Watch Webinar – Israel at War Update 12/12
The rapid implosion of Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long rule in Syria is the latest shake-up in a quickly changing Middle East. Though Iran’s loss of a prime asset in al-Assad marks a blow to the regime’s regional designs, Iran is simultaneously accelerating its malign activities on other fronts, including ramping up its nuclear program to unprecedented levels and launching a satellite launch vehicle with a large payload into outer space, suggesting considerable Iranian missile advances.
Meanwhile, the Houthis conducted a successful drone strike on Israel in recent days, with Israeli officials reportedly considering a large-scale retaliation against the Iran-backed terror group. Additionally, reports suggest that negotiations to free hostages from Hamas captivity have made critical progress, while the tragic accidental deaths of four IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon this week underscore the high costs Israel continues to pay to secure its northern front.
JINSA hosted a webinar assessing the unfolding events in Israel and the wider region with JINSA Distinguished Fellow IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror and Alan Makovsky, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Member of JINSA’s Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project.
JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal moderated this discussion.
|
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror is a Distinguished Fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy. MG Amidror was formerly the National Security Advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the head of Israel’s National Security Council from 2011-13. MG Amidror served as Commander of IDF Military Colleges, Military Secretary for the Minister of Defense, Director of the Intelligence Analysis Division, and as Intelligence Officer for the Northern Command. |
|
Alan Makovsky Alan Makovsky is a senior fellow for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. From 2001 to 2013, he served as a senior professional staff member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and other related issues. At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—a private think tank where he worked from 1994 to 2001—Makovsky wrote widely on various Middle Eastern and Turkish topics. He also founded and directed the Washington Institute’s Turkey Research Program. At the State Department where he worked from 1983 to 1994—Makovsky variously covered southern European affairs and Middle Eastern affairs for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He also served as the political advisor to Operation Provide Comfort in 1992 and as the special advisor to the special Middle East coordinator from 1993 to 1994. |
|
Blaise Misztal Blaise Misztal is the Vice President for Policy at JINSA. His research interests include Iran and its nuclear program, U.S.-Turkey relations, countering extremism, and strategic competition. Blaise served as the Executive Director of the Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, a congressionally mandated project convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Program. He has testified before Congress and published widely— including op-eds in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, and Roll Call. |