Research & Commentary Results

Egyptian diplomats rarely have a good word to say about U.S. policies these days. In contrast, they are enthusiastic in their praise of the close relations between Cairo and Jerusalem—centered on counterterror security and intelligence cooperation in Sinai—and effusive in their acknowledgement of Israel’s response to the bloody insurgency there, led by Egypt’s ISIS affiliate in the “Sinai Province,” Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

“Relations with Israel are great,” observed an Egyptian official recently.[1]

In the last few weeks, the Syrian Druze have been a focal point in significant fighting on the ground. If their role in the fighting continues, or even if it changes, the Druze will likely have a profound impact on the trajectory of the Syrian conflict.

On June 22, members of the Druse minority in the Israeli town of Hurfeish threw rocks at an ambulance believed to be transporting wounded Syrian Jabhat al-Nusra rebels to medical care in Israel. The following day, a similar incident in the occupied Golan Heights resulted in the killing of one wounded rebel, also of Nusra.

For the first time in decades absolutely nothing is happening on the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic front. There is no agreed-upon structure for diplomatic engagement under U.S.—or anyone’s—guidance. Moreover, there is an international consensus that includes the United States that doubts, with good reason, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution.

In June 1954, the leaders of China, India, and Burma (now Myanmar) issued a joint statement affirming the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence―mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence―as the basis for conducting international relations. Since then, China has adhered strictly to the principle of non-interference in other countries’ domestic turmoil, as displayed prominently over the past several years in Beijing’s response to the Syrian civil war.

Palestinians, beset by calamities at every turn, have all but ceased to think about their indeterminate prospects for independence and freedom. This dismal state of affairs suits Israel’s newly reelected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fine. His opposition to a sovereign Palestinian state, broadcast in word and deed, leaves little room for doubt.

The bar has been set so low that all concerned are searching for any shred of evidence that merely hints at better times for Palestinians, who have now lived under Israeli rule for almost a half century.

The Obama administration has lost all patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defiant challenges to two basic U.S. goals: a two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace and a nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu’s hostility and the emergence after the March 15 elections of a new, more right-wing coalition, have triggered a major crisis in relations and an apparent decision by Obama to “reevaluate” U.S. policy.

Following the Bandung Conference in 1955, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) espoused―in an unusual contrast with other major powers of the “socialist” and “nonaligned” camps―a pro-Palestinian stance in its foreign policy toward the Middle East. This did not entail, however, any direct contact with the Palestinians, a development that did not appear until the mid-1960s emergence of a more autonomous and coherent Palestinian national movement embodied in the PLO. Contact prior to the establishment of formal channels of communication took place through a number of unofficial and semi-official conduits, ranging from the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), the Chinese embassies in Egypt and South Yemen after 1967, and the “underground” Communist networks (mainly Iraqi, Sudanese, and Yemeni) to such bodies as the Chinese Committee for Afro-Asian Solidarity and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. These contacts enabled the PRC to eventually extend formal diplomatic recognition of the PLO in 1964, making it the first non-Arab country to do so.

Read the full article at Foreign Affairs.

The Middle East is in disarray, but in Gaza, of all places, there are fragile hints of better days.

Two weeks ago, for the first time since Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel permitted produce exports from Gaza into Israel and the West Bank.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged Gaza’s plight during a visit to the area in February.

Those Israelis who hoped for a change in Israel’s direction awoke this morning to news worse than they had feared. With more than 99 percent of the vote reportedly counted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has won 30 seats to 24 for his main challenger, the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog.

A review of Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947, By Bruce Hoffman (Knopf 2015). This book review was first published by The Washington Post.

This article was first published on CNN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Congress this week was as eagerly anticipated in Tehran as it was in Washington.

The Iranian reaction to the speech has been a combination of indignation and indifference.

Read full article at Politico Magazine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to the United States, spoken his piece and returned home to Israel to finish campaigning for the March 17 elections. Netanyahu’s visit to Washington was neither the triumph he expected nor the disaster forecast by opponents of the visit. Indeed, the visit shed no new light on the supposedly central issue of the day: the state of play in the Iran negotiations.

One of the more enduring characteristics of Israel’s electoral campaigns is their ability to produce surprises, often with considerable political consequences.