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…
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…
The announcement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law” is in line with Israel’s official position, and its inherent message – that preoccupation with the question of the legality of the settlements narrows Palestinian flexibility and discourages the achievement of a negotiated resolution to the conflict – is correct. However, the announcement’s practical value is minor, and there are even potential risks and costs for Israel.
July 12, 2019 will mark the thirteenth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War; August 14 will mark the anniversary of its end under Security Council Resolution 1701; and discussions will be held at the United Nations headquarters regarding a renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate for another year. The bottom line: another war between Israel and Lebanon did not erupt, mainly due to both sides’ desire to avoid it and, to some extent, also due to UNIFIL’s help in preventing escalation resulting from tactical incidents.
Demographic pressures lie behind much of what is happening in Gaza. In 1948, 250,000 Palestinian refugees fled to Gaza, where the existing population was 80,000. Today, the population of Gaza is about 1.9 million of whom 1.3 million (68%) are refugees. Palestinians are the only people to retain refugee status generation after generation as a result of United Nations support.
In January this year, the veteran Arab journalist Rami Khouri made this assessment of the Middle East as a region, “Never before has the Arab region been so fractured, violent, volatile and vulnerable to the…
In the aftermath of UNSC Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlement construction, Secretary of State John Kerry publicly blamed Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank for being the major barrier to a two-state solution to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For almost 100 years, the Declaration has represented, for the Palestinians, the political beginning of Palestine falling out of their influence and into the control of the budding Zionist movement.
Lessons from the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt, the restart of Palestinian-Israeli talks, and the civil war in Syria remind us how difficult it is to judge whether American engagement is good or bad in the long run.
Preliminary negotiations and changing political realities have catalyzed the opening of new talks, but even a two-state agreement would not guarantee an imminent end to the conflict.
Many in the Arab world and amongst Palestinian leaders believe that, for the sake of evenhandedness and justice, the U.S. government, a longtime supporter of Israel’s security and existence, should have openly endorsed and urged others to vote for the proposition of Palestinian state recognition at the United Nations. Criticism of the U.S. failing to do so has been harsh, but it is also without perspective or historical context. What is forgotten is the persistent, even aggressive, perhaps unprecedented role that Washington has played in pushing for Palestinian rights, self-determination and, most recently, for Palestinian statehood.
Ambassador Alan Baker (ed.), Israel’s Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy, published in 2011 by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the World Jewish Congress. The importance of this book arose in light…
Since the June 1967 war, more than two dozen mediators have engaged in Arab‐ Israeli diplomacy seeking to clarify one underlying question: under what conditions and over what period of time would Israel relinquish land attained in the June 1967 War, and what kind of understanding or agreement from an Arab partner would Israel receive in return? The Annapolis Conference in 2007, was again a Transaction but not a Transformation of Outcomes.
“The Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace: Israel’s Disengagement from the Gaza Strip: Precedents, Motivations and Outcomes” Zionism Fulfilled.- Israel’s preemptive physical disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 was the result of a national consensus;…
The findings of the Or Commission on the October 2000 clashes between Arab and Jewish Israelis provide context to the response of Arab citizens to the May 2021 Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Note by the author: As a faculty member at Emory University, I wrote several articles per month for national and local newspapers. This article appeared in October 2002 in the Orlando Sentinel. The idea for a trusteeship to be possibly be considered to manage the Israeli-Palestinian relationship emerged from my decades of study of the Palestine Mandate, understanding the concept of separation of the two communities that was offered by the British on more than one occasion during the 1930s and 1940s, and the American suggestion in early 1948 to create a trusteeship for Palestine’s future. Martin Indyk, a US diplomat published an article about considering a trusteeship as a future political option in a Foreign Policy magazine article in July 2003.
Perspective provides valuable insights in evaluating contemporary diplomacy. Though neither the Palestinian-Israeli-U.S. summit of July 2000 nor the Egyptian-Israeli-U.S. summit of September 1978 ended discussions between Israel and its Arab adversaries, there were more differences than similarities between the two intense and highly charged meetings.
