Opinions

Louis René Beres

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi (Photo: AP)

Arab Proliferation, Regional Power Balancing and Nuclear War in the Middle East

Israel still faces a potentially nuclear adversary in Iran. At the same time, certain normally adversarial Arab states, most plausibly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, could seek to balance this growing Shi’ite threat with a Sunni nuclear capacity. In such bewildering circumstances, Jerusalem would be faced with unprecedented but unavoidable decisions on "friend or foe." Opinion

Louis René Beres | 24/03/2019 Contact author

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UN General Assembly (Photo: AP)

A Threat beyond Terrorism: The Strategic Hazard of a Palestinian State

In making its cumulative judgments about Palestinian statehood, Israel’s leaders must be sure to look beyond the “ordinary” terror threat to more far-reaching strategic hazards. These significantly greater perils would be many-sided and intersecting, and should compel Jerusalem to fashion an increasingly seamless web of deterrence from Israel’s combined conventional and nuclear assets. Opinion  

Louis René Beres | 22/02/2019 Contact author

The Doomsday Clock unveiled during The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists news conference (Photo: AP)

Donald Trump and the “Doomsday Clock”

The distinguished Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently set its “Doomsday Clock” at “Two minutes before midnight.” This largely symbolic but meaningful chronology pertains both to the US directly and to the wider world system in general. For Israel, a presumptively nuclear state, the survival implications are profound, warranting even more disciplined and substantial study. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 15/02/2019 Contact author

From the first Trump-Kim summit if June 2018 (Photo: AP)

Toward a Second North Korean Summit: Adjusting US Expectations

As President Trump prepares for his second summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, he will need to stay focused on reasonable goals and cautionary strategies. Most plainly, he should orient the American position toward long-term mutual deterrence with North Korea, and not to any illusionary plans for "denuclearization." Opinion

Louis René Beres | 31/01/2019 Contact author

Pro-ISIS demonstrators in Mosul (Archive photo: AP)

The US "Defeat" of ISIS: An Improbable Victory

President Donald Trump's announced "defeat" of ISIS was premature. Even more worrisome, it ignored that the key threat to America and its key allies (especially Israel) is not this particular terrorist group, but rather a still expanding and always underlying jihadist ideology. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 27/11/2018 Contact author

US President Donald Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, March 2018 (Photo: AP)

Justifying Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi Murder: An Egregious Violation of International Law

Whatever happens with US foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia will likely have security reverberations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Accordingly, Israeli planners will need to assess the probable impact of President Trump’s recent apologies for Riyadh's behavior regarding the Khashoggi murder in Istanbul. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 25/11/2018 Contact author

Trump and Netanyahu (Photo: AP)

Donald Trump, National Security and Nuclear War

More than anything else, the current American president’s capacity to handle nuclear crises (both expected and unexpected) will impact US national security. Derivatively, this capacity could also affect the security of certain major American allies, including Israel. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 2/10/2018 Contact author

A Hamas militant in Gaza City (Photo: AP)

Terrorism and Psychopathology: Understanding the Vital Differences

The line of demarcation between authentic terrorism and mental illness is irremediably unclear. Nonetheless, going forward, decision-makers in both Jerusalem and Washington will need to more diligently correlate principal counterterrorist policies with pertinent causal factors. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 24/09/2018 Contact author

Hamas militants dressed as suicide bombers (Photo: AP)

Palestinian “Sacredness” and the Law of Armed Conflict

Under pertinent international law, permissible behavior can never stem from overtly wrongful behavior. It follows, inter alia, that insistent Palestinian pleas for “martyrdom” must necessarily represent calls for illegal expressions of force against Israel. Always, in these matters, what is sacred to the Palestinian side is also grievously unlawful. Opinion

Louis René Beres | 9/09/2018 Contact author