Briefs
Friday, April 9th, 2021
Israel’s INSS thinktank believes it’s time to more firmly oppose Assad’s Syria. Israel’s mostly hands-off approach towards this horrendous conflict on her borders may well go down in history as the main stain on Netanyahu’s record. Yet if Israel could have tipped the scales of civil war at some point to get rid of Assad, would things have been any better? We know from other interventions, eg Libya, the vacuum and chaos that would most likely have ensued. Very hard.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021
Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.
Friday, January 1st, 2021
2020, the good news, by Doron Peskin at Israel’s Calcalist
Friday, December 25th, 2020
The potential for warm relations between Israel and Morocco may be more than with the Gulf nations, this piece argues, as relations have been significant for some time.
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020
This lengthy interview with Secretary-General Sayyid Nasrallah may be useful for insight into Hezbollah’s perspectives. There are some bizarre connections, such as the notion that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 because of deep concern regarding Iran’s “liberation of Khorramshahr” in the Iran-Iraq War.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
Good old Speccie:
For Britain, there are many lessons to be learned from the IDF, a democratic military machine that relies heavily on technology to engage enemies on various fronts and in diverse contexts.
This from “Britain is right to pursue closer military ties to Israel” by Jake Wallis Simons. I had not known that the source of Israel’s tip-off regarding Syria’s North Korean nuclear reactor was a British spy.
Israel intercepts a cruise missile in a test of its 3-tier missile defence system.
Thursday, December 10th, 2020
Monday, November 30th, 2020
Sunday, November 15th, 2020
Wow, after 5 years Yehuda Halevi St. is reopening, complete with underground light rail station. Will I still love you? Even more?
Sunday, November 8th, 2020
Seeming US President-elect Joe Biden “has said openly for a long time that “he will go back to the nuclear agreement,” warns Israel’s Settlements Minister and long-time soothsayer Tzachi Hanegbi. “I see that as something that will lead to a confrontation between Israel and Iran.”
Wednesday, November 4th, 2020
“How Israel Helped Win the Cold War” by Joshua Muravchik in Commentary Magazine. Great piece, great service. How I wish every American who writes anti-Israel comments in online threads all over — remember the Liberty, stop making us fight your wars for you, etc — would read this — very slowly.
Wednesday, October 28th, 2020
“Dubai is gulping the dividends of the peace with Israel with great thirst … there is mutual inspiration without the typical, regrettable condescension on our part.” Israeli journalist Ben Caspit spends four days in Dubai. Wawaweewa, the stuff of fondest fantasy!
Wednesday, September 30th, 2020
Some nice detail here about the business players poised to first benefit from the Abraham Accords.
The first big winner is Israel’s foremost venture capitalist and investment banker, Edouard Cukierman. Cukierman, who has the largest portfolio of Israeli biotech and technology startups through his Tel Aviv-based Catalyst Investment Fund, is also Israel’s leading mid-market M&A banker through his family’s Cukierman & Co Investment House.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020
In a rather fine essay for Commentary Magazine, Hussein Aboubakr writes:
Palestine was never merely a disputed geographical territory, it was a claim to the absolute fulfillment of the Islamic political vision, an eternal moral truth, secularized in Arab nationalism and sanctified in Islamism.
He then proceeds to show us a hopeful vision for what the post-Palestine Middle East might look like senza this murderous Arab dream.
Sunday, September 20th, 2020
Obvious yes but still worth a quick read: the people likely to benefit most from Israeli-Gulf relations are Arab Israelis.
In due time, they stand to serve as excellent mediators for any further economic and tourism ties between the UAE and Israel.
Friday, September 18th, 2020
“Recognizing that the Arab and Jewish peoples are descendant of a common ancestor…” — Let us savor the text of the Treaty of Peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Blessed are the peacemakers…
Thursday, September 17th, 2020
Tuesday, September 1st, 2020
Israel and UAE sign their first agreement in the normalization talks: on banking and finance.
Monday, August 31st, 2020
UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan signs an order cancelling the boycott of Israeli goods. May they acquire a taste for Osem soup almonds and Beit Hashita pickles!
Dore Gold explains that Arab nations have long held common cause with Israel. This is part of Mosaic Magazine‘s symposium on the Israel-UAE peace accords, and contains links to the other essays.
Sunday, August 16th, 2020
“A juggernaut of creativity, innovation and high-tech:” US national security advisor Robert O’Brien provides Hugh Hewitt with inside baseball on the American angle of the magnificent Israel-UAE Abraham Accords.
Saturday, August 15th, 2020
“From left field, a world-changing moment executed by the executive branch…” The Commentary Magazine podcasters speak to the historic Israel-UAE deal.
Friday, August 14th, 2020
Like the more insightful Thomas L. Friedman of yore, full-throated congrats regarding the Israel-UAE agreement.
Friday, August 7th, 2020
Shamefully kowtowing to China, Israel has withdrawn a Ministry of Health public service video that humorously refers to the coronavirus as “Made in China (yet works properly)”. This isn’t going well is it?
Tuesday, August 4th, 2020
This is gold. For Bar-Ilan University’s BESA Center, Kenneth S. Brower pens a blunt bracing comprehensive assessment “Israel Versus Anyone: A Military Net Assessment of the Middle East” with conclusions aplenty. Here’s one:
The Israeli political-military leadership has over-responded to the current tactical threat posed by Iran and its non-state forces and has all but ignored the looming potential strategic threat of renewed hostility with Sunni Arab nations.
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020
In their respective theatres of the Middle East, Europe and Eurasia, the prime strategic directive for liberal bulwarks Israel, Britain and the United States is to block aspiring authoritarian hegemons.
ASK
Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
This fellow Guy Stagg did what I failed to do in reverse: walked from Canterbury to Jerusalem.
Saturday, June 6th, 2020
“Who is an Arab Jew?” is an essay by Albert Memmi written in 1975.
Friday, April 17th, 2020
A brief survey of Israeli exit strategies for coronavirus lockdown, including the 5/2 and the alternate week plans.
Forbes lists Israel as the #1 safest country from the Wuhan. Germany then South Korea are next. The USA and UK aren’t even in the top 40.
Monday, March 2nd, 2020
INSS responds to the Deal of the Century — they don’t like it, believing it to create more trouble than it solves. Instead they push for their own Strategic Framework for the Israeli-Palestinian Arena.
I think though they take this thing too seriously; surely it was only meant as a reframing, a shot across the bow to Palestinians that they better come to the table because the narrative they’ve constructed may not always be there.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2019
“A proper understanding of biblical and rabbinic theology might identify a solution to Israel’s constitutional vacuum“. By Michael Wyschogrod in First Things [2010]
Friday, October 18th, 2019
Dore Gold primes us on why Israel must retain the Jordan Valley. Like the Golan, it’s not only about strategic depth but also strategic height. When driving down the magnificent road along the Dead Sea from Jerusalem to Ein Bokek, I would often loftily complain that one wouldn’t know one has exited Israel proper as there are no signs, just a little roadblock upon entering Ein Bokek (and a much more significant one upon reentering Jerusalem near the city limits). Whenever there’s no sign, it’s a sign that the State has deemed this land integral yet history has not yet ripened sufficiently for declaring it so.
Tuesday, October 15th, 2019
Meir Kraus, a fellow at the research center at the Shalom Hartman Institute, sets out challenges, lessons, options and insights for a balanced and feasible option on Jerusalem as part of a wider solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Monday, October 7th, 2019
“Guidelines for Israel’s National Security Strategy” by Gadi Eisenkot and Gabi Siboni [PDF] published October 2019 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Sunday, October 6th, 2019
Erdoğan’s Turkey, once again neither winning friends nor influencing people, this time trying it on around the Eastern Med gas fields.
Saturday, September 28th, 2019
Sunday, September 22nd, 2019
With 20% of the population and a recent poll suggesting 65% are proud to be Israeli, are the country’s increasingly-franchised Arabs to be Israel’s new kingmakers?, wonders Shlomi Eldar at Al-Monitor.
At the top of [their] demands is restarting the diplomatic process with the Palestinians. We should note the delicate phrasing of the demand, which is meant to make it easier for Gantz and those Blue and White members who are more affiliated with the right to accept. It doesn’t say ‘creating a Palestinian state’ and presents no outline for an arrangement; rather, it presents a vague demand to ‘establish a diplomatic process that would lead to the realization of the vision of two states on the basis of the 67 lines.’ It’s likely that Gantz, Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon could accept the word ‘vision.’”
This movement will surely underpin the eventual full resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Monday, September 9th, 2019
Tel Aviv’s tayelet takes off. By Flora Tsapovsky in Tablet.
Sunday, September 8th, 2019
Israel should finally be a part of CentCom, Caroline Glick argues. “A future [increasingly hostile to Israel] Democratic president faced with a reality in which Israeli officials cooperate openly with their Sunni Arab counterparts under the aegis of the US Central Command, and in which Israel serves as a key partner in the development of offensive and defensive systems that are critical to the US, will not rush to abandon the US alliance with Israel.”
Thursday, August 8th, 2019
Past and immediate future: two gangbusters op-eds in The Spectator on Britain and Brexit, one by Dominic Green, Life & Arts Editor of Spectator USA, “Donald Trump is the best prime minister Britain never had”, which races through almost a century of pandering fecklessness by Britain’s mandarins; and one by Robert Peston, ITV’s Political Editor, ”Why a no-deal Brexit is now overwhelmingly likely“, reasoning that Brexiteers would be unified under a general election whereas Remainers would be unified under a second Brexit referendum, hence we will get the former.
Monday, August 5th, 2019
In Alaska, Israel’s Arrow engages its ballistic missile target.
See the “Download 2019 Report” link here at for the lengthy and infographic-packed Global Innovation Index (GII) 2019: Creating Healthy Lives-The Future of Medical Innovation wherein Israel breaks into the top 10 for the first time.
Never mind the inherent Graunadian Israel-bashing, this looks interesting: Palestine + 100, an new anthology of 12 Palestinian authors’ visions of life in the region in 2048. There’s nothing like sci-fi to reveal ideas.
Friday, July 26th, 2019
See the “Download 2019 Report” link here at for the lengthy and infographic-packed Global Innovation Index (GII) 2019: Creating Healthy Lives-The Future of Medical Innovation wherein Israel breaks into the top 10 for the first time.
Never mind the inherent Graunadian Israel-bashing, this looks interesting: Palestine + 100, an new anthology of 12 Palestinian authors’ visions of life in the region in 2048. There’s nothing like sci-fi to reveal ideas.
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019
