Current Analysis Bypassing Bethlehem’s Eastern Reaches The town of Bayt Sahour spills down the hills to the east of Bethlehem, spreading out along ridges and valleys that mark the beginning of the long descent to the Dead Sea. Up the slopes the roads carve out twisting rivers of dirt and asphalt, wending their way through clusters of soft brown stone ho Nate Wright • 13 min read
Current Analysis Livni in Principle and in Practice On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, the sitting Israeli prime minister spoke more plainly than ever before in public about what will be required of Israel in a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians and Syria. In a September 29 interview with the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Ehud Olme Peretz Kidron • 10 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon’s Brush with Civil War When Israel commenced its bombardment of Lebanon on July 12, 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his general staff declared that the air raids were provoked by Hizballah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that day. As the destruction piled up over the ensuing 33 days, then, Lebanese did not ask t Jim Quilty • 23 min read
Current Analysis Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism In mid-January, when Israel further tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip, it hurriedly assured the world that a “humanitarian crisis” would not be allowed to occur. Case in point: Days after the intensified siege prompted Hamas to breach the Gaza-Egypt border and Palestinians to pour into Egypt Darryl Li • 13 min read
MER Article Soccer Fandom and Citizenship in Israel Since 2003, when Ittihad Abna’ Sakhnin (in Hebrew, Ihud Bnei Sakhnin, or Sons of Sakhnin United) climbed up to the Israeli premier soccer league, its showdowns with Beitar Jerusalem, a team historically identified with the Israeli right, have been the biggest media attraction, and the biggest headache for the police, Tamir Sorek • 13 min read
Current Analysis Israel's Military Court System Is the Model to Avoid Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the “war on terror,” emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees? That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated Lisa Hajjar • 3 min read
Current Analysis Illusions of Unilateralism Dispelled in Israel In 1967 Israel’s government was headed by Levi Eshkol, a politician said to be easygoing, weak and indecisive, who four years earlier had replaced the country’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, as prime minister. The Israeli public, tired of Ben-Gurion’s authoritarianism and constant exhortations to great Yoav Peled • 11 min read
MER Article A Different Kind of Memory “Who is trying to change the names of Haifa streets to the street names in the period prior to the War of Independence?” This question led an article in the December 15, 2004 edition of the Israeli daily Ma’ariv. Someone -- “people from outside,” said the mayor -- had placed signs in Arabic that lab Meera Shah • 12 min read
Current Analysis The Rome Fiasco Two weeks into the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, the United States stands with only two other countries—Israel and Britain—in opposing an immediate ceasefire. Even Iraqi Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki, in Washington for reassurances that the Bush administration will “stay the course” in its Mesopo Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Golan Waits for the Green Light Since their government has not, Shoshi Anbal and a posse of her fellow Tel Aviv housewives are preparing to engage in diplomacy with Syria. On May 18, they assembled along the Israeli-Syrian frontier to applaud what at the time was Syrian President Bashar al-Asad’s latest iteration of his call for n Nicolas Pelham • 19 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon's Pain Won't be Israel's Gain BEIRUT, Lebanon—My family and I are due to be evacuated from the American University of Beirut, where I have been teaching for the past three years. We will leave Beirut with only a knapsack each as we relocate to Columbia, where I will be assuming my new position at the University of South Carolina Stephen Sheehi • 2 min read
MER Article "The Israel Lobby" in Perspective John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s 82-page paper “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” has entered the canon of contemporary political culture in the United States. So much, positive and negative, has been written about the March 2006 essay that the phrase “the Mearsheimer-Walt argument” is now Chris Toensing, Mitchell Plitnick • 19 min read
