Shlomo Ben-Ami
Shlomo Ben Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as Vice President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace. He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
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2012-02-02
| Since the publication in 1918 of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, prophecies about the inexorable doom of what he called the “Faustian Civilization” have been a recurrent topic for thinkers and public intellectuals. But the debate's recurrence is itself proof that Spengler was wrong.... read |
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2012-01-02
| The folding of the American flag in Iraq amid a collapse of public security and a severe crisis in the country’s fragile political order seals a tragic chapter in US history. America now faces a time of reckoning, which should usher in a period of comprehensive strategic rebalancing.... read |
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2011-12-01
| The Arab Spring was never expected to be a linear process, or a Middle Eastern version of Central Europe’s non-violent democratic revolutions in 1989. Egypt, where the military's hijacking of the revolution has reignited mass protest, is a case in point.... read |
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2011-11-03
| Hamas and Hezbollah are bound to read the Gilad Shalit exchange as a sign of Israel’s weakness and as a promise of its imminent capitulation. In these circumstances, Israel's task is to boost Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, not weaken him, as it did in the Shalit deal.... read |
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2011-09-30
| Israel’s isolation during the UN debate on Palestinian statehood marks the political tsunami that Binyamin Netanyahu’s critics warned would come if Israel did not propose a bold peace initiative. But, more importantly, the debate showed that any initiative to restart direct negotiations might turn out to be futile.... read |
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2011-09-06
| Today's nuclear-disarmament efforts must focus not only on elimination of stockpiles by the major powers, but also on regional powers’ concerns. The "Global Zero" campaign must go hand in hand with a robust strategy of conflict resolution and confidence-building in trouble spots such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East.... read |
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2011-08-02
| Even before the dust has settled on the Arab Spring, the strategic structure of the Middle East has shifted. The region's "Axis of Resistance," formed by Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah, has almost entirely collapsed.... read |
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2011-07-01
| America’s reluctance to be drawn into the Libyan quagmire, and the West’s failure to intervene to stop the Syrian army from massacring civilians, now looks like a sad, and fairly accurate, guide to the future. The future is not one of Western non-interventionism, but of restraint, owing to the limits of US power.... read |
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2011-05-24
| Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu furiously rejects Barack Obama’s proposal to use the 1967 borders as the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – frontiers that he called “utterly indefensible.” But his position reflects not only poor statesmanship, but also his antiquated military philosophy.... read |
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Israel’s Egyptian Dilemma
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Shlomo Ben-Ami 
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The Arab revolt against inertia, despair, and decline has rightly inspired the admiration of civilized people everywhere – everywhere, that is, except in Israel. But such inertia was not always Israel’s way – and it is not the way forward for the country now.... read
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2009-04-28
| It was only natural that Barack Obama, whose election was one of the most revolutionary events in American history, should fill his first 100 days in office with a breathtaking, all-embracing agenda. But, as far as his foreign policy is concerned, the real test of his strategy of dialogue and cooperation will come only when it fails, and tough choices will have to be made.... read |
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2009-04-03
| The most immediate consequence of the International Criminal Court's decision last month to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was the expulsion of most aid agencies from the country's Darfur region. But the more vital issue is to build international support for a strategy to implement fully the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Sudan.... read |
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2008-09-01
| A new Cold War between the US and Russia is in nobody's interest. after all, America's global influence is dwindling, Europe is dependent on Russian energy supplies, and Russia itself continues to be burdened by the same problems that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.... read |
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2008-01-04
| The decision by Arab secular republics like Syria, Egypt, and Libya in favor of dynastic succession may be lacking in democracy, but it is not entirely devoid of merit. Arguably, it is a choice for economic modernization, for an end to the politics of conflict, and for positive political change further down the road.... read |
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2008-07-03
| Not since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks during President Bill Clinton’s last days in the White House has the Middle East seen such a frenetic pace of peace diplomacy as it is seeing today. But, aside from the Annapolis talks, which seem to be going nowhere, all the other peace tracks - with Lebanon, Syria, and possibly Iran - are more tactical than strategic. ... read |
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2008-05-02
| Sixty years ago, Zionism’s unique combination of democracy and utopianism enabled the Jews to recover their birthright and gave them a key to the future. Today, the same tools must be used to end the conflict with the Arab world, in particular with the Palestinians.... read |
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2007-02-05
| Six long years of failed Middle East policies have finally brought President George W. Bush to recognize that the alliance of moderates in the region that he covets can only be forged through an Arab-Israeli peace. Indeed, only by effectively addressing the Israeli-Arab dispute can he possibly salvage America’s standing in the region. But the round of peacemaking that America has recently embarked upon not only comes too late in the political life of a lame-duck president who has been defeated at home and abroad; it is also ill-conceived and unconvincing. ... read |
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2008-04-03
| America’s inability to inspire the peoples of the Middle East, all ruled by US-backed autocracies, is not exactly stunning news. What is news is that American power might also be losing its ability to intimidate them.... read |
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2008-06-03
| An Israeli-Syrian peace deal is strategically vital for both sides, and both sides know it. But US support will be essential, and that will depend on America’s readiness to move away from military solutions and rigid ideological imperatives and instead embrace the pragmatic culture of conflict resolution. ... read |
2011-11-03
