"One of the most interesting things about Yitzhak Rabin is that he evolves as a person. He evolves as someone who sees what Israel needs. And one of the things that always characterized him was his complete commitment and devotion to the IDF. He built it, the Israeli Defense Forces. He built it as an institution. He kind of took an oath to himself after the war of independence in 1948 that he would never again let the army be as [...]

"Iran has resumed enriching uranium to 20 percent in its secretive Fordow facility, which is literally built inside a mountain. Enrichment to this level puts Iran in a position where getting to weapons grade fissile material is not a big leap. It is certainly the most problematic of all the Iranian breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal. "Why is this happening now? Iran has clearly decided to build pressure on the incoming Biden administration, [...]

"Biden spokesman Ned Price declined to comment on the resolutions. But Dennis Ross, a former U.S. Mideast peace negotiator now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the incoming president would likely be in favor of the deal going through..." Read the full article here: Full Article

"Asked if former Obama officials should be critiquing moves made during the transition given the Obama administration’s 2016 decision not to veto a resolution at the U.N. criticizing Israel during the transition period, former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross told JI: 'No one gets an absolute pass to do whatever they want during the transition. So criticism is fair — just as criticism of the Obama administration’s abstention on the UNSC resolution was warranted...'" Read the full article here: Full Article

"Re-entering the Iran nuclear deal would 'obviously hurt' the Israeli leader [Benjamin Netanyahu] politically, Mr. Ross said, suggesting that a slow and carefully sequenced approach could help soften the blow..." Read the full article here: Full Article

"I don’t think that [Biden] feels this is a period where the prospect of a big new breakthrough between Israelis and Palestinians is very high. That doesn’t mean that he won’t favor diplomacy, because I think he feels that when there’s no diplomacy, you leave a vacuum. We had no direct political talks between the Israelis and Palestinians since the spring of 2014. The instinct is not going to be to launch some big new initiative which is certain to fail [...]

"It is hard to believe that it is the 25th anniversary of the loss of Yitzhak Rabin. "He was the embodiment of modern Israel. He was the first Israeli leader who was native-born. He fought its wars and built the Israeli military from the time he was a young commander in the Palmach, defending Jerusalem in 1948, to being chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces in the 1967 war. But Rabin led his country not just in war, but [...]

"Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues for Democratic and Republican administrations, said that headway on Israeli-Palestinian issues could facilitate normalization and vice versa. "'Many Arab states won’t make one big move to normalize with Israel but will proceed in stages,' Mr. Ross said. 'When they do, they are likely to ask Israel to take a step toward the Palestinians at the same time. In that way, normalization can be a bridge to get to Israeli-Palestinian [...]

"Shortly before we presented the Clinton parameters on peace to the Israelis and Palestinians in December 2000, I briefed Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to America. Once presented, I wanted Saudi Arabia to urge then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to accept our bridging proposal to end the conflict. Bandar’s response is etched in my memory: 'If Arafat rejects this, it won’t be a mistake, it will be a crime...'" Read the full article here: Full Article