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Eyal Zisser

Eyal Zisser is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University.

Political experience and shrewdness are acquired ‎with agony, and the crown prince has proven reckless ‎more than once.‎
We must realize that unlike Israel’s relationship with the United States, which is strongly supported by American public opinion, in Russia everything starts and ends in the Kremlin.
Arab ‎leaders have no real intention of going over the head of ‎Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas ‎and accepting a deal on the Palestinians’ behalf.
Few of Israel’s wars have culminated in such resounding, convincing triumph—not to mention the vast strategic consequences for the country’s future.
The Europeans want to find a mechanism that would repatriate the Syrian refugees from Europe; the Americans want to ensure that Iranian forces leave the country. But neither goals are likely to be met.
A quarter of a century after the signing of the Oslo Accords, it seems it would be fitting for Israel to look for out-of-the-box solutions and find a way to escape the uncomfortable reality it has since found itself in.
Hezbollah has made sure to avoid any ‎provocation along the border. The memory of the blow ‎Israel dealt it is still fresh, as is the memory of ‎the humiliation suffered by its leader, Hassan ‎Nasrallah. ‎
More importantly, his initiatives have, for the first time, frightened the Iranians into thinking that he could go further than any previous president and work to overthrow the ayatollah regime.
Hamas has failed in its attempts to break the physical and diplomatic blockades imposed by Israel and Egypt along with other Arab countries.
The round of violence on the Israel-Gaza ‎border this weekend was the broadest since ‎“Operation Protective Edge” ended four years ago. ‎
It appears that no one wants or seems to be able to remove the ‎Iranians—neither from the border with Israel nor ‎from Syria proper.
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s victory is hollow and deficient for two reasons: Syria has been almost completely destroyed, and Assad owes his victory to the Russians and Iranians, who actually call the shots now.