Israel Re-engages Northern Gaza After Eight–Month Absence
Update on the War in Gaza
More Essays
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A Fateful Debate in Tehran
There are growing indications – not yet certainties – that the top echelons of the Iranian regime are locked in a fierce debate over a comprehensive reassessment of their regional policies. The Farsi media and public statements by politicians allow only a glimpse of the intensity of the controversy. Still, the ongoing heated discussions have […]
What Does China Want?
The military forces of the People’s Republic are formidable. What are Beijing’s plans for them? What does China want in the world? Surely no question has greater importance for the year — and indeed the decade — ahead. The country’s communist government has used China’s remarkably rapid economic growth over the last four decades to amass […]
Trump’s Foreign Policy To-Do List for 2025
When Donald Trump takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025, he will confront a world in turmoil. What are the four biggest foreign policy crises/opportunities that he will likely face over the next year? The first and most obvious is Ukraine. Ever since he invaded on February 24, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin […]
A Middle East Strategy for the Trump Administration Should Lead with Business Opportunities
The Middle East that awaits a second Trump administration offers unusual opportunity. The US can double down on two major successes – Israel’s war against Iran’s proxy armies and the Abraham Accords peace deal – to expand its regional alliance. At the end of the first Trump administration, the Abraham Accords expanded the alliance at […]
Assad’s Legacy of Chemical Weapons
The events that unfolded in Syria over the last weeks surprised not only the United States, but also Russia, Iran, and the Syrian people themselves. As Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus for asylum in Russia, his security forces shed their uniforms and their weapons and disappeared into the countryside. One of the most concerning things still […]
The Rise and Fall of Spain’s New Left
In late October Spanish political life was rocked by the resignation of Iñigo Errejón, a member of parliament and key figure in the current governing coalition, following accusations of sexual misconduct. Errejón led efforts to build a new force on the left, most recently as the spokesman for Sumar (“Join”), a grouping of national and […]
The Labour Government in Britain After Six Months
Is it time to send 007 to Washington to serve as the new British ambassador? Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Financial Times, mooted this possibility to me in mid-December as we enjoyed lunch at Sweetings, a restaurant dating to the Victorian era located near his newspaper’s offices in the London City […]
The Key to Japan’s Economic Revival
In 2010, Japan fell behind China from second to the third place among the largest economies in the world. In 2023, Japan slipped again to fourth place, falling behind Germany. The recent drop has a variety of short and longer-term explanations: the economy contracted for two consecutive quarters in late 2023, the yen has steadily […]
Expanding US-Pakistan Relations Through Mining Projects
The geopolitics of minerals has changed in the last five years, driven largely by the global focus on electric cars. The demand for minerals used in batteries, like lithium, cobalt, and copper, will quadruple by 2040. Among top consumers is the US military; its drone fleets, reconnaissance robots, and directed energy weapons will run on […]
Will the Mess in Syria Produce Positive Results?
The speed with which the Syrian regime crumbled surprised even Syria-watchers, those who knew the depth of the rot. Corrupt, hated, cruel – that’s how Assad’s regime was seen by Syrian citizens. Many kept protesting against the regime for many months in southern, Druze-dominated Sweida province as well as other spots. The outside world stopped […]
Israel's Strategic Options regarding Iran
Israel’s strategic options regarding Iran are at a critical juncture. The diminishing threat from proxies and the impairment of Iran’s air defense capabilities have shifted the focus squarely onto Iran’s nuclear program in the immediate time frame. Iran’s threatening public declarations and technical advancements are a red warning light. For over a year, Israel has […]
With Assad Gone - What’s Next?
The fall of the Assad regime is the greatest event of the war over the past year, although the Syrian army itself did not take part in the fighting. The ring of fire that Iran had planned to establish around Israel has been dismantled with the loss of the single most important link in the […]
Is Putin’s Regime Fascist?
Ukrainians use the term rashizm to describe the Putin regime’s ideology. It’s a neologism combining “Russia” and “fascism.” Ukrainians note that Russia’s invasion aims not only to acquire territory but also to destroy Ukraine as an independent nation and culture. They note further that many Russian airstrikes are aimed at civilian non-military infrastructure. But such attacks […]
How Donald Trump Can Win the Nobel Peace Prize
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump said that he would end the war between Ukraine and Russia in 24 hours. While he cannot achieve that goal so rapidly, it is conceivable that the second Trump administration could stop the fighting in Ukraine, in which case the president-elect would be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. […]
Three Thoughts on the Current Fighting in Syria
Turkish-backed Arab jihadists have taken Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and are moving on Hama, the former capital of the Muslim Brotherhood-led revolt in 1981-1982. Here is my bottom line upfront – the realistic best option for Syria is survival of the Assad regime, with further weakening of its Iranian support – and following are three […]
US – China Competition: Food Security and the FAO
The United States had a rude awakening when China secured the head job at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It is an important outpost of Chinese influence in the multilateral system and now China seeks to extend its influence there. In 2019, the Chinese government candidate for director general of the FAO, former vice […]
A Call To Support Freedom of Expression and Oppose Incitement to Violence
At the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, we stand with our publisher, Ahmed Charai, against a dangerous statement of November 25 condemning him that was issued by the Moroccan opposition party PJD’s Secretary General, Abdelilah Benkirane. This statement responds to Mr. Charai’s recent column in the Times of Israel criticizing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for […]
Ukraine in a Second Trump Administration: The Case for Optimism
Since the US presidential election, friends and supporters have asked us at Razom for Ukraine how we feel about the future of Ukraine. Razom for Ukraine is an American aid and advocacy organization that has delivered more than $100 million in humanitarian assistance since 2022. Razom employs dozens of staff in Ukraine currently on the […]
Book Reviews
What the United States Should and Should Not Do in the Middle East
The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present and Future in the Middle East by Steven Cook, Oxford University Press, 2024 In the third of the three Godfather movies, Al Pacino, playing Michael Corleone, laments his inability to make a complete break with the family’s criminal past: “Just when I thought I was out,” he exclaims […]
A Case for Annexing the West Bank
One Jewish State, The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, by David Friedman. Humanix Books, 2024. In late October of 1948, the young state of Israel launched an offensive against the seven Arab armies that had invaded it five months earlier. The Israelis attacked the Egyptian army (including Sudanese, Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood […]
Learning from the Democratic and Authoritarian Leaders of the Recent Past
The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made by Michael Mandelbaum. Oxford University Press, 2024 Michael Mandelbaum, the Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has written numerous books on international affairs. A recent work, The Four Ages of American Foreign […]
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 […]
