A Practical Roadmap for the Trump Administration
Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood
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Kurdistan Between Tehran and Ankara
Wedged between Turkey and Iran, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has become a crossroads of two competing regional orders. As Iran’s axis of resistance frays under economic strain and regional backlash, Tehran is scrambling to reinforce its influence through coercive diplomacy and the creation of a new strategic corridor to the Mediterranean. At the same […]
Cutting the Maduro Regime's Lifeline
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado, a woman who succeeded in unifying the Venezuelan opposition and spearheading the most effective peaceful social movement against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Her award represents yet another international setback for Maduro’s government. It comes at a time when the Trump administration is intensifying its […]
Jordan-Israel Ties Face Strains
The relationship between Jordan and Israel came under renewed strain after a terrorist attack on September 18. A Jordanian truck driver arrived at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing, ostensibly carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and shot and stabbed two Israeli soldiers before being shot dead. Hamas praised the attack, and Israel has shut the border […]
Bringing Humanitarian Relief to the Druze of Syria
In Syria, the southwestern governorate of al-Suwayda is collapsing under shortages of food, water, and fuel. The Druze, who follow a heterodox religion which is an offshoot of Islam, are the majority in al-Suwayda, with smaller communities of Sunni Muslim Bedouin and Christians. Traditionally the area was known as Jabal al-Druze (Druze Mountain). Al-Suwayda is […]
How to Flood Gaza with Aid without Enriching Hamas
The key to success of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan is to remove Hamas from power, permanently. A key to achieving that is to take away Hamas’s profit centers in Gaza, which allow it to pay fighters and smuggle in weapons. Hamas currently makes money by taxing and exercising control over critical humanitarian supplies in […]
J.D. Vance: The Geometry of Power
In the Oval Office, power breathes in gestures as much as decrees. President Donald Trump, re-cast by history as a peacemaker, governs in broad strokes — intuitive, dynamic, and commanding. Beside him, yet never overshadowing him, stands Vice President J.D. Vance: younger, disciplined, and disarmingly direct. The chemistry between them has become one of the […]
AIPAC’S Dilemma
Congressman Seth Moulton is one of the most highly respected members of the House Armed Services Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat and retired Marine has a record of working both sides of the aisle. He and Jim Banks, a conservative Republican from Indiana, co-chaired the Future of Defense Task Force; their 2020 report garnered considerable attention […]
The Fragile Peace
The relief that swept across Israel this past week was profound. Twenty living hostages returned home from Gaza captivity. Families who had braced themselves for permanent loss suddenly found themselves whole again. For a few days, the streets filled with tears of joy. Mothers embraced sons they thought they’d never see again. In a country […]
Where We Are Headed with the Trump Peace Plan
It was a holiday like no other in recent memory. On the eve of Simhat Torah 2025, exactly two years on the Jewish calendar to the day of the Hamas attack in 2023, the 20 remaining live hostages were released to ambulances. Watching from a respectful distance, Israeli crowds on the Gaza border cheered. Later […]
Lessons Learned From Fighting Narcoterrorism in South America
The fight against narcoterrorism has returned to the vocabulary of American policymakers. The Trump administration has deployed Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps assets to the Caribbean and destroyed several drug-carrying vessels, just the beginning of a campaign according to the President. This time the US effort is centered on Venezuela, but it is nevertheless […]
No Real Alternative: Why the Gulf Will Rely on the US
Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, on September 9 jarred the region and spurred a new outburst of skepticism about the value of US security commitments. The US has long sought a stable regional environment in which American partners do not attack one another, which the Doha attack obviously disrupted. Nevertheless, the Middle East simply has […]
Postwar Gaza as Leadership Opportunity for Egypt
President Donald Trump’s visit to Sharm el-Sheikh demonstrated the joint convening power of the US and Egypt, gathering at short notice the leaders of Europe and the Middle East to support the Trump Peace Plan. Having helped broker the ceasefire, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi now faces the far harder challenge of shaping what comes next. […]
Palestinian Sovereignty and International Law
In September 2025, France and Great Britain together with several other states recognized a State of Palestine, bringing the total number of UN members that recognize Palestine to 157. But these declarations of recognition do not confer legal sovereignty. Under the international Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (Montvideo Convention of 1933), statehood is […]
America’s Options in Afghanistan
Four years have passed since the United States withdrew in chaos from Afghanistan, abandoning important projects, leaving behind billions of dollars of equipment and handing the Taliban many other assets in that country. The Taliban still rule Afghanistan. They face a mountain of unresolved problems yet are ready to employ as much force as necessary […]
The Return of Barbarism
Walter Benjamin once observed, “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” His insight points to the violent and bloody foundations upon which modern civilization was built: great monuments, cities, palaces, and fortifications often rose on the backs of slave labor, wars, and exploitation. Today, we […]
The New Syrian Regime’s Dilemma
On September 24, Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara’a addressed the UN General Assembly in New York, where he is still on the UN sanctions list for his leadership of an al-Qa’ida affiliate (though he is likely to be de-listed soon). The transformation of al-Shara’a from wanted terrorist into respected statesman has taken place with remarkable speed. […]
The German - Polish Relationship, Soft Bigotry and Long Grievances
“We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past and look to the future.”Winston Churchill, September 19, 1946, Zurich Germany and Poland are European Union and NATO members, neighbors committed to the fight against an expansionist Russia with a combined massive economic might. They should be the closest of natural allies, but […]
The Battle for Gaza City
Gaza City, one of the last two Hamas strongholds, is the target of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in an ongoing operation. It is a large metropolitan area stretching from Shati, the historic refugee camp on the beach, through the wealthy neighborhood of Rimal, around to Zeitoun and the old quarter of historic Gaza. In […]
Book & Movie Reviews
A Tormented Search for Balance
Kissinger, a PBS documentary by Barak Goodman, October 2025 PBS’s three-hour documentary on Henry Kissinger is in most respects admirable and should be viewed by everyone. Kissinger’s long life and exploits are handled briskly but thoroughly; the narrative does not dawdle, dramatic footage and scores of brief interview excerpts keep the story moving, quite coherently […]
A Clarion Call for Liberal Education
Blue Skies: My Life in Many Worlds, by S. Frederick Starr, Dorrance Publishers, 2025. In his memoirs, Edward Gibbon observed that “every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.” By that standard, S. Frederick Starr has done very well indeed. Starr, who was […]
Movie Review: “Making the Rubble Bounce”
A House of Dynamite directed by Kathryn Bigelow, available on Netflix Nuclear weapons were at the heart of the Cold War. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever sought to attack each other directly because each wanted to avoid triggering a nuclear cataclysm. Instead, they waged a proxy war in the Third World […]
Videos
Interview with Hillel Halkin
Robert Silverman: You are an American Jew who moved to Israel, with your wife, as a young couple shortly after the Six-Day War. Then you wrote a book in the 1970s that influenced a whole generation of American Jews. It was called Letters to an American Jewish Friend. And you were talking to your counterparts […]
Interview with Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi: In terms of my personal journey, it’s framed by my evolving, understanding of the Holocaust, my relationship to the Holocaust and my generation’s experience as opposed to my father’s experience. My father was a survivor from Hungary. I grew up in a very charged Holocaust environment in Brooklyn, in the 1960s, which […]
Interview with Gadi Taub
Gadi Taub: I believed in Oslo [the 1990s Palestinian-Israeli peace process] because I imagined the Palestinians to be like us. I imagined their national liberation movement to be a national liberation movement just like ours. Then reality just exploded outside my window. Tel Aviv is small. So from where I lived back then, when a […]
