Israel’s process of annexing West Bank territory has restored the Palestinian issue to center stage, after Jerusalem succeeded over the past decade in pushing the issue to the margins of the regional and international agendas. The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conducted a war game to examine the ramifications of Israel’s application of sovereignty over territories in the West Bank. In the scenario, following the Israeli government’s decision to apply sovereignty in limited scope to settlement blocs in the Jerusalem...
Since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the political future of this territory has cast a shadow over all other issues in Israel’s relations with Europe. Discord with the EU intensifies particularly when the Israeli-Palestinian political process stalls, even when Israel is not necessarily to blame, and when Israeli settlement activity in the region increases. Large or small-scale Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank will elicit negative responses from Europe, deepening the divide between Israel’s senior political...
On May 20, 2020, the White House released a document titled “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” which describes China’s challenge to the United States and the US response strategy. Overall, the document is a direct extension of President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy of December 2017, which focuses on the strategic “great power competition.” On May 29, President Trump delivered a speech in which he attacked China’s policy and conduct with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic...
The updated document “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China” (May 20, 2020) contends that the United States “underestimated the will of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to constrain the scope of economic and political reform in China” and that China’s “increased engagement with the world did not lead to convergence with the citizen-centric, free and open order as the United States had hoped.” Such statements bolster the Chinese view, informed by longstanding distrust and...
The National Security in Hong Kong Law, adopted recently at the annual gathering of the Two Sessions (“Lianghui”) of the People’s Congress in China, reflects Beijing’s interest in preserving Chinese sovereignty in face of “concerns regarding foreign intervention” in territories that are defined as a “core interest.” After the law’s enactment, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada issued a joint statement expressing deep concern regarding the legislation. Still, their response was relatively moderate and...
The US administration, considers the appointment of Iraqi National Intelligence Service head Mustafa al-Kadhimi as Prime Minister of Iraq as an opportunity to reinforce the US hold in Iraq and counter Iran’s efforts to consolidate its influence there. The strategic dialogue expected to take place soon between the United States and Iraq is a critical juncture in their relations, in part because the outcome is likely to affect the future of the American military presence in Iraq. Israel has a clear interest in the success of this...
Israel’s new government will have to review the validity of many ideas within the Israeli consensus that have guided foreign policy over the past two decades. Key questions concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; relations between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East, particularly in the area of energy and in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; relations with the United States, including the implications of the competition between China and the US; relations with the European Union; and relations with...
The global, regional, and internal implications of the coronavirus are still not fully clear, but Israel’s 35th government will have no 100-day grace period. It must quickly restore the economy to full activity, despite the presence of the virus and the possibility of a renewed outbreak. On the security level, all the regimes in the Middle East are busy with the pandemic and internal affairs, and will most likely seek to avoid escalation in conflicts with Israel. At the same time, the risk of unplanned escalation (in Syria,...
The military, economic, and political conflict between Iran and the United States is escalating. Following the attacks on bases in Iraq where US forces are stationed and provocative action against US vessels by Iranian gunboats, potential exists for a limited direct conflict, even though neither side wants one. Friction is also increasing regarding the US drive to extend the article in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 on a conventional weapons embargo against Iran, which was passed following the signing of the nuclear agreement...
This article focuses on the idea, if not the intention, to maximize what is perceived as a window of opportunity to advance the application of Israeli sovereignty to the territories in the West Bank. For an interest group that aspires to this goal, and especially for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there is a sense that under the current circumstances, Israel has an unprecedented opportunity that it will not have again in the near future to apply Israeli sovereignty to settlement areas. This window of opportunity has emerged in...
What will the world look like one year from now, and how will the corona pandemic affect the Middle East? This article presents four possible scenarios: “continuation,” in which following a temporary interruption of a few months, there is a resumption of familiar global and regional trends from the pre-corona era; “revolution,” in which there is a fundamental change in the patterns that characterized life before the crisis and the world prepares for a new illiberal world order led by China; “breakdown,” in which all global actors...
As the only contender remaining in the primary race, former Vice President Joe Biden is the presumed Democratic nominee for United States president in 2020. Biden will likely seek to maintain his centrist voter base while also recruiting supporters from the younger, activist wing of the Democratic Party by making concessions in domestic policy rather than foreign policy. Biden is a longstanding supporter of Israel, but should he emerge victorious in November there might be tension with the government of Israel on two key issues: the...
