Looking Beyond the War: Planning for Ukraine’s Reconstruction

Destruction in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, following Russian attacks. Photo credit: Kyodo via Reuters Connect

The outcome of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the provisions of a final settlement are as yet unknown. Ukraine may prevail in pushing Russia back to the 1991 borders, as President Zelenskyy intends. The conflict might result in a settlement with a divided Ukraine, both countries exhausted from the effort. It could grind on for years […]

A Joint American-Israeli Redline on Iran’s Nuclear Program

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, June 11, 2023. Photo credit: via REUTERS

A central element of the new film Oppenheimer is time. The time needed to design and construct the ultimate weapon is marked through the steady accumulation of marbles in a fishbowl and a wine glass, which represent the growing stockpiles of uranium and plutonium that ultimately fueled the devices dropped seventy-eight years ago on Hiroshima […]

How Israel’s Supreme Court Can Strengthen Democracy Without Overruling the Knesset

Chief Justice Esther Hayut and fellow Israeli Supreme Court judges. Photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

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 […]

The Druze in Israel: A Silent Minority Begins to Speak Out

Druze in the Golan town of Majdal Shams look out at the demilitarized zone separating Israel and Syria. Photo credit: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Protests in Israel are nothing new, but those on the Golan Heights this June were different.  The government, as part of its clean energy program, had designated the Golan Heights for wind turbine projects. When construction began in June, the Druze on the Golan erupted in mass protests, attracting support from their coreligionists in the […]

Should America and Israel Sign a Defense Treaty? Depends on the Saudi Deal

US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo credit: REUTERS/Debbie Hill/Pool/File Photo

A defense treaty with the US sounds attractive to many in Israel. In 1986-1987, I chaired discussions on the issue in the foreign affairs and defense committee of the Knesset, and we produced a document with pros and cons. The idea came up again in the Sharon government of 2004-2005, and we concluded then that […]

China’s Influence in the Middle East and the Strategic Considerations Underlying it

Photo credit: Shutterstock

The difficulty in comparing America’s and China’s influence in the Middle East is that the two operate on entirely different planes. [Note: The Chinese use the term Western Asia, rather than the Middle East, to refer to a region that includes the Levant, Iraq, the Gulf, Turkey and Iran.] Despite China’s impressive naval construction program, China […]

Four Decades of Talks with Arab Diplomats

Jeremy Issacharoff. Photo credit: DPA / Picture Alliance via Reuters Connect / Michael Kappeler

Three months after I came to live in Jerusalem, in November 1977, I joined my fellow Israelis standing on the side of the road to welcome President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. I had decided to immigrate to Israel from Britain in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Four years later, watching the […]

Israel’s Agenda with China

China's President Xi Jinping and Israel's Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu in Beijing, China, May 2013. Photo credit: REUTERS / Kim Kyung-Hoon

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 […]