Columns

When Iran’s President Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May, President Putin expressed condolences and called Raisi a “very reliable partner.” Russian Muslims offered prayers for Raisi at Moscow’s main mosque, and Russian state television provided continuous updates on the funeral arrangements from Iran. Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who also perished in […]

The June elections for the European Parliament were more than a setback for Europe’s political establishment. For Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron, they were a humiliation. They also contain a warning message for America’s Joe Biden. Across the continent, right-wing populists scored convincing victories. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party won […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress on July 24 at what promises to be an historic and controversial moment. Netanyahu’s speech allows him to “share the Israeli government’s vision to defend its democracy, combat terrorism and establish a just and lasting peace in the region,” said House Speaker Mike […]

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a rocky relationship with Israel and bilateral relations have currently reached a nadir.  But Erdoğan pursues a transactional foreign policy in general and, if interests re-align, he could once again restore robust relations with Israel.    A long-time supporter of Hamas, Erdoğan bitterly criticized Israel’s 2008 incursion into Gaza that […]

One of the most striking characteristics of the war in Gaza is a severe deficit of empathy. Israelis and Palestinians indicate that they have no emotion left for the other side. The stress would be too unbearable. In addition, each side tends to dehumanize the other, deny the other’s suffering and promise vengeance and violence […]

Israel’s version of the Pentagon is a twin-towered office complex in HaKirya, the Compound, bordering what used to be the eastern outskirts of Tel Aviv, until 1948 when the city started expanding and flourishing. On the 14th floor of the complex is a corridor connecting the office suites of the two highest ranking officials. These […]

Israel must finish the job of crushing Hamas in Gaza both as a military force and as a government. That’s the legitimate response to the surprise attack of October 7. This war aim also includes return of the hostages and minimizing Gazan civilian casualties to the extent possible. The Israel Defense Forces are in the […]

The March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow left 133 dead, more than 130 injured, and many urgent questions about the return of ISIS, a Syria-based terror group long thought to be vanquished.  Days before the bloodshed, the US secretly warned the Kremlin about a potential ISIS attack, giving actionable intelligence under its longstanding “duty to warn” […]

Rarely in the American special relationship with Israel has there been such a dramatic display of discord between leaders. What began as a remarkable show of American support and solidarity with Israel, in the wake of Hamas’s assault in October, came by February and March to be increasingly marred by acrimony. The White House statement […]

Four months into the war in Gaza and the cafés in Tel Aviv are full. It’s nearly impossible to find a spot in trendy restaurants on weekends. Yet no one should be mistaken. Israel is not back to normal.  A radio or television plays in the background of nearly every café and shop, and when […]

Self-deterrence is a defense concept that a state may be restrained from using its military power not by the fear of a counter strike but rather owing to reputational concerns arising from moral, legal or other considerations. This concept may partly explain US reluctance to escalate the current level of military conflict with Iran, though […]

As 2024 began, the Israeli war effort in the Gaza Strip changed in nature (see Israel Shifts Tactics in Gaza), with the focus shifting to the battles in the central and southern areas and to special forces operations against Hamas’ immense tunnel system. But the hostage situation remained unresolved, with 136 still held according to […]

Did you know that Saddam Hussein won the First Gulf War of 1991? That is the version I heard in Iraq in 2003, after noticing the same Arabic inscription decorating chandeliers in Saddam’s palaces all over the country. ‘How sweet is victory with God’s aid,’ the inscription proclaimed. “What victory was Saddam referring to?” I […]

President Joe Biden’s poll numbers are in freefall. A December 14 Pew poll found that only one-third of respondents approve of his job performance, the lowest such result since he took office. Moreover, his approval ratings even among Democrats plunged twelve percentage points since October 2022.  >> Window on Washington: Read more from Dov S. Zakheim […]

The scope of the massacres committed by Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians in southern Israel on October 7 deeply shocked Israeli society. In the aftermath of October 7 Israel was shocked a second time – by multiple denials of the massacre, the indifference to Israeli women who were raped and Israeli children who were kidnapped, […]

There is nothing rational, let alone normative, about a situation where a terror group and its affiliates took 240 people hostage – toddlers and elderly people, children and women, young revelers abused and then abducted from a desert rave, as well as soldiers (both women and men) surprised in their bases. The numbers keep changing […]

The best defense is a good offense. Or is it, really? October 7, 2023, the costliest day in Israel’s history, provides a stark lesson. Sometimes going on the offensive is better, and a surer way to victory, than waiting for the enemy to land the first blow. But not always, and as a state of […]

The profound strategic implications of the American support for Israel in the war against Hamas – including a significant US military deployment to the region (two Carrier Strike Forces and an Ohio-class nuclear submarine, as well as air assets), albeit for the purpose of deterrence rather than participation in the fighting – will fully manifest […]

On the night of January 25, 2006, after Hamas won a majority of the seats in elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, its political leader Ismail Haniya told the press he had requested a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the future of the Palestinian government. “Hamas will cooperate with everybody for […]

“The real victory comes not from defeating our enemy but from achieving a better place for Israel and our Palestinian neighbors.”  Yair Lapid, Knesset Speech, October 16, 2023 The ground campaign in Gaza has yet to start as I write on October 16. Much of the world’s focus is rightly on supporting Israel’s stated objectives: […]

In the aftermath of the Hamas attack on October 7, Israeli government and military chiefs have repeatedly promised the Israeli public that soon HAMAS will not rule over Gaza, politically or militarily. Hamas has been in power in Gaza for 16 years. Let’s review Israel’s recent history with Hamas, to show how inaction and postponing decision-making […]

Life in Jerusalem, as I imagine elsewhere, consists these days of gluing ourselves to the hourly news, updating friends and family and listening to them. One theme I get a lot directs anger at Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government for responsibility for the mass murders that took place on Saturday. I would like […]

It was late in the day on Tuesday May 7, 1940, when Leo Amery, a middle-aged former minister and Conservative Party backbencher, rose in his seat to address the House of Common in the aftermath of Britain’s disastrous Norway campaign. His party leader, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, had offered a weak defense of the Norway […]

Israelis woke up on 7 October 2023 to a day of grief, outrage, and ultimately, incomprehension.  It was not the missiles which mattered. Israelis have grown accustomed to missile attacks from Gaza. The horrors which gradually unfolded resulted from an overland breach of the Gaza border defenses. At various points in time on October 7, 14 […]

When Prime Minister Netanyahu convened a cabinet meeting on September 12, one week before heading to New York to address the UN General Assembly and meet President Biden and other world leaders, a contentious issue emerged: Should the families of Palestinian security prisoners (those convicted on terrorism charges) be allowed to visit once a month, […]

On September 12, Israel’s Supreme Court will convene in an atmosphere of heightened political tension to listen to petitions asking it to strike down a recently-passed Knesset law. No decision from the Court is expected imminently as Israel enters a month of High Holy Days. But political compromise proposals by the Prime Minister and others […]

With the approach of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, it’s time to revisit one of its ongoing scandals in Israel, the claim that the government’s surprise at the start of the war was caused by a set of assumptions, based on intelligence assessments, called in Hebrew the “konzepzia.” >> Inside […]

Worries over the Reservists’ Protest and Its Implications.

Congress has never had an easy time passing defense budgets. Despite partisan bickering, however, the Congress has successfully passed 62 consecutive defense authorization acts, including for the current year.     The upcoming year’s budget appears to be a troubling exception. Sadly, the best-case scenario is for a defense budget that will be reduced for a time […]

On June 27, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a visiting American congressional group that he plans to visit Beijing later this year, adding that the US administration had been informed of this intention. No date has been set nor has the Chinese government confirmed an invitation to Netanyahu.  >>  Insight from Israel: Read more from Eran […]

The November 2022 elections in Israel gave the present coalition a clear majority of 64 out of 120 members of the Knesset. The coalition intended to produce a government with a firm rightwing ideological orientation. At long last, Likud party loyalists cheered, we don’t need to compromise with centrist or left-leaning partners.  >>  Insight from […]

Everyone recognizes that America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 was a chaotic mess. Even the Biden administration, in a National Security Council document released on April 6, acknowledges the civilian evacuation from Kabul should have been carried out sooner. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul (Republican of Texas) has been adamant that the administration come […]

A bitter debate has now engulfed Israeli society over the proper role of the judiciary. The new government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, began its term in January by introducing far-reaching reforms to the judiciary, which I have already described in detail. The continuing strong reaction to these proposals, well described by my JST […]

Since December 2022, every Saturday evening after Shabbat, tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against the judicial reform proposals of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Former generals and judges, economists, journalists, hi-tech professionals, medical workers, shopkeepers, young students and their grandparents who fought in the War of Independence, native-born Israelis and recent immigrants, and Arab […]

As Israel’s finance minister from 2003–2005 and later as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was the father of Israel’s economic miracle that transformed a stagnant socialist economy into a thriving “start-up nation.” Today, however, Netanyahu is on a path toward wrecking what was one of his crowning achievements. His government’s proposed judicial reforms have begun to […]

In the last week of January, the US and Israel conducted the largest joint military exercise between the two countries, codenamed “Juniper Oak,” marking a milestone in the evolving cooperation between Israel and the US Central Command (CENTCOM). To those familiar with the bureaucratic handling of US–Israel military cooperation, this all seems incredible. When the […]

No Woman No Cry Recently, in the ongoing nightly saga of Israel’s domestic politics, the Israeli Supreme Court disqualified Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political party, from holding ministerial office. Suddenly some of his supporters suggested an unusual idea. Perhaps his wife, Yaffa, could be appointed instead. At that dramatic moment, if […]

The debate in Israel is generating a lot of heat on partisan lines, but little light. Opponents of the new government’s proposals see them stripping the judiciary of its independence and thus striking a blow to the country’s democracy. Proponents see these proposals as long overdue reforms to restrain judicial activism and bring Israel’s judiciary […]

Few events in history have been watched live by more people around the world than the final match of the World Cup soccer tournament in Qatar on December 18, 2022. After a riveting game, it was the legendary leader of the Argentinian team—Lionel Messi—who lifted the golden trophy. Right then, as hundreds of millions were […]

General Aviv Kochavi, the outgoing chief of the general staff, probably never thought that he would need to call the incoming prime minister over a political matter in his last month of service. But in December, Kochavi’s concerns over Bezalel Smotrich’s proposal to create a new position in the Defense Ministry went public. The new […]

As Israel heads into the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, one issue from that momentous war is still debated in Israel. Who was to blame for Israel’s failure to anticipate the Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack: the military intelligence officials (and by extension the organization and mentality of the intelligence establishment) […]

The 2022 Congressional elections surprised virtually everyone. Until late September, the Republicans expected to take the House with a sizable majority. Perhaps it would not be the 60-plus advantage they anticipated earlier in the year, but still one in excess of twenty seats. Instead, when the 118th Congress convenes on January 3, the Republicans will […]

A magical moment is recalled in a well known Israeli song (sung by Yehudit Ravitz in 1979): “You took my hand in yours and told me, let’s go down to the garden—the things you see from there are not what you see from here.” A generation later, in 2005, the refrain “what you see from […]

The first thing one sees after crossing the Qalandiya checkpoint from Jerusalem en route to Ramallah is a huge mural of Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned Fatah leader who is seen by many Palestinians as the successor to Mahmoud Abbas. Next to Barghouti’s portrait is that of the late Yasser Arafat. Placing these two figures together […]

Israeli election results of the past 30 years illustrate the dramatic decline of Israel’s formerly ruling left. In the 1992 elections, under the leadership of the late Yitzhak Rabin, the Labor Party won 44 seats (out of 120) in the Knesset, and his Meretz partner (led by its late leader, the sharp and acerbic Yossi […]

Nation building is a US policy for transforming post-conflict countries, a policy discredited among a broad swath of Washington because of Iraq and Afghanistan. But I question this consensus and recommend rehabilitating the policy in time to help reconstruct postwar Ukraine. >> Diplomatic Dispatches: Read more from Robert Silverman Didn’t the US role in postwar Japan […]

The ongoing rapprochement between Israel and Turkey was reinforced recently on October 27 by the visit to Ankara of Israel’s Defense Minister Gantz, following the groundbreaking and highly symbolic official visit of President Yitzhak Herzog in March. Gantz met with his counterpart, Hulusi Akar, considered to be one of the mainstays of the AKP government, […]

Outlining his foreign policy objectives in 2020 in the magazine Foreign Affairs, then presidential candidate Joe Biden asserted that “it is past time to end the forever wars.” Indeed, as president, he withdrew all troops in a frenzied retreat from Afghanistan and reduced troop levels in Iraq by more than half. Ending the “forever wars” […]

Not since the Oslo Accords of 1993–1995 has an aspect of Israel’s relations with an Arab neighbor aroused such vehement argument in the Israeli public. Unlike the Oslo Accords, however, this is not a bilateral agreement signed in each other’s presence as Lebanon refuses to deal with Israel directly, in any manner that would imply […]

Israel is once again going to the election polls on November 1, for the fifth time in less than four years with only one real issue on the agenda: “Bibi or not Bibi.” Who is this man and why did he, from among all Israeli politicians, define and shape Israel for the past generation? Today, […]

As Jews all around the world observed the three-week period of the High Holy Days, tensions kept rising in the West Bank and Jerusalem: two Israeli soldiers, one of them a young woman, were killed and several wounded in recurrent shooting attacks, and riots broke out in several areas of Jerusalem. This is not unprecedented: […]

Putin’s threats intensify the dilemma that has haunted the Biden administration and has influenced the degree of its support for Ukraine, almost from the outset of the war.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed on May 11 during a firefight between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians in the streets of the West Bank city of Jenin. This led to a firestorm of claims: pro-Palestinian accusations of a premeditated murder and pro-Israeli arguments of a killing by Palestinian fire. […]

Recent revelations, going back 60 years, shed new light on the intensity of Israel’s commitment to prevent enemy states from procuring means of mass destruction. For the last 41 years, this commitment has been public record. Following the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear facility in July 1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced what became known […]

Labor Day marks the end of summer holidays for most Americans. This year it’s also the beginning of the run-up to the November elections. Political opinion surveys over the past two months indicate a shift of momentum. The Republicans were initially anticipated to benefit from a “red wave” retaking the Senate and obtaining as much […]

In mid-August 2022, reports began to spread in Israel’s political class about Iran’s willingness to compromise in the ongoing negotiations over a revived Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This has led to a fear that the Biden administration may finally be within reach of a deal, which would put billions in Iran’s coffers and […]

Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot, Israel’s former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, joined Benny Gantz’s party. Gantz’s former military colleagues vanished from the political scene. Will the same now happen to Eizenkot?

I am the man of tomorrow who also lives the past. In my lineage are Moses, Jesus, Rambam, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Bobby Fischer, Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Herzl and Ben Gurion. I am part of a tiny and persecuted minority, who influenced the world more than any other people. While […]

On August 17, 2022 when the governments of Turkey and Israel announced their agreement to restore full diplomatic relations, Washington voiced its approval and support. But it was not the Biden administration that promoted the reconciliation between the two states.

President Joe Biden’s July 2022 Middle East trip received mixed reviews. The White House apparently had hoped that the president’s visit would prompt the Saudi Kingdom to take some steps toward normalizing relations with Israel, given the tremendous success of the Abraham Accords. Riyadh would go no further than to open its airspace to all […]

Israel’s Latest Message of Deterrence

This coming January, Israel’s Chief of Staff will end his four-year term of duty. One of the main challenges facing the new chief of staff will be restoring the public trust in Israel’s military.

Why did the IDF launch an attack on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, knowing full well that this would lead to rocket attacks and counterstrikes?

Reflections on Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Role of the Muslim Brotherhood in his Radicalization

Throughout a lengthy political career, president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas experienced endless ups and downs.

The story of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline.

El-Sisi is increasingly acting to put Egypt’s unique claims to fame as the oldest civilization.

The Role of Public Opinion in the War in Ukraine

Placement of quality personnel who are immune to ideological kinship and ulterior motives will get better results than exercises in re-organization.

How did the successful comedian become president of Ukraine?

The U.S. government was unable to agree on a budget for five months after the beginning of the fiscal year. Continuing resolutions have become a congressional addiction.

What comes next for the most powerful man in one of the Middle East’s weakest countries?

Do the advantages of utilizing the IDF in responding to a the Covid-19 crisis outweigh the disadvantages?

Ambassadorial positions should be filled with diplomats who meet the highest standards of the profession together with occasional non-professionals who bring a fresh perspective. But that is not how US diplomacy is generally staffed these days.

Ben-Gurion’s Grand Strategy and the Role of American Jewry

War is a human endeavor, and the assessment of warlike trends is too important to be left to machines

Washington is suffering from a severe case of political gridlock. Are internal divisions sapping American leadership?

Literature review: Shimon Shiffer's "Warning Lights, Secret Talks with Amos Gilead"

Israel’s Lebanon Syndrome, the US’ Afghanistan Syndrome: Different military stories, similar conclusions

This man had dedicated his life to Israel’s extermination. What remains of his legacy of violence?

America’s chaotic exit was merely the culmination of a series of major errors, going back to 2001

Why “knowing the enemy” and “knowing thyself” is not enough

What Congress can do to improve the executive branch’s decision-making process

How the Sunni–Shiite divide became a revolutionary mission, affecting the entire Middle East

Literature review: The Obama memoir, like his presidency, over-promises and under-delivers

The Mossad used to be a stealthy submarine. Under its new chief, it will revert to being a silent service

The IDF should draw some conclusions from recent conflicts on how to revise its information campaigns

Neither email nor Twitter replaces the carefully drafted diplomatic dispatch

For some, the higher the cost, the stronger the claim to be the true representatives of values worth dying for

America’s adversaries are not the only ones to respond to Washington’s changing regional priorities