Why is It So Difficult for Israel to Decipher Hamas?
As they were marching towards Jerusalem, the knights of the First Crusade lay siege to the city of Antioch in southern Anatolia from October 1097 to June 1098. They were approached there by envoys of the Fatimid dynasty ruling Egypt, who offered the Crusaders a plan to cooperate against the Seljuk state then in possession […]
Anti-Israel Activism in American Universities II <br>Middle Eastern Studies and Israel Studies
>> Read part I: The Advent of Anti-Israel Sentiment on Campus In Part I, I described the rise of anti-Israel activism on college campuses, which paralleled the political discourse in American society. Here I delve into the roles of Middle Eastern Studies and Israel Studies. For half a century, one-sided Arab views of Middle Eastern Studies […]
Anti-Israel Activism in American Universities I <br>The Advent of Anti-Israel Sentiment on Campus
Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh.[ “All Israel is bound one to the other,” Jewish legal principle of the Talmud.] Introduction What hit Israelis with such ferocity and sudden force in the villages and kibbutzim on the Gaza border on October 7 was unprecedented, a disastrous tsunami of indiscriminate violence in which Hamas took 1300 lives and […]
The US College Campus as a Long-term Strategic Threat to Israel, the US and Global Stability
By now it’s clear to anyone paying attention that many American college campuses have since October 7 become hotbeds of anti-Zionism and antisemitic fervor. One Jewish professor at a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest, an institution you’re not hearing about in the news, recently told me that “From the River to the […]
The Intelligence Failure of October 7 – Roots and Lessons
Hamas’ sudden attack on the kibbutzim and the towns neighboring the Gaza Strip caught the IDF and the country by total surprise. During the first 24 hours, beginning at 6:30 in the morning of October 7, the Hamas Nukhba (name of the commando troops, means “elite”) and those who came in with them conquered and […]
The Hamas-Iran Relationship
In the weeks since the Hamas massacre on October 7, pundits have debated whether or not Iran helped Hamas develop the plan for the terrorist assault and if Iran had foreknowledge of the attack. Citing a Hamas source, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran helped plot the attack and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard […]
Biden’s Decision and the American Military Deployment
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 […]
China’s Turn Toward Antisemitism
“The United States as a nation has been severely kidnapped by political and other forces derived from Jewish capital,” thus said Dong Manyuan, the former Vice president of CIIS, the Chinese foreign ministry’s think tank, in a TV interview on November 1, in response to the interviewer claim that Jews “manipulate and control” 70% of […]
Initial Lessons From the October 2023 War
As these lines are being written, the war is ongoing and may yet intensify. It is perhaps too early to posit conclusive lessons at this stage. Therefore, I would qualify all of the findings below by suggesting that they must be put to the test of systematic criticism – alongside many of our military and […]
Latin American Views on the Gaza War Are in Flux
In the days and weeks after the October 7 terrorist attack and Israeli military response, some Latin American nations have distanced themselves politically from Israel. While views of the conflict are evolving, the Latin American public’s reliance on social media for news reports, amid relentlessly negative images of suffering in Gaza, has contributed to widespread […]
