Upcoming Event
December
19
2023
Crisis & Conflict Management
Global actors in the war in Israel and Gaza
Latest research and commentary
Turkey
The sultan’s ghost: Erdoğan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Crisis & Conflict Management
On Hezbollah, Lebanon, and the risk of escalation
Past Event
November
30
2023
Democracy, Conflict, & Governance
Israel and Gaza: Where do we go from here?
Engagement with the media
Natan Sachs, Director – Center for Middle East Policy
- New York Times “It’s hard to see how anyone other than Israel can do that counterinsurgency work. As unappealing as the return of a partial Israeli presence is, chaos is worse, but ideally with as light and short an Israeli presence as possible.”
- Vox “Depending on how the fighting goes, some in the coalition may decide to turn openly on Netanyahu. I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s not impossible.”
- USA Today “The danger is very real, and Hezbollah is far stronger than Hamas. So, the possibility of the war becoming far greater and much more damaging not only to Israel but also to Lebanon is acute.“
Suzanne Maloney, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy
- POLITICO “Even without an expanded war, Iran is unlikely to restrain its proxies from continuing to attack U.S. interests. And we are one catastrophic miscalculation away from a much larger and more dangerous conflict in the Middle East, with deepening American involvement, at a time when we are struggling even just to sustain our support to Ukraine.”
- Washington Post “There’s something happening in terms of the reaction to this crisis that is unlike anything I can remember in recent years, maybe even dating back to the Gulf War and other episodes of U.S. policy in the Middle East.”
Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy
- New Yorker: “When people in the Arab world hear ‘destroy Hamas,’ they think, ‘destroy Gaza.’ In the Middle East and across the Global South, Joe Biden has become the same as the George W. Bush of the Iraq War. And, right now, there is no way around it.”
- GZERO World “We know what happens when people suffer so dramatically every day of their lives. And we saw what happened in Israel just after the horrific attack, how people’s hearts hardened so much that many in Israel are calling for leveling Gaza. And look at the results now, with thousands of Palestinian civilians being killed and wounded and up to 300,000 as of today have been rendered homeless.”
Michael O’Hanlon, Director – Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
- CNBC “I don’t think the military plans previously existed for what Israel is now going to attempt, and therefore I think there will be an element of improvisation along the way.”
- Wall Street Journal “So, to me, in short, it’s on Ukraine and the debate over a political endgame for Gaza where I worry we could pay a price for our dysfunction.”
- Washington Post “The key would be to move equipment into position over a period of weeks beforehand, and then put it into buildings or under tarps.” (About Hamas’s breach of Israel’s “Iron Wall”)
Featured Experts
Natan Sachs
Director
- Center for Middle East Policy,
Senior Fellow
- Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@natansachs
Shibley Telhami
Nonresident Senior Fellow
- Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@ShibleyTelhami
Jeffrey Feltman
John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy
- Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
