President Trump’s upcoming visit to Israel and Palestine—during which he hopes to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process—will go nowhere unless he fully understands the complexity of the conflict and why previous attempts by successive American administrations to negotiate a peace deal have failed. Recently, he stated that “I want to see peace with Israel and…

Israel will soon reach on June 5th the grim milestone of fifty years of occupation of the West Bank. Many Israelis have become complacent and succumbed to the government’s argument that the continuing occupation is necessary to safeguard Israel’s national security. Others are lamenting the day, as they view the occupation not only as a…

On the sad occasion of the fiftieth year of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, I will be writing a series of articles that will propose a number of peaceful people-to-people measures—which have been largely missing—that Israelis and Palestinians must take to bring an end to the occupation. This is the first article that…

The razor-thin victory (51.3% to 48.7%) of Turkey’s President Erdogan in the referendum held on April 16 in fact denies Erdogan the mandate to govern with the sweeping powers the new constitution grants the President, especially when the results of the referendum are seriously contested. Even if there was no outright fraud or irregularities in…

President Trump’s unexpected attack on Syria’s Shayrat airbase in response to President Assad’s sarin gas attack on his own citizens has changed the dynamic of Syria’s civil war and potentially its eventual outcome. Trump’s attack sent a clear message not only to Assad, but to Russia and Iran, who are staunch supporters of Assad, and…

The growing tension between Turkey and its Western allies, which was further heightened during the Obama administration, is narrowing the space for cooperation between the two sides and in fact is progressively worsening. Erdogan’s hope that he and President Trump would improve their ties as members of NATO has dramatically diminished. Washington and the EU…

As we approach the sixth year of Syria’s civil war, the whole international community remains completely inept and has failed to join together in the search for a solution that could end the horrifying slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians each month. Sadly (but for obvious reasons), each of the countries and other groups involved,…

Although Prime Minister Netanyahu is known for his focus on the Palestinian and Iranian threats to Israel’s national security, in recent months he has increasingly sounded the alarm over Iran in particular rather than the Palestinians. As the defeat of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria is all but inevitable, Netanyahu’s main concern now is…

This is the fourth and last in a series of articles based in part on eyewitness accounts about the rapidly deteriorating socio-political conditions in Turkey and what the future may hold for the country. The first, second and third articles are available here: First, Second, Third. In many conversations and encounters I had over the…