The control regained by Assad’s army over southern Syria opens a new chapter on the Israel-Golan Heights border. The leaders of Israel and Russia see the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement as the foundation of a future security arrangement. The mission environment of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), entrusted with ensuring the agreement’s implementation, has utterly changed since it was first formed, and UNDOF must make significant adjustments to its modes of operation, considering the challenges it now...
The combined attack by the United States, Britain, and France on Syrian targets following the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons has sparked extensive debate on the strike’s strategic aspects, and how, if at all, the offensive will affect the situation and the balance of power in Syria. The attack has also aroused a legal discussion, which once again highlights the limitations of the existing rules of international law when it comes to dealing with situations where the use of force is not based on the authorization of the...
The Palestinian refugee issue has been seen for some seventy years as a principal obstacle to a resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. However, the expanding numbers of refugees from the Middle East and Africa today challenge the uniqueness of the Palestinian situation. In fact, the issue of Palestinian refugees is perceived more as the reflection of an ongoing lapse by Arab countries, Israel, and the international community, which have been unable to separate the solution to this problem from the greater...
This paper reviews the evolution of US policy toward Gaza following Israel’s disengagement in 2005. It discusses the effectiveness of the current US approach toward Gaza, and analyzes the key US interests, leverage, and limitations that pertain to the Strip. Finally, based on open-source materials and off the record conversations with former US officials across administrations, experts, and NGO staff working on Gaza, the paper recommends concrete short and long term policy options for the United States in Gaza.
The current situation in the Gaza Strip is marked by several primary phenomena, led by Gaza’s severe economic plight and deteriorated infrastructure. These hardships aggravate humanitarian distress, which in turn motivates belligerent tendencies and heightens the danger of security escalation between Israel and Hamas and other terrorist forces operating in the Strip. Additional parameters include Hamas’s comprehensive and stable control of the region; the organization’s proven capacity for destructive activity, both in the Israeli-...
On August 30, 2017, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2373, thereby extending UNIFIL’s mandate for another year. The ambassadors of the United States and Israel declared improvements to the mandate and a political achievement concerning Hezbollah’s arsenal on the ground, while Lebanese voices reported “business as usual.” The first report to the Security Council since the resolution was adopted reflects the ongoing familiar reality, with a rise in the visibility profile of UNIFIL activity, and with slightly more detailed...
On December 6, 2017 President Trump announced that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. What followed this controversial announcement in the UN realm was a flurry of initiatives, including a draft resolution submitted to the Security Council by Egypt; a resolution submitted to the General Assembly by Yemen and Turkey; Israel’s withdrawal form UNESCO, and President Trump’s threat to cut funding from UNRWA. In reviewing this sequence of events, two conclusions emerge. First, the UN arena has...
In an era in which many democratic countries face great economic, political, and security instability, the rise of international non-governmental players cannot be ignored, whether these are terrorist organizations on the one hand, or civil society organizations on the other. While Israel has taken care to prepare itself for violent conflicts with non-state terrorist players, this is not the case in the international civilian arena. The result has been the ongoing deterioration of Israel’s status in countries that are among its...
UN Secretary-General António Guterres is scheduled to visit Israel for the first time in late August 2017, seven full months after assuming the prestigious post in January 2017. Upon his election, the Israeli establishment expressed hope that Guterres’ leadership would lead to a change in the UN’s bias against Israel. In considering seven milestones during the past seven months, Guterres’ actions, rhetoric, and statements on Israel-related issues create the impression that he is indeed committed to bettering the situation.
Recent weeks have witnessed a change in the public position on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) among senior IDF officers, reflecting sharp criticism of UNIFIL (in)action vis-à-vis Hezbollah. UNIFIL forces have successfully performed their mission of reducing friction between the IDF and Lebanon by means of the coordination and liaison mechanism, thereby contributing to the preservation of calm and preventing unintended escalation. At the same time, UNIFIL has consistently refrained from dealing with the most...
In late 2016, the United Nations decided to launch discussions on the establishment of a treaty banning all nuclear weapons, and on May 22, 2017 the Chair of the conference dealing with this issue presented a first draft of the proposed treaty. The proposed draft is of a treaty negotiated among states, not taking into account the existence of non-state entities that could be holding a trump card in the case of universal nuclear disarmament. Moreover, in many respects, the draft falls into the same troubling trap of previous treaties....
The article discusses various strands of Arab thought about the political process and normalization with Israel, and extends his focus beyond the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The article notes the thus far unsuccessful attempts by Sunni Arab countries – specifically, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – to rejuvenate the political process, and the interests motivating these attempts. It concludes that although discrete cooperation between Israel and Arab countries is likely to develop even without a political breakthrough, substantial...
