and the author of The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality (2020). served twelve years in the IDF, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel (res.). His most recent posting was as commanding of fi cer of the IDF Liaison Unit to UN Forces in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

The Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020 have helped shed a light on a new discourse emerging from the Gulf that seeks to challenge some of the old dogmas that have dominated the region in the last few decades. A decade of turmoil that followed what was once dubbed as the "Arab Spring" finds a divided region, full of ethnic and religious conflict, ungoverned territories, and the growing reality of failed states. An "axis of resistance", led by radical elements from both the Shi'a and the Sunni world, is perceived as a growing challenge to a group of actors led by a number of Gulf countries who identify radicalization as an existential threat. Facing the "axis of resistance", a new "axis of renaissance" is coming of age with an alternative vision that seeks to change the face of the Middle East. In parallel to the rapid decline of the traditional Arab capitals, the Gulf is emerging as a more significant voice in the region due to its economic, political, and media influence. This article seeks to capture and explain the rise of this new Gulf-led axis and the early formulation of a new agenda of a more tolerant Middle East through a radical reshuffling of the order of priorities in the region.

The Abraham Accords have offered a new and different model for regional relations and already shaped a different reality in the region by offering a dynamic of cooperation in just about all fields: business, security, diplomacy, tourism, and People-to-People (P2P) relations. However, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to bridge building between people and cultures following decades of animosity and some of the initial effort to build these bridges had actually backfired. This article seeks to analyze the challenges and opportunities of P2P relations under the framework of the Abraham Accords and to point toward a more constructive path that will enable them to develop and flourish.

Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare, edited by Ofer Freidman (Kings College, London), Vitaly Kabernik (Moscow State Institute for International Relations), and James C. Pearce (Angila Ruskin U...

ABSTRACT The Syrian civil war – which has largely ended following bloody 8 years – serves as a prime case study of mechanisms which challenge border realities, as well as geography and demography, through engagement of manifold internal and external actors. This article discusses these processes and their implications by focusing on the Syro-Israeli borderland. It analyses the main actors and their motives, geography of interactions, as well as implications for humanitarian situation and security considerations. It is argued that while the dynamics in the Syro-Israeli borderland have several unique characteristics, they also point to a broader process of re-drawing borderlands and lines of influence in the Middle East region.

The advent of the internet was groundbreaking, allowing half the planet—from students to scientists—access to an unparalleled amount of information and resources acquired throughout the history of ...

The ongoing Syrian war has given rise to a litany of tragic stories as well as to the voluminous writings of analysts, journalists, and scholars who have set out to document the conflict. Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami wrote Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, in which they offer a look at what they call “a modern-day political and humanitarian nightmare.” The recent Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War, by Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple, tells the story of three friends who experienced the beginnings of the so-called “Syrian Spring” together and later found themselves on different sides of the revolution. Nikolaos van Dam, former special envoy of the Netherlands to Syria, titled his memoir Destroying a Nation: The Civil War in Syria. Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, and Kim Senupta chose a similarly evocative title for their book, Syria: Descent into the Abyss 2011–2014. Still other works convey the horror of the carnage in Syria.

The war in Syria, which to date has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced almost half the country's population, seems to be nearing an end. The Syrian tragedy, which drew in additional...

Four years into the Arab Spring, we have indeed seen the sun shining on the rain, the rain falling on the sun, and much movement beneath the soil and sands of the Middle East. With Islamist powers on the rise, a bleeding Syria, a crumbling Iraq, and a growing Islamic State, it might be considered brazen for someone to write yet another book on the Arab Spring. However, Govrin’s work is important and useful exactly because of this complicated context and “things working under the earth.” The Arab Spring, Govrin argues, certainly did not occur in a vacuum. Although it was triggered by a certain sequence of events, he maintains that it was very much influenced by some two decades of liberal discourse. That discussion, enhanced and propagated by the developments of new means of media and technology, is one of the factors that led to the events that brought down so many Arab regimes and destabilized others.

Forgotten, abandoned and stripped of rights and citizenship were the Syrian Kurds. They were left far from their more established brethren in Iraq and impoverished by a repressive Syria and by Turk...

(2011). About the Virtual and Real: Old Media, New Media and the Making of a “Freedom Revolution” in the Middle East. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 59-71.

(2009). The Other Gaza War: Hamas' Media Strategy during Operation Cast Lead and Beyond. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 37-43.