Every modern apartment in Israel comes with a safe room hardened to survive a missile or rocket hit. In 2022 I moved to Jerusalem, bought an apartment, and placed my library in the safe room. Thus, I had plenty of resources to consult in the safe room during the recent Iranian missile attacks. Here are […]

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was the charismatic leader of Argentina’s populist left for decades, elected twice as president, serving from 2007-2015, and again as vice president from 2019-2023. A fierce critic of Argentina’s current libertarian president Javier Milei, she was planning a comeback. Her plan to run for a seat in the legislature would have […]

The Trans-Caspian International Transit Route or “Middle Corridor” is Central Asia’s best bet for increasing connectivity and economic ties to the West. But Kazakhstan, the corridor’s hub, faces internal challenges like price competitiveness and external threats like climate change and geopolitics. The Middle Corridor stretches from western China across the vast Kazakh steppe and the […]

In 55 BCE, Julius Caesar decided (according to his Commentaries) to “cross the Rhine since he saw the Germans were so easily urged to go into Gaul, he desired they should have fears for their own territories when they discovered that the army of the Roman people both could and dared pass the Rhine.”  This […]

In his inaugural address this past January, Donald J. Trump declared that “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” He added, “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get […]

President Trump, I write to you not with hesitation but with urgency. Your leadership transformed the Middle East. The Abraham Accords, your firm support for Israel, and your uncompromising stance toward terror made peace possible when many believed it was impossible. You did not follow the tired formulas of appeasement. You lead with principle and […]

Israel’s economy faces two threats in 2025 – from the Iran-Gaza war and from the global economic upheaval caused by the Trump tariffs – but there are also signs of recovery.  As we approach the end of the first half of 2025, Israel finds itself straddling two wars. The obvious one started from Gaza on […]

When Israel struck Iran on June 13, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan waited several hours before issuing a fiery rebuke, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and his massacre network” of “setting [the] entire region on fire.”  At the same time, Ankara must have quietly welcomed the attacks against its regional rival in Tehran. Turkey […]

Iran until recently was a paradox: a deeply unpopular regime that appeared superficially stable. Three years after the massive nationwide protests of 2022, Iran’s streets were calm, though signs of discontent were starting to resurface, with scattered strikes and business closures, including unrest among truck drivers. Most Iranians despised the Islamic Republic; their quietude was […]

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 […]

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 […]