Zalman Shoval

The rule for Israeli diplomacy, established by the late Moshe Dayan, still holds: risk a confrontation, if at all, only on absolutely essential issues.

As in the past, Israel will call on the support of its friends on both aisles of Congress, in the media, and among Jewish organizations – to come to an understanding with its all-important ally.

There is a fundamental difference between normalization leading to possible Palestinian statehood in the future, and preconditioning normalization on a Palestinian state now.

It must be clear that though this may be the beginning of the end there is still a long way to go before all or most of Israel's goals will be attained.

There is agreement that Hamas must be eliminated before we can move forward, but what happens with Gaza after the war?

Israel’s strategic goal in the war against Hamas in Gaza, in addition to its aims on the battlefield, must thus be overturning the Iran-Hamas design – a goal to be shared by the United States.

While Syrian opposition and human rights groups protested the immoral nature of rehabilitating Assad’s bloody regime, realpolitik, cynical or not, prevailed

Saudi Arabia is neither ready nor able to give up the American defensive shield, and it believes that Israel, as America’s ally, has a role in securing this.

The US Biden administration has expressed its wish to maintain cooperation with Israel on many issues. Iran tops that list.

The government will have to deal not only with correcting past defects but mainly with pressing political-security related issues and economic-social matters.