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Jordanian Prime Minister Zaid Rifai lucidly explains Jordan’s role (inclusion and exclusion) in regional politics from prior to the 1973 October War to the late 1980s. His insights of Kissinger’s diplomacy and Arafat’s unfounded fear of being absorbed by Jordan are as worthy as they are insightful.

Unknown to the Carter administration and one month before it issued the US-Soviet Declaration to convene an international Middle East Peace Conference, Prime Minister Begin tells the cabinet that he learned from the Rumanian president that Sadat wishes to have Israeli and Egyptian representatives meet in secret talks. That bi-lateral Dayan -Tuhami meeting takes place on September 16. Begin refers to advanced drafts of proposed treaties between Israel and each Arab state; he presents details about Rumanian Jewish immigration to Israel.

Begin summarizes in great detail the contents and the political implications of the recently signed Camp David Accords. He reiterated Israel’s continued presence in Jerusalem, per its June 1967 Law, and clarified the terms used in the agreements.

El plan, concebido por el ministro de Trabajo Yigal Alón, fue presentado al entonces primer ministro Levi Eshkol el 26 de julio de 1967, inmediatamente después de la Guerra de los Seis Días.

As a long time confidant of Menachem Begin and involved in the Herut Party, Eliyahu Ben-Elissar was Israel’s first Ambassador to Egypt. He was a staunch supporter of keeping the area of the West Bank – Judea and Samaria under Israeli control. Later he became Israel’s ambassador to France and then the United States.

Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid Party, graciously thanked his predecessor, Naftali Bennett for his service. As Prime Minister at least until a month or so after the scheduled November 1, Knesset elections, Lapid emphasized the value of Israel’s inclusive democratic principles. He affirmed a commitment to keep Israel a majority Jewish state, and with that support for a strong economy. While stressing Israel’s security and defense needs including those from “Gaza to Iran,” he spoke hopefully of solidifying Israel’s regional security presence based on the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Zionism and Israel: From the Tanakh to 1948 explores the foundations of the centrality of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people and how the relationship between the people and the land evolved over time. (Young Adults and Adult Education)

July 1, 2022 Assembled by Ken Stein, Emory University’s Institute for the Study of Modern Israel and the Center for Israel Education, kenstein@israeled.org  Ahmed Aleiba, “No Arab NATO,” Al-Ahram Weekly, June 28, 2022, https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1201/470815/AlAhram-Weekly/Egypt/No-%E2%80%98Arab-NATO%E2%80%99-.aspx  Dalia al-Qadi, “The Need for an Arab NATO is growing ever more pressing,” Arab News, April 5, 2022, https://www.arabnews.com/node/2057496  Moran Azoulai, […]

Forjados silenciosamente durante la última década o incluso antes, los lazos para una relación a largo plazo entre Israel y los estados del Golfo se han hecho públicos, en base a intereses nacionales con la especulación de que las relaciones adversales podrían convertirse en un sistema regional de alianza flexible.

Gideon Rafael’s contributions to Israeli diplomacy spanned four decades. His recollections are from the 1930s, the end of the 1947-1949 war, unfolding events before the June 1967 war, and his clear
criticisms of his government’s insufficient response to Sadat’s negotiating overtures to Israel prior to the 1973 War. His life long conclusion: he had hoped that diplomacy would have worked better than it actually did.

International legitimacy is granted to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Rules for its establishment clearly give Jews in Palestine distinct advantages over the local Arab population.

The Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, March-17-18, 1981, Reprinted with permission. Participants included researchers, academics, politicians, and business people.

Dinitz focuses on mostly the 1973 October War period, the controversy of delay in the resupply of American military materials to Israel, his relationship with Kissinger and how the US Secretary of State maneuvered the Soviet Union out of postwar diplomacy. He notes that elements of the Israeli army leadership strongly wanted to embarrass Sadat after the war by harming his Israeli surrounded Egyptian Third Army. In the end Israel’s political leadership allowed diplomacy to unfold. Dinitz has great praise for Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat.

Ken Stein, June 8, 2022 En su libro de 750 páginas Jewish Literacy (Morrow, 1991), el rabino Joseph Telushkin “resume” lo que significa ser judío y hacer que otros entiendan el judaísmo. Es una compilación exhaustiva de lecturas, rituales, historia, eventos del ciclo de vida, centros de población judía, tragedias, conceptos, puntos de referencia, personalidades […]

The nature of the relations between Jewish and Arab citizens in the State of Israel have undergone, and are currently undergoing, significant changes. However, one fact remains unaltered: Israel is defined as the nation state of the Jewish people alone—a democratic state, but at the same time—the state of the Jewish majority, and a state in which the Arab minority constitutes around 22% of the population.

Updated June 1, 2022 Assembled by Ken Stein, Michele Freesman-Levenson, Emory University’s Institute for the Study of Modern Israel and the Center for Israel Education, kenstein@israeled.org Ahram Online Staff, “UAE to earmark $10 bln for investments in Egypt, Jordan,” Ahram Online, May 29, 2022, https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/467021/Business/Economy/UAE-to-earmark–bln-for-investments-in-Egypt,-Jord.aspx  AP. “Israel, UAE sign free trade deal, first with an […]

From the Israel Government Yearbook, an 11 page description of the June War.

Following three weeks of building tension with Egypt, particularly Cairo’s dispatch of 200,000 troops into Sinai, the removal UN peace keeping troops from there, the blockade of Israeli shipping access to its port at Eilat, and blistering verbal barrages from Arab leaders threatening Israel’s destruction, Israel preemptively struck Egypt on June 5.

When oral recollections are used to bolster the written text, subtle shades and emphatic dimensions provide colorful detail to historical writing. Unlike written records, oral evidence provides vignettes, opinions, hues, suppositions, and sentiments almost always absent in a document.

The last of 23 volumes of Chaim Weizmann’s Letters summarized wonderfully by Aaron Klieman, recalls the Israeli first president’s views of those fateful years for Zionism and Israel from 1947-1952. Chaim Weizmann died at his home in Rehovot on 9 November 1952, shortly before his 78th birthday. All of the letters read together, provide ring side seat to Zionism as an idea to the reality of the Jewish state.

US Secretary of State James Baker warns that in a post-Cold War world the US would not let Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion and erasure of Kuwait stand. Baker said that intimidation and force would not be tolerated. In January 1991, the US and its coalition partners ejected Iraq from Kuwait and restored its rulers.

A detailed outline is presented of events that led to the June 1967 War.

CIE Founding President Kenneth W. Stein, with a continual translation by Universidad Hebraica’s Mauricio Friedman, speaks to the evangelical Centro Cristiano Calacoaya outside Mexico City about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Recorded May 1, 2022.

CIE Founding President Kenneth W. Stein, with a continual translation by Universidad Hebraica’s Mauricio Friedman, addresses an evangelical church outside Mexico City on how and why the State of Israel exists. Recorded May 1, 2022.

Assembled by Ken Stein, Michele Freesman-Levenson, Emory University’s Institute for the Study of Modern Israel and the Center for Israel Education, kenstein@israeled.org  Ramy Aziz, “Egypt, Israel, and Hamas: Opportunities for Progress in Gaza,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 19, 2022, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/egypt-israel-and-hamas-opportunities-progress-gaza  Nahum Barnea, “Israel must not let its regional allies’ undemocratic practices stick […]

Upon admission to the UN, Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett said, “it was
the consummation of a people’s transition from political anonymity to clear identity, from inferiority to equal status, from mere passive protest to active responsibility, from exclusion to membership in the family of nations.”

Jewish Agency head David Ben-Gurion emphasizes that a Jewish state will be a place for all, including Arabs, and calls for Jews to be better educated about the elements of a state.

In the 1970s, US State Department Ambassador Michael Sterner was privy to Sadat’s preference for step-by-step diplomacy PRIOR to the 1973 October War. He is critical of the Carter administration for being too satisfied with only a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli Agreement.