Issue 32: Taking Pause
It was a fairly quiet week in Israel, so this is a good opportunity to reflect
The last few weeks in Israel have been a blur. The intense security challenges that arose during the final days of Ramadan have subsided, but the questions about how to effectively prevent another escalation - in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, or within mixed communities in Israel - remain unanswered. And it appears that Israel will undergo a leadership change next week, with a new government composed of parties across the political spectrum.
For people working in policy institutes and think tanks like myself, this has provided some important opportunities to engage audiences - both inside and outside of Israel - in conversation about what is taking place here and what kind of future this country needs. I don’t take it for granted that policy institutes around the region are interested in what is happening here, and I am even more appreciative of the people who don’t eat, drink, and sleep geopolitics that genuinely care and want to learn more.
But it also means that I’ve been burning the candle from both ends, so this is a good opportunity to recharge my batteries. The coming days and weeks will likely be filled with new political narratives and the welcoming of a different set of faces, some more familiar and some less, and I look forward to continuing to share my insights.
I’d like to share three pieces that I think are worth reading over the weekend:
Over the course of the last eight months, Israel and Lebanon have been engaged in mediated negotiations over their disputed maritime boundary. This is a potentially big deal, as Lebanon does not formally recognize Israel, and while an agreement isn’t going to resolve all of their issues it could provide a template for conflict resolution in the Eastern Mediterranean. Ambassador Michael Harari (retired) and I wrote a piece in Newlines Magazine on the current state of negotiations that I warmly recommend.
Last week, I offered a wide selection of pieces on the two men at the center of the incoming Change Government: Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. Ha’aretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer wrote a fantastic profile on Bennett that I think is complementary to many of the readings I shared last week.
One of the conditions that the Ra’am party and Mansour Abbas demanded in order to join the coalition was that more resources be allocated to the country’s Bedouin communities, and that the government recognize a number of communities that have existed in legal limbo for decades. Adam Rasgon’s piece in The New York Times touches on how a potential policy shift could impact this often neglected corner of Israeli society.
I hope you found this week’s content interesting. Support my work and buy me a coffee!
-Gabi