The war with Hamas may be a dress rehearsal for war with Hezbollah
Prof Itamar Rabinovich, who served as Israel’s envoy to the US and its chief negotiator with Syria, offers expert insight into the possible continuation of proxy war with Iran.
Jewish News, May 26, 2021
During the height of the Syrian civil war, Israel kept a low profile. Its policy was shaped by a fundamental decision not to be drawn into the war and to limit its responses and actions to direct challenges to Israel, to the interdiction of the transfer of advanced weapons from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to curtailing Hezbollah’s efforts to install itself in southern Syria and build one long front from the Mediterranean to the Syrian Golan.
We Have No Role But to Bear Witness
Tel Aviv Notes, Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, June 30, 2020
Bashar al-Asad has survived the Syrian civil war, but he is unable to consolidate his rule and apply it to the whole of Syria. Prominent among the challenges to his regime is the recent “Caesar Act” (Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act), the sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Asad and his supporters. The effort to protect Syria’s civilian population from the regime’s atrocities is important and laudable. But in the long term if Syria is to be put back together again as a state, a restoration of its civil society will be necessary. In this context, it is important to examine the role of culture and specifically literature in the unfolding Syrian crisis.
Benjamin Netanyahu Failed in His Quest to Win the Elections
Published in: Valdai Discussion Club, 19 September 2019
A nearly complete count of the votes in this crucial Israeli election points to the following outcome: Benjamin Netanyahu has failed in his quest to win the elections and form the next government.
Israel-Palestine From Both Sides of the Mirror
Itamar Rabinovich, Yitzhak Rabin’s ambassador to Washington and author of a biography of him :
New York Times, June 16, 2017
“The Cursed Blessing” was the perceptive title that the Israeli historian Shabtai Teveth gave to his book about the impact of the Six-Day War on Israel. A blessing it was; it released Israel from a dangerous crisis, consolidated its standing vis-à-vis the Arab world, turned it into a regional power and transformed its relationship with the United States. Most important, it provided Israel with the bargaining chips for peacemaking with its Arab enemies.
The Enemy of My Enemy
Published in The Jewish Review of Books, Summer 2015
Of Syria’s five neighbors, Israel has been the least involved in the turmoil that is devouring the country and the least affected by it. Turkey and Jordan have supported different factions of the Syrian opposition. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite party militia, terrorist organization, and Iranian proxy, has conducted much of the fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. ISIS, the jihadi organization, has assumed control of large swaths of land in western Iraq and eastern Syria. But Israel has engaged only in limited skirmishes along the ceasefire line in the Golan and a few pinprick attacks on weapon systems about to be delivered to Hezbollah. While Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon have taken in millions of Syrian refugees, Israel has opened its borders to supply largely unpublicized humanitarian aid to people who remain enemy civilians.