Focusing on the Arab Spring and Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, President Obama seeks democratic reform in the region and advocates two states for two peoples based on the 1967 lines with land swaps.
In Jerusalem, Obama affirms the bonds in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, praises Israel’s democracy, and calls for Israelis to support a democratic Palestinian state and Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
As part of the US negotiating team, Indyk enumerates why talks faltered after nine months. He asserts Israeli settlement activity undermined Palestinian trust for Israel. He also blames Palestinian indecision.
The U.S. president announces a coalition of countries to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. His plan calls for limited U.S. military action with supplies provided to others fighting on the ground.
House testimony from a Treasury Department official during the 2015 Iran nuclear negotiations shows that U.S. priorities and nonmilitary approaches toward Iran remain the same in 2026.
Antony Blinken pleads with Congress not to expand sanctions on Iran amid negotiations to contain Tehran’s nuclear program.
Under the deal between Iran and five world powers, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars of sanctions relief. Israel called the deal too lenient. On May 8, 2018, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, calling it one of the “worst and most one-sided” agreements in U.S. history. Israel’s objectives in attacking Iran in June 2025 focused on the same central features Israel argued a decade earlier were not sufficiently addressed in the JCPOA.
Vigorously promoting this Iran Deal as a viable way to block and limit Iran pathways to a bomb. While recognizing Israel’s intense trepidation to the deal, he forcefully claims that war remains the only alternative to accepting this agreement, or to any changes to the agreement.
Kerry states five major objectives for US foreign policy in the Middle East: mobilize partners to defeat ISIS, work diplomatically to end the civil war in Syria, keep it from destabilizing friendly nearby countries, monitor Iranian adherence to the nuclear deal, and seek a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The US promises Israel $38 billion in military aid over a decade, the assistance promised despite Jerusalem and Washington periodically differing over matters relating to Iran and the Palestinians.
Backpedaling from previously hardline statements on Islam, President Trump refers to Islam as “one of the world’s great faiths” calling for “tolerance and respect for each other.” He implored Muslim leaders to fight against radical Islam, which he portrayed as a “…a battle between good and evil.”
After visiting Saudi Arabia, Trump meets with Netanyahu where both assert joint views on the peace process, Iran, regional cooperation, and the long-standing relationship between Israel and the US; Trumps second meeting with Netanyahu since taking office.
President Trump’s proclamation to “officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” breaks precedent. In doing so, he incurs bipartisan support in the US congress, but a flurry of criticism from analysts, diplomats and foreign leaders. In his remarks, Trump rebukes claims that he disqualified the US as a “reliable mediator” in future Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
Vice President Pence firmly expresses American commitments to Israel’s security and commitment to the Arab-Israeli peace process. Palestinian Authority President Abbas and other Arab officials loudly criticize the speech and refuse to meet with Pence during his Middle East visit because of earlier US promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
With reams of evidence secured by Israeli intelligence, the PM calls out Iran for lying about their nuclear activities both before and since signing the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with six countries.
President Trump in 2018 enumerates the behaviors Iran must change to enter a deal replacing the JPOA and thus creates a basis for judging his own negotiations with Tehran.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a more muscular vision of the U.S. presence in the Middle East than President Barack Obama offered in the same Cairo venue 10 years earlier.
The plan builds on previous proposals for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and contains a US-Israeli agreement that sets forth final borders for two states. The plan contains multiple prerequisites for Palestinian behavior before either the US or Israel might agree to Palestinian statehood as well as a proposed $50 economic development package to be allotted over a decade.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman provides the most detailed Trump administration analyses of the prescribed two-state solution for terminating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
President Trump announces the diplomatic breakthrough under which Israel halts its plans to annex parts of the West Bank and the United Arab Emirates agrees to full diplomatic relations with Israel without any Israeli land concesssions.
Quietly pursued in the past, long-standing strategic ties between Israel and Gulf states have become public. Building on the historic Joint Agreement signed between Israel and the UAE in August 2020, the Abraham Accords serve as a framework for normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
A week after Antony Blinken’s confirmation as Secretary of State, the Acting US Ambassador to the UN outlined with considerable detail the administration’s objective to an agreed, not imposed two-state resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
On President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel, he and Prime Minister Yair Lapid affirmed the long-term U.S.-Israel strategic relationship.
Siegel resigned over two matters: the administration’s policy of selling advanced fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which he believed a threat to Israel’s national security, and his sharp disagreement with the Carter White House for not allowing alternative views on policy matters to find their way to the President’s desk. Siegel’s detailed interview about the administration’s anti-Israeli viewpoints are explained here.
