The book includes thirteen analytical essays written by INSS researchers. Focus is on Israel’s strategic environment, particularly in the wake of the major changes experienced in the Middle East commonly known as the Arab spring. The ongoing Palestinian issue and Iran’s nuclear program remain at the fore of the challenges facing Israel. Other issues explored in the volume include the “new” Middle East and the role of the superpowers, Turkey, and questions of particular urgency to Israel, including the...
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have chosen policies that circumvent direct political dialogue. Adopting a pincer-like strategy that closes in on Israel, the PA has concentrated its efforts on building institutional and economic infrastructures and seeking international backing for the emerging state. For its part, the Israeli government has focused on attempting to curb the PA’s diplomatic momentum; at the same time, it has been careful to continue its security cooperation with the PA and has supported the economic...
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khaled Mashal met in Cairo on November 24, 2011, in order to discuss implementation of the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas signed in May 2011 that has yet to be put into practice. However, two radically different versions regarding what was accomplished at this meeting emerge from the Palestinian public discourse and various commentaries. One version resembles the leaders’ official reaction and presents the understandings reached at...
A rational analysis of the agreement signed between Israel and Hamas for the release of Gilad Shalit is best conducted far from the abundant rhetoric, touching photographs, and strong emotions that accompanied the extensive journalistic coverage of the event. In the course of this media event, platitudes and clichés of questionable accuracy were bandied about relentlessly.
The September 23, 2011 statement by the Middle East Quartet may prove to be a landmark in the attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The carefully worded statement is drafted in such a way as to allow it to serve as a basis for both parties to resume negotiations. From the Israeli perspective, the statement is particularly welcome, as it calls on the parties to “resume direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without delay or preconditions.” This explicit call for negotiations without preconditions...
When PA President Abbas formally submitted his bid for recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital, the PA thereby rejected the requests by the administration not to appeal to the United Nations. Indeed, Abu Mazen completely ignored the United States in his speech before the UN. Moreover, the statehood bid clearly rebuffed warnings by the US Congress, notwithstanding the critical importance of American assistance to the Palestinian.
Political commentators have written that although in his September 2011 UN speech Palestinian President Abbas delivered a vitriolic diatribe against Israel, the speech also contained an historic renunciation of Palestinian territorial claims beyond the June 4, 1967 borders. However, examination of the text of the statehood bid suggests that the Palestinian appeal to the United Nations may be encumbered with conditions that could raise immense difficulties in future negotiations.
Although the upheavals gripping the Arab world are not directly related to Israel or its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, they intensify existing crises between Israel and the Arab and Muslim worlds. In turn, the deterioration in relations between Israel and the Palestinians as a result of the deadlocked negotiations and the Palestinians’ statehood bid to the UN are liable to further aggravate Israel’s situation with regard to its Middle East environment. Israel’s response to this situation has for the most part been passive...
According to various reports, Foreign Minister Lieberman told European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton that if the Palestinians undertake a unilateral move in the United Nations, Israel will renounce all the agreements it has signed with them, including the Oslo Accords. Ashton refused to accept this position. Nearly two decades after the Oslo Accords were signed with much fanfare, there is still disagreement as to their benefits and their relevance today.
Because two previous confrontations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama had left both a bit bloodied and bowed, it is unlikely that either was seeking a third round during Netanyahu’s recent visit to the United States. Yet that is precisely what happened – largely because of a phrase that was both superfluous and misunderstood.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to the May 24, 2011 joint session of the United States Congress was the third in a series of speeches in which he presented his position on the Palestinian issue. The first was given at Bar-Ilan University in June 2009; the second was delivered on May 16, 2011 before the Knesset. The differences between the three fundamental addresses, as slight as they may seem, indicate a cautious and measured development and represent an attempt to confront two kinds of pressures – internal and those coming from...
After a period of heightened expectations regarding a series of speeches by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, from the Palestinian perspective the mountain turned out to be little more than a molehill. The Palestinians were not given any incentive to reexamine their strategy in anticipation of September 2011. In their view, the speeches were a combination of a very grudging gesture toward them accompanied by a heap of bitter pills to swallow.
