about its mission to eliminate Israel and Jews everywhere, as well as analyses explaining how Hamas works.

In a major speech, Khalid Mishaal, the Chief of the Political Bureau of Hamas presents the organization’s vision for liberation of all of Palestine, stating that it is national duty through Jihad and armed resistance. “Palestine, from its river to its sea, from its north to its south, is the land of the Palestinians; their homeland, and their legitimate right. We will not, in any way, recognize the legitimacy of the occupation. We do not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, in any way.

Tras el horrible ataque de Hamás contra israelíes, en el que murieron más de mil israelíes y al menos una docena de estadounidenses fueron asesinados en el sur de Israel, el Presidente Biden califica inequívocamente las acciones de Hamás de “pura maldad no adulterada”. Reitera que “estamos con Israel.”

Maps of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s villages and kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip, former Israeli settlements there, and Israel’s requested zone of civilian withdrawal 10.14.2023

The murderous attacks perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israelis reverberated across Israel, the region and the world. As Israel buried tens of hundreds of its dead, the government formed an emergency war cabinet to shape responses as thousands were mobilized for reserve duty. On Israel’s borders and across the region, tensions rose. The U.S. responded with unequivocal presidential, congressional and military support for Israel’s national security and President Biden’s visit to Israel on October 18. Joining CIE to provide insight into Hamas’ ideological motivations, its connections to Iran and the rise of Islamic antisemitism were Tel Aviv University Professor Meir Litvak. Discussing Middle Eastern, North African and international responses was Dr. Sarah Feuer, a lecturer at Reichman University and a research fellow at the Gazit Institute in Tel Aviv. Addressing the implications and context of Biden’s visit was Dr. Amnon Cavari, who teaches at Reichman University and this year is an Israel Institute visiting professor of political science at the University of Michigan. During this 39-minute webinar, they talked about Hamas’ genocidal ideology and its reasons for striking now, the likelihood of weakening regional and international support for Israel as the war continues, and the war’s best possible outcomes for Israel. Moderating was Dr. Ken Stein, the Center for Israel Education’s president and an Emory University professor emeritus of Middle Eastern history and political science.

More than 1,000 Hamas fighters launched a coordinated attack into Israel on October 7, killing more Israeli Jews in 24 hours than died in the June 1967 Six-Day War (774) or on any single day since the Holocaust. Providing context and analyzing possible results for this fifth Hamas-Israeli military clash were Professor Yaron Ayalon, head of the Jewish studies program at the College of Charleston; Professor Jonathan Rynhold, head of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University; and Ken Stein, Emory Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History and Political Science and President of the Center for Israel Education. In 52 minutes they provided analyses for Hamas’ goal of destroying Israel, Israel’s pending responses to the mass killings, and Iran’s influence on Hamas. They evaluated America’s response and the vast political gulf expanded between Israelis and the Palestinians, preventing any political accommodation between them well into the future.

And other valuable assessments of the digital and written assessments Ken Stein, Wendy Kalman, and Scott Abramson January 10, 2024 This 1987 – 2024  compilation covers important English articles, analyses, and videos, providing valuable context and recent history of the Hamas-Israel conflicts. For in-depth reviews about hamas ideology, statements, and world views expressing hatred for […]

Dr. Tal Grinfas-David, the Center for Israel Education’s vice president for outreach and pre-collegiate school management initiatives, speaks about Israel’s war with Hamas in a special Zoom session with fourth- to seventh-graders at a Jewish day school in Canada, Vancouver Talmud Torah. Roughly half the 39-minute video consists of Dr. Grinfas-David answering the students’ insightful questions, including “Why can’t we share the land?” and “Why do people hate us?”

In the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attack on Israelis where Hamas terrorists murdered more than a thousand Israelis and more than a dozen Americans in southern Israel, President Biden unequivocally categorizes Hamas’s brutality as ‘pure unadulterated evil.’ He reiterates that the US will “stand with Israel.”

Provide CIE the resources we need to keep providing the resources everyone needs to understand and spread appreciation for Israel and why it is fighting this war.

See full video on 11alive. https://www.11alive.com/video/news/local/emory-professors-analysis-on-hamas-attack/85-f1225db8-55d5-4b30-9229-826f49d8c301

Prime Minister Golda Meir in her address to the Knesset since the beginning of the October War, recounts the war’s status on the Golan Heights and in the Suez Canal area. She reveals that an Israeli task force had crossed the Suez Canal and was fighting on the west bank of that waterway.

The vast gulf in US and Israeli positions about Palestinian self-determination, the degree of withdrawal from the West Bank, and future borders is precisely stated. A year later at the end of the Camp David negotiations, Israeli and US views had not changed at all.

October 2, 2023 Assembled by Ken Stein and Wendy Kalman, Center for Israel Education 30 Years Since Oslo – Curated Readings, Center for Israel Education, September 2023. Ghaith al-Omari, “The Palestinian Authority, a Flawed but Necessary Legacy of Oslo,” Washington Institute of Near East Policy, September 7, 2023, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-authority-flawed-necessary-legacy-oslo  Ofer Ateret, “Golda Meir Was ‘Open’ […]

Addressing Israel’s fear of Iran’s access to nuclear weapons, the same point made by his predecessor Yair Lapid stressed in 2022 at the UN, Netanyahu like Lapid praised the Abraham Accords, noting in a quite unrestrained fashion that Israel was on the ‘cusp of a historic peace with Saudi Arabia.” The Prime Minister did mention support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians as Lapid had done previously.

Tamir was a 35 year veteran of the Israeli Army, attending all Egyptian-Israeli negotiations as a strategic planner. He stated that he thought the 1973 War could have been averted if Golda Meir had responded to Sadat’s pre-war overtures. He credits Henry Kissinger’s negotiating successes of the post 1973 war period as laying the basis for the successful 1978 and 1979 Egyptian-Israeli agreements.

From 1974 – 1981, Dan Pattir served as advisor on media and public affairs for Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin. Prior to working for two Prime Ministers, he Pattir worked in the Israeli media, and here he recalls in detail how Kissinger maneuvered the Geneva 1973 conference to keep the Soviets out of decision-making. Likewise he was intimate with the negotiating details and personal relationships that unfolded between Egypt and Israel in that period, especially 1977-1979 including his rendition of the September 1978 Camp David negotiations. Pattir concluded that the Carter administration, no matter how long it earnestly tried, it failed to grasp that neither Egypt nor Israel, were going to allow other Arab states or the Palestinian issue to interfere with their eagerly sought mutually beneficial bilateral agreement, before, during or after Camp David.

Speaker: Prof. William Quandt, Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia The Yom Kippur War – A Launching Pad for U.S. Middle East Policy Conference held at the INSS, 10 Sep 2013

View PDF.

Read full article at Israel State Archives. Egyptian President Sadat colluded with Syrian President Assad to attack Israel on Yom Kippur,  October 6, 1973. Unlike Syria, whose primary goal was to inflict harm on Israel and take territory from Israel,  Sadat’s immediate purpose was to gain a limited territorial success; his focus was to retrieve […]

El 6 de octubre de 1973, Yom Kippur, el día más sagrado del calendario religioso judío, Egipto y Siria lanzaron un ataque sorpresa coordinado contra Israel. Sadat logró su objetivo de restaurar el honor egipcio recuperando una pequeña porción del Sinaí controlado por Israel.

This initial Oslo reading compilation was collected in 2018, to recall Oslo 25 years later; it was updated in September 2023. The compilation is of course not inclusive.  An effort was made to include items that are mostly online and items that provide a diversity of viewpoints. Active links for all the items are the […]

On October 27, 1973, a German-born career foreign service officer, Omar Sirry, who served as Deputy Chief of Operations in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, was called by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy. This was exactly three weeks after the outbreak of the October 1973 War, ten days after Israel launched a counter-attack against the Egyptian […]

Michael Jacobs September 15, 2023 “Hopes for Peace Hang on Handshake.” That was the headline I wrote for the Sept. 14, 1993, front page of The Washington Times about what happened when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords on the White House South Lawn a day earlier.  That day 30 years […]

As a lifetime soldier-politician, Rabin acknowledges that the signing of the Declaration of Principles was profoundly difficult, and yet there is a yearning to end the cycle of violence and engage in reconciliation with the Palestinians. Drawing inspiration from Jewish tradition, he stresses the timeliness of pursuing peace and prays for a new era in the Middle East. 

Clinton expresses gratitude to those who brought about the possibilities of reconciling Israeli and Palestinian aspirations, and acknowledges past leaders, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush for advancing the sides toward this moment of signing the Accords on Interim Palestinian Self-Government. Over the next two decades, funds pour into the West Bank and Gaza Strip and elections for a self governing authority are held, but autocratic rule and financial mismanagement prevail, stymying along with other reasons, successful Palestinian self-rule.

Arafat offers gratitude to President Clinton for hosting this historic event, expressing hopes that the agreement will end a century of suffering and usher in peace coexistence and equal fights.
He acknowledges the courage of the people of Israel to seek the determination to build peace.
While advocating joint responsibility of Palestinians and Israelis to enforce the agreement, history shows that over the next decade, Arafat does not clamp down on violent attacks against Israelis.

Amichai Magen,  “Israel’s Summer of Discontent,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs View PDF

Assembled by Ken Stein and Wendy Kalman, Center for Israel Education Ofer Ateret, “Golda Meir Was ‘Open’ to a Palestinian State, Newly Released Archives From 1970 Reveal,” Ha’aretz, August 1, 2023, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-01/ty-article/.premium/golda-meir-was-open-to-a-palestinian-state-1970-minutes-reveal/00000189-b054-d083-a999-fc5ff4350000  Guy Azriel, “Israel considering pipeline to Turkey to increase gas exports,” i24, August 29, 2023, https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/economy/1693292330-israel-examines-construction-of-gas-pipeline-to-turkey  Yonah Jeremy Bob, “Terror in Israel is […]

Using sources from the Israeli Prime Ministers Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a first hand account of the negotiations is provided through the eyes of one of the negotiators, Dr. Yair Hirschfeld, supported by 31 declassified documents and communications from Palestinian, Israeli, and Norwegian representatives; the item was assembled by Israel State Archives researchers.