Lewis served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1977 to 1985, second in tenure to Walworth Barbour. He played an important part in brokering Israeli-Egyptian peace and provided the on-site U.S. response to the 1981 Israeli raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor and Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He was a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was involved with the Israel Policy Forum and J Street.
Photo: Ann Thomas, U.S. State Department
The U.S., Turkey, Qatar and Egypt commit to trying to implement President Trump’s vision for enduring peace in Gaza and the entire Middle East without offering details or obtaining the sign-on of Israeli or Palestinian officials.
In a Knesset speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu delivers effusive praise for President Trump’s Middle East peacemaking even though the U.S. plan appears to have put the support of key Muslim powers in the region ahead of sign-on from Israeli or Palestinian officials.
October 9, 2025 Edited October 12, 2025, to add a comment from Pope Leo XIV. After negotiators meeting in Egypt reached agreement October 8, 2025, on the first phase of the 20-point U.S. plan to…
President Trump issued a presidential order placing Qatar under the military protection of the United States. He did not submit his policy for U.S. Senate ratification, as would be necessary for the staying power of a treaty. The U.S. had never offered such protection to an Arab country, let alone one that sits across the Persian Gulf from Iran. The action was viewed as a direct response to Israel’s intrusion into Qatar’s sovereignty three weeks earlier in a failed attack on Hamas leaders in Doha. But the order might have been a step toward including Qatar in the Abraham Accords. And Qatar is potentially a key funder in rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
“Israeli Culture and Society: 1880-Present” Eli Sperling, Emory University, Spring/Fall 2019 Upon its inception, Zionism needed more than political and financial solutions to actualize a Jewish home in Palestine. It was necessary for the architects…
“Zionism: Ideology and Practice in the Making of a Jewish State” Scott Abramson, UCLA, Winter 2020 This course tells the biography of Zionism. Uniting social, intellectual, cultural and political history, it exhibits its subject in…
CIA Director George Tenet proposes a cease-fire to stop vicious Palestinian-Israeli violence that carries on for four more years. The plan seeks to restore Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation, end incitement, arrest militants and establish mechanisms for accountability through the U.S.
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu explain their expansive vision for a peaceful Middle East through the implementation of a 20-point U.S. plan to end the Gaza war with the support of many Arab and Muslim countries.
A comprehensive U.S. plan to end the Hamas-Israel war is unveiled eight days before the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
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