Letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Mr. Prime Minister, The state of Israel and its citizens have been fortunate to have you at the helm for the past nine years. One can readily envisage the nightmare scenarios had your ideological and political opponents been leading the country. Your steadfast opposition to the "peace plan" that President Barack Obama tried to dictate has been particularly significant. And yet, there is a lingering concern about your demographic vision of the spatial arrangement of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Not least because your government’s long-term construction plans envisage the concentration of most of Israel’s population in the crowded coastal strip and the Dan metropolitan area (Gush Dan).

Have Putin and Netanyahu Struck a Grand Bargain?

On July 8, Israel allegedly conducted an airstrike in Syrian territory that struck once again at the T4 base near Homs. Interestingly, Israel did not conduct any airstrikes to stop the concurrent advance of Syrian and Hezbollah forces southward. This might suggest that a grand bargain has been offered by Russia to Israel – one in which Moscow assures Jerusalem of an Iranian withdrawal in return for Israel’s acceptance of the consolidation of the Syrian state. This might explain Israel’s passivity, but it is by no means certain that Moscow will prevail on Tehran to withdraw from Syria.

Netanyahu’s China Visit

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu visited Beijing on March 20-21, 2017 – his second visit to China during the term of China’s current president, Xi Jinping. The trip was the product of an invitation from Xi, a point emphasized by Netanyahu’s office to deflect criticism over the frequency of his foreign junkets. The official reason for the visit was the marking of the twenty-fifth anniversary of diplomatic relations between the countries, but it could represent an opportunity for Israel to play a more prominent role on the international scene.