Category: Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative

Does the Resistance Axis believe its propaganda about Israel? The October 7 attack seems to suggest so.

A recurring television advertisement by Klil, an Israeli interior design company, claims that the terrorists “who tried to break, destroy, and upend” Israeli life on October 7 “do not understand the strength…of this country.” It’s a quaint message that is doubtlessly meant to bolster the nation’s morale, battered in that day’s horrendous attack. But the

The post-October 7 US strategy in the Middle East is coming into focus

What lasting effect have Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israel’s ongoing response in Gaza had on US strategy in the Middle East? The answer to this question is emerging, and recent days provided two windows into the Biden administration’s approach to the conflict and to Middle East and global security challenges more broadly. Hamas’s expected

As the Gaza war continues, Egypt is facing pressure to act     

As Israel expands its ground raids to hunt down Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Egypt—which shares its northern border with the enclave—is witnessing the ripple effects of the war and faces growing external and internal pressure to act in regard to Palestinian refugees.            Since the start of the war, which erupted in retaliation

Israel’s ground war in Gaza has started. How will it end?

JUST IN “This is our second war of independence.” On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a “second stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas has begun. Ground operations in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces have two goals, Netanyahu said: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and the return of hostages

Experts react: What did Biden achieve in his visit to Israel?

“You are not alone.” In Tel Aviv on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden shared this message of solidarity with Israel, a country at war with Hamas following harrowing attacks by the terrorist group on October 7. He had the US ally’s back in several ways: Biden pledged to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge and to

What was Hamas thinking? And what is it thinking now?

The size, scale, and brutality of Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel suggests that the group’s aim was to fundamentally change the strategic dynamic with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and probably in the larger region, as well.  Hamas may have believed Israel was weakened, distracted, and divided by its internal political turmoil over the