Objectives and Conclusions: U.S.-Israel-Iran War
While too much is unknown after a week of fighting to make definitive statements about the war, certain possible outcomes can be explored.
Stein: The Causes and Consequences of the 2023-2025 Hamas-Israel War (transcript)CIE+
CIE President Ken Stein addresses what is and what is not known about why Hamas attacked October 7, 2023, why Israel was caught off guard, and what happens after the war across the region.
Explainer: A Short History of HamasCIE+
Updated January 5, 2026; originally posted October 2023. By Ken Stein Hamas’ Origins The 1988 Hamas Charter and remarks by its leaders and other publications express hatred of Zionism, Israel and Jews. It is thus unmistakable that Hamas…
Donna Robinson Divine, “Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power”CIE+
Divine, Donna Robinson, Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power, Lynne Reinner Publishers, Boulder, 1994, pp. 191-215 (with author’s permission, September 2025) This is a rigorous analysis of the struggles of…
Explainer: UN General Assembly Resolution 181 — Partition Plan to Create Arab and Jewish States With an Economic Union and Special Regime for JerusalemCIE+
November 29, 1947 Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session Supplement No. 11,Volumes l-lV. Deteriorating Relationship Between Britain and Palestine The British intention (Peel Report in 1937) to partition Palestine into Arab and…
Explainer: Oslo II Agreement Between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, September 1995CIE+
September 28, 1995 After signing the Declaration of Principles (DOP) on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly known as the Oslo Accords, on September 13, 1993, Israel and the PLO reached three additional interim agreements before Oslo…
Asher Susser, Jordan and the Islamic State ChallengeCIE+
December 27, 2015 Asher Susser, “Jordan and the Islamic State Challenge,” Institute for National Security Studies, December 2015. Jordan faces internal challenges and economic hardships that are feeding off each other. Many young people are…
Explainer: Land in Palestine and Land in IsraelCIE+
When the British and the French decided on the borders of some modern Middle Eastern states in the Levant in the 1915-1922 period, no Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Jewish, Lebanese or Jordanian state existed. Before the…
Ken Stein: No Two-State Solution in Sight to End ConflictCIE+
Ken Stein, President, Center for Israel Education, May 19, 2025 Introduction Since 1937, the idea of geopolitically separating Jewish and Arab populations west of the Jordan River has been a recommended solution to mitigate violence between…
Kenneth W. Stein, “Evolving a Diplomatic Legacy From the October War: The US, Egyptian, and Israeli Triangle”CIE+
Kenneth W. Stein, “Evolving a Diplomatic Legacy From the October War: The US, Egyptian, and Israeli Triangle,” in Asaf Siniver (ed.), The October 1973 War Politics, Diplomacy, and Legacy, London: Hurst and Company, 2013. This…
Second Trump Administration’s Views on Israel, Middle EastCIE+
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…
Explainer: Arabs of Palestine/IsraelCIE+
Some ancestors of modern Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, like those of Israeli Jews, lived in the Land of Israel millennia ago, but most came to the area when Muhammad’s successors took Jerusalem and settled there…
Hamas-Israel January 2025 Ceasefire — Commentary and ImplicationsCIE+
The details of the three-stage Hamas-Israel cease-fire that went into effect January 19, 2025, along with unanswered questions, insightful analyses and the relevant U.N. resolution from June 2024.
Post-Presidency Insider Ken Stein Offers Insights on Jimmy CarterCIE+
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….
Explainer: Egyptian-Israeli Negotiations, 1977-1981CIE+
By 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…
Explainer: The New Yishuv, an IntroductionCIE+
April 14, 2025 The period of the New Yishuv lasted from the last 40 years of Ottoman rule in Palestine through the British Mandate until the establishment of Israel in 1948. It saw the growth…
“Jimmy Carter’s Middle East Legacies,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, September 2024CIE+
September 2024 By Kenneth Stein 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…
Moshe Dayan Center, “The Struggle for Stability: Arab Reactions to the Hamas-Israel War”CIE+
Posted by the Moshe Dayan Center in March 2024 and shared with MDC permission, this collection of seven essays plus an extensive introduction examines Arab views of the war across the Middle East and North…
Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” 1949CIE+
Musa Alami, “The Lesson of Palestine,” Middle East Journal, 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…
(Podcast) Begin, Sadat and Carter: Camp David BreakthroughCIE+
This episode focuses on the first Arab-Israeli peace breakthrough, the Camp David Accords of 1978. Camp David resulted from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s electrifying visit to Jerusalem. Host David Makovsky discusses this major decision point with Dr. Ken Stein, who has been a professor of contemporary Middle Eastern history, political science, and Israel studies at Emory University for forty-three years.
Reassessing Sadat, Begin and CarterCIE+
It is now apparent that distances between the Carter administration and Israel did not begin in earnest after Begin’s May 1977 election or over the settlements. Newly available materials show that from its outset, the Carter administration prioritized curbing Israeli influence in Washington.
April 2024, David Shenker — Changing the Israel-Lebanon Status Quo: U.S. Options (with permission)CIE+
Nearly six months into the Gaza war, Israel has come to the realization that the pre-October 7 status quo in south Lebanon is no longer tenable. Whether a new status quo is established through negotiation…
Biden’s Lifelong Support for Israel: Compatibility to American Strategic Interests in the Middle EastCIE+
Scott Abramson and Ken Stein, Center for Israel Education Common political, emotional and strategic threads are present in President Joe Biden’s speeches and comments about the brutal reality of the Hamas attacks on Israel and…
Oslo Faces Belied HandshakeCIE+
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…
