Shlomo Ben-Ami
Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace, is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
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2010-01-27
| Barack Obama’s first year in office has been a sobering exercise in the limits of presidential power. It also carries lessons about how the resilient and impersonal forces of history can constrain any leader’s drive for change. ... read |
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2010-01-05
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Israel's accession to NATO has frequently been proposed as a way to encourage it to make the necessary concessions for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, and some Israeli leaders, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, believe that NATO accession would deter Iran. But, despite important steps toward closer cooperation, full Israeli membership can be ruled out for the foreseeable future.... read |
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2009-12-01
| The obstinate battle cry of the Bush administration in Iraq has now won out in Barack Obama’s plan to "stay the course" in Afghanistan. But none of Afghanistan's regional neighbors, whose vital strategic interests are no less affected than the US by what happens there, is considering a military solution, opting instead for economic engagement and diplomatic alternatives.... read |
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2009-11-03
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The Goldstone Report, accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, and the report’s subsequent endorsement by the UN Human Rights Council, exposes serious flaws in the system of international law. Even so, Israel's leaders must now take more resolute steps toward peace if their argument aimed at derailing the report – that it “hinders the peace process” – is to have any credibility.... read |
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2009-10-05
| The restitution of lands occupied in 1967 will obviously continue to be indispensable to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is the legacy of the 1948 war that both parties to the conflict have now put at the center of the debate. Only an acceptable deal on the Palestinian refugees can definitely close the 1948 file – and only then can the conflict in Palestine end.... read |
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2009-09-03
| No matter how important rising oil powers outside the Middle East are becoming, and regardless of Western efforts to reduce consumption, the region will continue to be the main global source of energy for years to come. As a result, energy security will remain highly dependent on Middle Eastern politics, and on the market control exercised by the region’s oil producers.... read |
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2009-08-03
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Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity has remained practically unchallenged for almost 50 years, not least within Israel itself. But, by reversing that policy, Israel might be able to affirm its capacity for nuclear deterrence more convincingly, and, more importantly, underscore the urgency of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.... read |
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2009-07-03
| In contrast to George W. Bush's democratic boosterism, Barack Obama’s is guided by a relativist political realism that emphasizes order and stability over liberty and human rights. Paradoxically, Obama's stance, when applied to Africa, may offer a far better chance of laying the basis for democratic reforms.... read |
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2009-06-03
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Every American president since Harry Truman, the first world leader to recognize Israel in 1948, has embodied in varying degrees either an emotional or a coldly realist commitment to the US-Israeli relationship. The suspicion among many Israelis today is that Barack Obama embodies neither. ... read |
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Obama’s Hardest Choices Lie Ahead
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Shlomo Ben-Ami 
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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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2008-09-01
| 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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2008-05-02
| 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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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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2008-04-03
| 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 |
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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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2007-03-05
| In recent days, Italy’s government fell after losing a parliamentary vote on the country’s troop deployment in Afghanistan, while Britain and Denmark announced that they are to begin withdrawing their troops from Iraq. Whereas the Bush administration is deploying an additional 21,000 American soldiers in Iraq, and is pushing for more allied troops in Afghanistan, America’s allies are rejecting its Middle East policy. They are increasingly convinced that “victory” will be elusive in any asymmetric conflict between states, however powerful, and religiously driven armed insurgents.... 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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2008-03-04
| Israel must change its strategic objective in Gaza from toppling Hamas to rescuing the Annapolis process, and with it the last chance for a two-state solution. This requires not only a cease-fire with Hamas, but also a return to a Palestinian national unity government that alone can offer the peace process the vital legitimacy that it lacks today.... read |
