Eldad Shavit

The gaps between Tehran and Washington have not yet narrowed significantly, but it seems that both sides are determined to reach an agreement and avoid a military escalation. How should Israel, which is on the sidelines of the talks, act in this situation?

The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency could bring significant global changes, intensifying competition among the great powers—the United States, China, and Russia. Trump’s “America First” policy, which defined his first term in office, is expected to continue shaping his administration’s foreign policy. The administration’s guiding principle will be “ending wars, not starting them,” emphasizing agreements that advance American interests from a position of strength. This approach will primarily rely on political and economic pressure, with the potential for military posturing—while aiming to avoid direct military engagement or prolonged conflicts.

While Israel is fighting in the south and north, Iran continues to make alarming and unprecedented progress toward a military nuclear program. Where do the Iranian efforts stand—and can the hourglass still be stopped?

What was behind the dramatic speech of the US president in which he presented the “Israeli plan” for the hostage deal, and what are the implications?

Joe Biden is reportedly one of only two US presidents to have given serious consideration to a defense treaty with Israel. A number of Israeli premiers have weighed a defense treaty over the years, primarily as a means of offsetting security concerns and public qualms regarding concessions in peace talks. Counterintuitively, perhaps, Israel’s defense establishment has long been opposed. This study analyzes the pros and cons of a bilateral defense treaty from both the Israeli and American perspectives and proposes ways of addressing the sides’ concerns. All US defense treaties are fundamentally asymmetrical in their advantages. Nevertheless, the US, too, stands to gain important benefits, especially if a treaty with Israel was tied to the emergence of a broader US-led regional architecture, with Saudi Arabia at the center, and even more so if linked to progress on the Palestinian issue.

In his new book, “Storm” toward Iran, Ilan Kfir describes at length and in great detail Israel’s policy in 2009-2019 on the Iranian question. The focus of the book is the author’s assertion that three times in 2009-2012, Israel was on the verge of launching an air attack on the nuclear sites in Iran, but due to a host of different considerations some of them pertinent and others not the IDF plan was not carried out.