LONDON: Ten years after the US began its mediation efforts, Lebanon and Israel have finally reached an agreement delineating their maritime border in what pundits are describing as a “historic” moment. However, some observers are taking a more cautious view. “It’s at least 10 years overdue,” said Ambassador Frederic Hof, a former director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri
In a new USIP book, Ambassador Frederic Hof tells the story of a secret U.S. effort to broker peace between Israel and Syria between 2009-2011. Just as that effort seemed to be making important progress, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime began to violently suppress Syrian protesters, scuttling the chance for peace. Hof discusses what the foundation of Israel-Syria peace would have looked like, the pre-2011 perceptions of Assad as a "reformer," President Biden's trip to the Middle East and how the international community should deal with the Syrian dictator today.
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel s diplomatic reporter
Signs shows the distances of Beirut and Jerusalem, that set at a road that links to a UNIFIL base where the Lebanese and Israeli delegations meet, in Naqoura, Lebanon, Tuesday, May 4, 2021. (AP/Hussein Malla)
Looking out from the limestone cliffs of Rosh Hanikra, the tiny “island” of Tekheilet is barely visible, a rocky outcropping just barely kissing the waveline a kilometer from Israel’s shoreline at the country’s northern frontier.
In November 2020, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, his chief of staff Mor Halutz and ministry director-general Udi Adiri donned bright orange lifejackets and clambered onto the islet for a spot of tea and a show of Israel’s claim not only to the island but to the expanse of sea stretching far beyond.