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A plume of smoke rising from a neighborhood in Beirut following an Israeli strike in 2006.

Why Israel’s Campaign Will Likely Fail

… Many Americans see Israel’s response to the capture of three of its soldiers as … The Bush administration agrees. It strongly supports Israeli military action in Lebanon against Hezbollah. Yet Israel’s military campaign is unlikely to succeed. In fact, …
A map showing Israel and Palestine

Palestine and Israel: A Case of Incomplete Decolonization

… through outside intervention. At its core the Palestinian-Israeli clash is about political independence and ending … Much of the fury behind the Palestinian opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza arises from the … frustrated in their wish to live under their own rulers. Israel is rarely described as a settler state, such as the …
Israeli soldiers stand around their tanks during the Yom Kippur War.

The Yom Kippur War and the OPEC Oil Embargo

… Egypt and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria launched a joint attack on Israel’s southern and northern borders. As the war … Countries (OPEC) deployed the “oil weapon” against Israel’s allies, imposing an embargo against any nation aiding Israel.  The embargo, lasting from October 1973 to March …
Palestinians during the first intifada, 1987. (Photo by Peter Stepan)

The Long Shadow of the June 1967 War

… The Arab-Israeli War of June 5-10, 1967 (known in the West as the Six … a brief but momentous military clash that reshaped the Arab-Israeli dispute , redirected U.S. relations with key states … consequential on this month’s 50 th anniversary of the war. Israeli and Egyptian forces clashing during the Six Day War, …

Ideology or Ethnicity? The Israeli Political Crisis

… During the past year, Israel has experienced an unprecedented political crisis. … more than two months after a third round in March 2020, Israeli politicians are still struggling to establish a … 2018 at Breuer Religious Elementary School in Yad Binyamin, Israel. (Photo: Avi Ohayon and the Government Press Office) …
Map of the Gaza Strip in May 2005, a few months prior to the Israeli withdrawal. The major settlement blocs were the blue-shaded regions of this map.

Threads of Hope Glimmer in the Middle East

… in the cards. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which abuts Israel, elected an Islamic fundamentalist Hamas government, … against the farms and villages of central and southern Israel. Israel retaliated in its January 2009 “Cast Lead” incursion …
A shopkeeper sits outside his store in the Cardo waiting for tourists and residents to stop in.

A Postcard from Jerusalem

… announcement that he will move the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Condemned by leaders around the world, … the Ethiopians staked a majority claim with the help of the Israeli government. Christian Armenians A poster and the … shopkeeper observed, Armenians have been emigrating not to Israel but to Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. With only …
A view of the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

A Dawn of Peace in Bethlehem?

… where they were four years ago, a low point in Palestinian-Israeli relations. Since then there has been significant improvement in both Israeli-Arab and Muslim-Jewish relations in the region. By 2001, Christmas had become a casualty of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel forbade the late …
The Tower of David in the Old City of Jerusalem.

A Peace Plan That May Be Worse Than War

… to conditions under which all would recognize the State of Israel. The proposal has great promise if it’s a bargaining … negotiation. On the other hand, if the Saudis are asking Israel to accept or reject “a cat in a bag,” the Prince’s … only prolong regional instability. The Saudis request that Israel withdraw to its pre-June 4, 1967, borders. Those …

Baptized in the Jordan: Restoring a Holy River

… to the gift shop, both groups were getting back on the Israeli tourist buses, off to the next stop on their day … visitors annually flock to the three baptism sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian West Bank to follow in … however, the Jordan River has been drawn deep into the Arab-Israeli conflict . Once a meandering river full of rapids …
A 1963 photo of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.

In Bethlehem, Persisting Hope

… negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which abuts Israel. Cross-border terrorist attacks against Israelis diminished, and Palestinians in both Gaza and in …
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, United States President George W. Bush, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after reading statement to the press during the closing moments of the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, June 4, 2003.

A Flawed Basis for Middle East Peace

… to conditions under which all would recognize the state of Israel. The Saudi initiative thus has great merit, but only … regional instability.   The Saudi plan proposes that Israel withdraw to the borders that existed just prior to … War. Those “Auschwitz borders,” in the words of Abba Eban, Israel’s foreign minister at that time, would have given …
Palestine & Israel flags

Israeli and Palestinian Fantasies Block the Way to Peace

… of television news knows, those who comment on the Arab-Israeli crisis offer many different explanations for the … that keep hostilities going. Both Palestinians and Israelis cling to fantasies about settling their peoples in … finds expression in demands that their families uprooted in Israel's 1948 war for independence have a "right of return." …
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming Israel's independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl.

Zionist Idea of Security Blocks Path to Peace

… Although Israeli leaders insist they want a secure peace with all … now blocking the path to peace. As the latest round in the Israeli-Palestinian battle nears its one-year anniversary, the violence mounts with no end in sight. Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has yet to offer a …
Israeli Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol

Six Days That Shook The World

Review of The Six Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East, by Guy Laron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)
… When Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping in May 1967 and built up troops along Israel’s border, Israel responded with preventive strikes against Egypt …
Maurycy Gottlieb - Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur: A First Step to Peace

… the sacred mosques. That could provoke all-out war between Israel and the whole Muslim world. Not too many years ago, … fringe notion. Now it is part of the mainstream debate in Israel, indicating how far to the right the mainstream has … group to do better in the coming year. The modern state of Israel benefits from this sense of communal responsibility. …
Fully lit Menorah

Chanukah Candles Shed Light on Mideast Conflict

… and his army of foreign occupiers. I learned that today's Israeli soldiers, like the Maccabees, were fighting for … playing the same role as the Jerusalem elite of long ago. Israel's former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said it … Arafat signed the Oslo Agreements, he was agreeing to be Israel's "subcontractor," to suppress the radical …
Egyptian Prime Minister Anwar Sadat, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signing the Camp David Peace Accords on September 17, 1978.

Can Sharon Too Become a Peacemaker?

… Ariel Sharon’s victory in the Israeli elections has stirred fears throughout the world of a new general Arab-Israeli war with devastating consequences for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region. These fears …
The Olympic flag flies at half-staff during a memorial service to the slain Israeli athletes, September 6, 1972.

The Munich Olympic Massacre

… this new Germany more than the participation of a team from Israel. To avoid appearing militarized, the Olympic safety … Terror.” A global audience watched a tragic attack on the Israeli athletes unfold on television, which brought the … Palestinian terrorists’ methods. On September 4, while the Israeli team settled into bed in their apartments at 31 …
Cover of 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris.

The Battle For 1948

Review of 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, by Benny Morris (Yale University Press, 2008)
… debate between scholars who accept the Zionist narrative of Israeli history and those who tend to be more sympathetic to … The events of 1948 are understood, for the former, as the Israeli War of Independence; for the latter, they are … Refugee Problem in 1987. Morris joined a group of Israeli scholars known as the New Historians who challenged …