Seven years after the onset of the upheaval in the Middle East and two years since the implementation of the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, the main contours of the region’s emerging reality – including the actors, rivalries, partnerships, front lines, power relations, and behavior of the major powers – are becoming clear. Now, after nearly one full year at the Washington helm, the nature of the Trump administration and its influence on the domestic arena, the Middle East, and the global stage are also coming into...
As 2017 draws to a close, the Middle East is witnessing the convergence of several important developments that will potentially have a broad impact on Israeli national security. The civil war in Syria is subsiding through a process dominated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey – which poses the danger that Israel’s interests will not be taken into account in the deliberations and steps toward an agreement to stabilize the arena. The jihadist territorial Islamic State established in Iraq and Syria has been obliterated, although the underlying...
The fourth issue of Over the Net focuses on trends in two different (though not unconnected) arenas that have been at the center of the debate in the Arab world the past few months. The first trend deals with the internal Palestinian reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, signed in October 2017, after a careful, calculated process by the new Hamas leadership led by Yahya Sinwar. Few give this reconciliation any substantive chance of success, but meanwhile all parties gain from it – particularly Hamas. In this context, the...
Israel’s proven ability to locate and destroy tunnels undermines the rationale of the enemy system (including both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) whereby attack tunnels are a strategic and psychological tool par excellence. Despite the pressure to respond to Israel’s destruction of the Gaza tunnel because of the many casualties, it seems that Hamas does not want escalation at a time that it is focused on implementing the reconciliation agreement with Fatah. As a military escalation with Israel would hurt Hamas, the organization...
The severe economic crisis and deplorable conditions in the Gaza Strip, which worsened over the past year with the significant reduction in the supply of electricity, have spurred Hamas’s leadership to turn to several regional states for help, particularly Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. Hamas’s reliance on diplomatic contact with these states coincides with a lengthy period of military restraint, whereby the organization does not fire at Israel and imposes a state of security calm on the organizations that heed its authority. It seems...
On October 12, 2017, Fatah and Hamas signed a new reconciliation agreement in Cairo, which confirms the implementation of the previous reconciliation agreement, formulated in 2011. The provisions regarding the transfer of civil government in the Gaza Strip to the government in Ramallah, and the lifting of the Ramallah sanctions against Gaza, are concrete and accompanied by a timetable. The other issues that were not resolved formerly and resulted in the collapse of the prior reconciliation agreements – including the fate of the...
In light of the growing concern that Gaza’s poor economy and high unemployment could foment unrest and lead to renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas, many leading Israeli defense officials have voiced support for a Gaza seaport, if coupled with necessary security arrangements. The humanitarian situation in Gaza, combined with anti-Israel incitement, is a ticking bomb directed at Israel. At the same time, Israeli security officials understand that a Palestinian port in Gaza without adequate security arrangements presents a...
