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This article examines the history and outcomes of Hamas' involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By using published sources and conducting interviews with five incumbent Hamas officials living abroad, the article evaluates the group's achievements and failures since the onset of its active role in the military struggle against Israel and in Palestinian politics against the other main actor, Fatah. It concludes that Hamas, while achieving some success in its military struggle against Israel, has not delivered the expectations of the Palestinian people, partly because it was squeezed into to the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Authority, and partly because international actors have blocked aid from entering the Hamas-controlled areas. Hamas is expected to continue fighting, but may partially withdraw from politics, as the people of Gaza are not happy with its governance due to higher unemployment, as well as the Israeli blockade and attacks. Keywords: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Hamas, Fatah, Gaza Strip, Introduction As a state-like and armed non-state actor, Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, Islamic Resistance Movement) has a complex identity. Since its foundation in 1987, the organization has been a dominant [...]

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement that Israel's settlements are not contrary to international law caused international outrage as it marked a dramatic departure from previous U.S. statements on the legality of Israel's West Bank settlements. This paper argues that the announcement was connected to developments at the International Criminal Court (ICC) where the Prosecutor, a month later, announced that there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Palestine by Israel and Hamas. Keywords: Israeli-Palestinain Conflict, Settlements, West Bank, United States, International Criminal Court, Introduction On November 18, 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that 'The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international [...]

Several factors contribute to or inhibit the 'contagiousness' of regional conflict and irregular warfare, whether conducted at the interstate, extrastate, or intrastate level Five broad drivers of the diffusion of [...]

Arab/Islamic antisemitism studies are sensitive and controversial issues in the twenty-first century, particularly in the Muslim world. Researchers in the field view antisemitism as direct result of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel's acts against the Palestinians to portraying it as common construct of Islamic thought. Insights on the contradicting interpretations are also given.

I had to go back and re-read my article to make sure that I had not, in fact, written the article that Joshua Muravchik attacks in his 'response.' I did [...]

In the March/April issue of World Affairs, James Traub tackled head-on the substance of the Goldstone Report--the conclusions of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, chaired by [...]

And the borders of the Canaanites went ... until Gaza. --Genesis 10:19 GAZA HAS historically been on the border of the Middle East conflict, a Palestinian hinterland and a footnote [...]

Introduction Tom Farer By concluding that, in its assault on Gaza under the rubric of self-defense, Israel had targeted the civilian infrastructure and consciously "punished" the civilian population and demonstrated [...]

This article examines the content of and justification for a new 'ethical code' designed for the Israeli army to take into account the 'fight against terror 'It argues that the code contains two innovations: it includes acts aimed exclusively at military targets in its definition of 'terrorism,' and it contains a principle of distinction that prioritizes the lives of citizen combatants over those of noncitizen noncombatants, contrary to centuries of theorizing about the morality of war as well as international humanitarian law. The article suggests that the principle of distinction played a direct role in Israel's offensive in Gaza in winter 2008-2009, as demonstrated by a preponderance of testimony indicating that Israeli military commanders explicitly instructed soldiers to give priority to their own lives over those of Palestinian noncombatants. DOI: jps.2010.XXXIX.3.6.

TEL AVIV -- Recently, I screened my documentary, A Bomb in the Basement, to investigative journalism students at Israel's Open University. It was released in 2001 and has aired on [...]

The summit peace conference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority mediated by the United States at Camp David, Maryland (11-25 July 2000) was widely reported and analyzed. Yet accounts of [...]

Since the U.S. military's 2007 adoption of a new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, popularly known as 'the surge,' the most conspicuous development on the Iraqi political landscape has been a [...]

'Only when not a single breach is visible in the iron wall, only then do extreme groups lose their sway, and influence transfers to moderate groups. Only then would these [...]