On June 9, the Government of Israel decided on an extensive military operation, begun at three in the morning on Friday June 13, against Iran’s nuclear facilities, military leadership and ballistic missile infrastructure. Leading to this decision were a threat perception, which has been growing for decades, a window of opportunity, which opened in autumn […]

Once again a Trump administration is debating whether or not to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The last time around, during Trump’s first term, the effort petered out amidst disagreements among Trump’s then principals. This time around, the stars may be better aligned. However, the inevitable controversy surrounding such a move must […]

The Israel Defense Forces have been on the offensive in Gaza since March 18. This offensive faces the same challenges the IDF encountered throughout 2024. Israeli commanders appear reticent to enter some key urban areas in Gaza, including the Central Camps area of Gaza. This may be due, inter alia, to concerns that hostages are […]

On April 2, President Trump presided over a “Liberation Day” ceremony in the Oval Office, announcing dramatic increases in America’s tariffs on foreign goods and services, in a bold move that he described as America’s declaration of economic independence.   Trump imposed a general ten percent tariff on all countries, with additional surcharges on most countries […]

Introduction Yusri Hazran, writing in the May Jerusalem Strategic Tribune , has raised important questions about the future of Syria, for many reasons critical to the security of the rest of the region as well as to the US and Europe. However, his suggestion of a federated Syria may not be feasible, although elements of […]

The proliferation of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles contributes to a dangerous threat environment today. These threats are not concentrated in any one area but range from the Russia-Ukraine conflict to the Middle East and the Asia Pacific.  In the past two decades, expensive but effective integrated air and missile defense systems like Patriot, […]

Russia’s defense relationships in the Middle East and North Africa have been gravely weakened as a result of its war in Ukraine. However, a peace deal, sanctions relief, or even a lengthy ceasefire could provide Russia with an opportunity to resume arms sales and security assistance to the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. The […]

The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 marked a critical test of Israel’s quiet military partnership with Egypt. For more than a decade, Egypt and Israel maintained robust security coordination focused on ISIS cells in the Sinai peninsula. That cooperation, mostly kept out of the media, now faces its most serious challenge. Since the conflict in […]

Munich is a city the Nazis regarded with special affection, terming it Hauptstadt der Bewegung, “capital of the movement.” Here in 1919 the German Army stationed Adolf Hitler after the First World War, employing him as a political agent. Here in November 1923 Hitler led the abortive Beer Hall putsch that was supposed to lead […]

In his long and distinguished public career – including as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe in World War II and two terms as president of the United States – a single phrase of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s has entered and remained in the language: the military-industrial complex. He spoke those words on January 17, […]

The popular uprising that erupted in Syria in March 2011 was largely limited to the Sunni Arab majority and was eventually led by Islamist activists. It confronted the country’s religious and ethnic minorities with existential challenges. Caught between the anvil of anarchy and the hammer of Islamism, they feared for Syria’s future as a secular […]

The Trump administration has identified China as the primary adversary of US global interests. CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently declared that, “no adversary in the history of our Nation has presented a more formidable challenge or a more capable strategic competitor than the Chinese Communist Party.”   Some in Trump’s circle maintain that a key to […]

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has a colossal problem. Syria’s infrastructure, including housing and commerce, was significantly destroyed during more than a decade of civil war. The new Syrian government will have great difficulty rebuilding Syria after more than a decade of civil war unless US and other sanctions are lifted. Syria has been under comprehensive […]

On May 4, Israel’s security cabinet unanimously approved a comprehensive plan to dismantle Hamas’s remaining capabilities, both military and governmental, while offering Hamas a pause in exchange for a hostage release. The plan involves a large-scale call-up of reserves, a “clear and hold” strategy in parts of Gaza, and civilian evacuation as part of a […]

Israel launches extensive retaliatory airstrikes against the Houthi economic heartland in northern Yemen, while the US pivots to announce a ceasefire with the Houthis. This divergence in approach between the superpower and a regional ally raises questions over whether momentum for an anti-Houthi ground offensive has been lost. An intensified American-led air campaign, “Operation Rough […]

Two men, two survivors. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu – so different in backgrounds, so similar in instinct. Trump came from business. Netanyahu came from politics. Trump stormed into Washington with sheer force. Netanyahu became a master of survival in Jerusalem, navigating decades of war, diplomacy, and domestic pressure. Trump’s “America First” doctrine never promised sentiment, […]

President Trump will be traveling to the Middle East at a time of great progress, given the terrible defeat Iran has suffered over the past eighteen months at the hands of exactly the regional alliance Trump is seeking now to further strengthen. Nevertheless, more work is needed on the three most pressing remaining Iran-related issues, […]

Iran’s nuclear program is not an arms control problem, the approach often taken by US negotiators. It is a central pillar of the regime’s survival strategy. Until that regime’s architecture of power is directly addressed and sufficiently weakened, Iran’s nuclear threat will outlast any paper agreement.  Iran’s nuclear program is also not about electricity and […]

When the abuse of inmates at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison broke into the open in 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld offered to resign. Twice. Both times President George W. Bush rejected Rumsfeld’s offer; he only fired him after the Democrats took both the House and the Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections. Secretary […]

Robert Silverman: You are an American Jew who moved to Israel, with your wife, as a young couple shortly after the Six-Day War. Then you wrote a book in the 1970s that influenced a whole generation of American Jews. It was called Letters to an American Jewish Friend. And you were talking to your counterparts […]

Yossi Klein Halevi: In terms of my personal journey, it’s framed by my evolving, understanding of the Holocaust, my relationship to the Holocaust and my generation’s experience as opposed to my father’s experience. My father was a survivor from Hungary.  I grew up in a very charged Holocaust environment in Brooklyn, in the 1960s, which […]

Gadi Taub: I believed in Oslo [the 1990s Palestinian-Israeli peace process] because I imagined the Palestinians to be like us. I imagined their national liberation movement to be a national liberation movement just like ours. Then reality just exploded outside my window. Tel Aviv is small. So from where I lived back then, when a […]