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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 […]

The analysis summarizes the declaratory or aspirational Trump Plan for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, outlining proposals on final status issues, and the proposed economic development package, with a hope for a two state-solution. Maps are used to show how Palestine’s and Israel’s borders have changed over the last 150 years. (Video or audio)

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.”

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.

Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” Middle East Journal, October 1949, reprinted with permission Volume 3, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 373-405 Reprinted with permission of The Middle East Institute, October 2021 In this 1949 article published in Middle East Journal, Musa Alami, a noted and highly respected Palestinian Arab leader during the first half […]

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 […]

Negotiated through the Norwegians, the Accords call for limited Palestinian rule in some of the territories; it did not call for a Palestinian state or an end to settlements.

In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.

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 […]