By Shabtai Shavit and Alon Ben-Meir As Israel prepares for the parliamentary election in September, its second in five months, most national security experts, politically savvy individuals, and academics suggest that this election may well be the most critical since the year 2000. Since that time, the geopolitics and regional security have changed dramatically, which…

Netanyahu has served as prime minister for the past 11 years, coinciding with Hamas’ rule over Gaza ever since it usurped power in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority after a brief violent confrontation between the two sides. During this period, Netanyahu has deliberately perpetuated the conflict with Hamas as a means by which to promote…

Artwork by Michael Anderson and Sam Ben-Meir This article is a short excerpt from my latest essay, Preventing an Israeli-Iran War, published in the May 2019 issue of American Diplomacy. The full-length essay is available here. Accusing Iran of being a rogue country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting extremist groups and terrorism, persistently threatening…

The result of the Israeli election has demonstrated that the Israeli public’s movement to the right is now consolidated, and that its prospective reversal to the center and left-of-center is becoming increasingly unlikely. This outcome should give serious pause to every Jew and friend of Israel, as the consequences for Israel’s future will be extremely…

Artwork by Michael Anderson and Sam Ben-Meir Over the past three decades I wrote more than two hundred articles about Israel, envisioning it to be a democratic state, independent and free, a champion of human rights, a force of unity for world Jewry, united in its citizenry, admired by its friends, envied by its detractors,…

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to call for an early election, scheduled to take place on April 9, was really nothing short of another political stunt that Netanyahu has masterfully learned to employ when the time is right and he is reasonably assured of another victory. One would think, however, that after 10 continuous years…

I maintain that regardless of the political, strategic, demographic, and regional vicissitudes, the two-state option remains the only viably sustainable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the one-state solution is simply a non-starter. I also maintain that successive Israeli governments, irrespective of their political leanings, perpetuated the occupation. They created what is effectively an apartheid state…

Much of what Israel and the Palestinians are experiencing today has befallen them under Netanyahu’s leadership. He believes that the Palestinians will always pose an existential threat to Israel, which led him to pursue domestic policies that dangerously undermined the country’s founding principles of freedom and equality. Concurrently, he has taken extreme measures to suppress…

Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed a new basic law which in the main enshrines “Israel [as] the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the State of Israel was established… The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people… Jerusalem, complete and united, is the…