The book shows that policies intensified competition over land control, slightly widening socio-economic gaps and maintaining pre-existing power disparities between Arabs and Jews. Subsequently, most indicators of political instability also intensified. The continuation of Israel's policies in the region is therefore likely to undermine the country's long term political stability.
"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want."
Israel, The Middle East and the Great Powers presents the Israel-Arab conflict to the general public in a uniquely comprehensive and interdisciplinary format. Its form and content reflect the most serious efforts of Israel's intellectual community to analyze the conflict situation in which they live, objectively and honestly. The book argues that recent events have reduced the U.S. role, and changed the policy parameters in the region. A broad cross-section of Israel's foremost orientalists, historians, juridicists and political scientists have contributed a selection of articles and lexicons which embody the essential aspects of the conflict in its broadest sense. Each key element is analyzed within a number of categories: the ideological-theological plane (Judaism, Zionism, the Holocaust, Jerusalem and the three monotheistic religions); the Palestinian sphere (PLO ideology, Jordon and the Judea & Samaria Region, the PLO and the war in lebanon); the superpowers and the wider region (Iran-Iraq, the Islamic resurgence, oil, the Soviet Union and the Middle East, the United States and Israel), etc. Detailed lexicons offer concise factual breakdowns of both the Middle East (inter-Arab aspects, key Arab countries, conventional and nuclear Arab armaments) and the Arab-Israel context (chronology of the conflict, key events and personalities in Zionism, UN involvement, international legal aspects).
From the outset of his presidency, Donald Trump sought to narrow differences between Israel and the six monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-as part of his strategy to isolate Iran.With that objective in mind, Trump's first visit abroad as president was to Riyadh in May 2017-where he addressed the U.S.-Arab-Islamic Summit-immediately followed by a visit to Israel.The President's message was clear: Saudi Arabia and Israel would serve as co-pillars of the U.S. security architecture for the broader Middle East. Under that vision, Egypt, Jordan and the six Gulf monarchies-together with Israel-would isolate Iran diplomatically. The second plank of this strategy was anchored in the so-called "Maximum Pressure" campaign, which sought for all practical purposes to expedite the collapse of Iran's economy as part of an effort to strengthen Washington's standing vis-à-vis Tehran. The third plank focused on solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. These dynamics, the Trump-administration reasoned, would help set the stage for the renegotiation of the Iran agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.Trump's vision, however, faced immediate resistance-not from Iran or its regional proxies, but rather from some of Washington's very own Gulf partners when they imposed a blockade on Qatar only weeks after his Riyadh address. While the crisis between Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt over Qatar was initially understood in Washington as an inter-Arab dispute, Sigurd Neubauer examines the overlooked and widely misunderstood Israeli and Omani roles in this feud.The Gulf crisis, Neubauer goes on to argue, has shattered a widely held preconception, namely that Israel and the Gulf states are drawing closer because of their shared animosity towards Iran and its regional agenda. While the Gulf states and Israel are indeed drawing closer, it is not primarily driven by fear of Iran but rather by inter-GCC rivalry, including in Washington, where an inexperienced administration had to dedicate significant political capital to solve the Gulf crisis.
Contested Frontiers in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel Region studies one of the flash points of the Middle East since the 1960s—a tiny region of roughly 100 square kilometers where Syria, Lebanon, and Israel come together but where the borders have never been clearly marked. This was the scene of Palestinian guerrilla warfare in the 1960s and '70s and of Hezbollah confrontations with Israel from 2000 to the 2006 war. At stake are rural villagers who live in one country but identify themselves as belonging to another, the source of the Jordan River, part of scenic and historically significant Mount Hermon, the conflict-prone Shebaa Farms, and a defunct oil pipeline. Asher Kaufman uses French, British, American, and Israeli archives; Lebanese and Syrian primary sources and newspapers; interviews with borderland residents and with UN and U.S. officials; and a historic collection of maps. He analyzes the geopolitical causes of conflict and prospects for resolution, assesses implications of the impasse over economic zones in the eastern Mediterranean where Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Turkey all have claims, and reflects on the meaning of borders and frontiers today.
This anthology examines and deconstructs what Israeli security looks like and how its various security identities have evolved both before the establishment of the state and in the years and decades since 1948. It casts light on how aspects of Israel’s foreign relations have been shaped as much by internal politics as by external challenge. Further, not only does it answer the questions surrounding Israel’s past, but examines carefully what type of country it has now become. Compared to much of the turbulence in the region, Israel’s diplomacies have been remarkably resilient and inventive. With the background of 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration this book is a multidisciplinary study using several different methodological approaches; from discursive analyses, to theories of memories and identity, to interviews with Israeli soldiers in the field, to a legal approach to the topic, as well as International Relations studies and traditional archival studies. South Africa was one of Israel’s main partners in terms of security cooperation and weapons research and development until the fall of the apartheid regime. This has been compensated with Israel opening up diplomatic relations with China (1991) and India (1992) and extending its ties with Japan. While the EU often criticize Israel’s policies against the Palestinians, this is mostly rhetoric as for practical purposes Israel is like a member of the EU. This comprehensive volume studying contemporary Israel is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in Foreign and Security Policy, Israel and the Middle East.
Originally published in 2007, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006. Mearsheimer and Walt describe in clear and bold terms the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. They provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America's posture throughout the Middle East―in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict―and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. The lobby's influence also affects America's relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror. The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy led to a sea change in how the U.S-Israel relationship was discussed, and continues to be one of the most talked-about books in foreign policy.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised a plethora of unanswered questions, generated seemingly irreconcilable narratives, and profoundly transformed the land’s physical and political geography. This volume seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the links between the region that is now known as Israel and Palestine and its peoples—both those that live there as well as those who relate to it as a mental, mythical, or religious landscape. Engaging the perspectives of a multidisciplinary, international group of scholars, it is an urgent collective reflection on the bonds between people and a place, whether real or imagined, tangible as its stones or ephemeral as the hopes and longings it evokes.
