Ken Stein explains in detail how Egyptian and Israeli leaders coached their generals into reaching an understanding on how their troops would be disengaged after the war. On that day, a German-born Egyptian career foreign service officer, Omar Sirry was told to pack his toothbrush and go to meet several Israelis along with other Egyptians at the 101 Kilometer marker for talks.
A referendum on a constitutional amendment is to be held in Egypt at the beginning of May, which would enable President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi to continue governing after the end of his current term. In the face of massive repression, approval seems certain. This would largely complete the power consolidation of the Sisi-regime, which emerged from the military coup of July 2013. But how will this regime develop in the future? Possible scenarios are a successful development dictatorship, decades of political and economic stagnation, as under Hosni Mubarak, or imminent failure.
Political instability and fall 2022 election, Israeli Palestinian issues, Abraham Accords and Israeli normalization, countering Iran, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine
Michael Jacobs and Ken Stein Israel on Nov. 1, 2022, is holding its fifth Knesset election since spring 2019 and its 25th since the state’s founding in 1948. Voters are facing a new mix of…
On a stormy evening on Sept. 17, 1978, with President Jimmy Carter as their witness, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin stepped to a table at the White House and signed the Camp David Accords, consisting of two framework agreements: an outline for the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and a scaffold for planning self-rule for the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, held by Israel since the June 1967 war. Six months later, on March 26, 1979, the three men gathered again at the White House to sign the peace treaty. But their path to the ceremony 40 years ago was hardly smooth.
Despite ongoing efforts to improve relations between Fatah and Hamas, there is no serious hope of reconciliation between them in the foreseeable future. Noteworthy against this background are the attempts by Hamas and other opposition organizations to challenge both the PLO’s standing as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and the senior standing of Fatah within the PLO. The Palestinian public, which saw the PLO as its sole representative, understands that it can no longer ignore the dominance of Hamas, which has competed with Fatah for their hearts and minds since 1987.
Notwithstanding the signing of the Abraham Accords (1920) and the growing prominence of the cooperation between Israel and the Arab Gulf states, including on security matters, the road toward its establishment increasingly rests with American involvement or leadership. Will this be a Biden priority when he visits the region over the summer?
Public opinion both shapes and reflects policy choices. Attitudes provide snap shots of short and long term trends. Assembled here are a variety of current data about policies, reflections, and expectations.
Through a national-political lens, political cooperation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel seems unlikely, as their national issues seem to be insurmountable and of central importance. However, the formation of a mixed Jewish-Arab municipal coalition in Lod brings the supposed centrality of national politics into question, and points to cooperation on shared local issues.
The nature of the relations between Jewish and Arab citizens in the State of Israel have undergone, and are currently undergoing, significant changes. However, one fact remains unaltered: Israel is defined as the nation state of the Jewish people alone—a democratic state, but at the same time—the state of the Jewish majority, and a state in which the Arab minority constitutes around 22% of the population.
From the Israel Government Yearbook, an 11 page description of the June War.
On Jan. 29, 2019, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” However, experience helps us realize that the American intelligence community has a very problematic track record in revealing, on time, nuclear weaponization efforts of many countries (e.g., North Korea, India, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq) including Iran itself, so one has to be very humble about this kind of assessment.
In 2018, a record 4.1 million tourists visited Israel from all over the world. The figure is particularly impressive, given the security incidents in this period, the extensive coverage of security-related events by the foreign press and social media, and the BDS campaign. While global tourism between 2007 and 2018 increased 60 percent, tourism in Israel in the same period rose 100 percent.
On April 9, Israelis head to the polls to elect the 21st Knesset. CIE’s extensive collection of election materials has a wide variety of resources. Our election content includes items related to Israel’s democracy, electoral process, results of past elections as well as information about the political parties and factions. Materials are available for use in a variety of learning settings or for expanding your personal knowledge. These include: analyses, infographics, videos, and links of interest.
Exclusive Pre-Elections survey by the Guttman Center at the Israel Democracy Institute finds that half of Israelis find it harder than in the past to decide whom to vote for; 25% base their choice on the party’s positions on socioeconomic issues and 18% on who heads the party; 27% do not trust the integrity of the Knesset elections.
Eight years after a series of uprisings erupted across the Middle East, there is a debate whether a relatively stable order (old or new) has taken hold in the Middle East, or whether the region remains unstable and, therefore, will continue to produce waves of unrest.
Dr. Tal Grinfas-David, March 1, 2022 When it comes to boosting Israel education, some schools go through transactional changes, and some go through transformative changes. What’s the difference? Transactional schools add units and information, making…
The National Security Index tracks trends in Israeli public opinion on national security issues in a systematic and consistent manner. Included are levels of confidence in public institutions, handling the pandemic, security establishment, and taking military action against the Iranian nuclear threat.
In a far-ranging speech about Israeli domestic and foreign policies, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett presented the views of Israel’s 36th government, in office since June 2021. On foreign and…
Despite WWII in Europe, and the British White Paper, Ben-Gurion outlines in 1941 a pragmatic policy for Jews to pursue in building a state: educate Jews world-wide, embrace the Arab communityin Palestine as neighbors, build an…
Recent statements by a number of Israeli officials have claimed a degree of success in Israel’s efforts to contain and roll back Iran’s entrenchment in Syria. But while Israel’s tactical successes are certainly notable and impressive, the big picture is that Iran’s influence and strength in Syria continues to deepen and expand. Iran’s efforts are taking place at three levels: below the official Syrian state structures – in the arming and sponsoring of Iran-controlled paramilitary formations on Syria soil, within the Syrian state – in the control of institutions that are officially organs of the regime, and above the state, in the pursuit of formal links between the Iranian and Syrian regimes.
March 26, 2025 By Ken Stein The ripe conditions that prefaced the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli treaty and might presage additional Arab-Israeli agreements are almost totally absent in 2025. Why? Today, there is an absence of political…
Steven Bayme In early November 2021, The New York Times Magazine posted an essay under the provocative title “Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism.”1 The essay focused on a letter signed by 93 rabbinical and…
Wendy Kalman, November 30, 2021 As a researcher at the Center for Israel Education, I review and correct interview transcripts. CIE founder and Chief Content Officer Ken Stein interviewed nearly 90 diplomats, politicians and others…
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