Our Fathom Highlight this week is Doron Matza, a member of the Research Program on Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel-Aviv. Matza was manager of the research division for strategy and policy in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1993 to 2014. In Fathom 15 Matza introduced his new paradigm ‘cooperation between rivals’ to understand the current relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships. The ‘cooperation between rivals’ paradigm has emerged as a response to the second intifada in 2000 and the Arab Spring in 2010 which led Israeli and Palestinian societies – frustrated, exhausted, disappointed with negotiations and sceptical about peace – to turn inwards and preserve the status quo.

Our voice of the week is two Israeli statesman discussing their country’s strategic situation and relations with the United States in the Trump era at the Washington Institute on 30 Januart. Tzachi Hanegbi has just been named Israel’s cabinet minister for regional cooperation. A close confidant of Prime Minister Netanyahu, he has held a variety of cabinet portfolios in the past, and served most recently as chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Itamar Rabinovich is a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and founding president of the Israel Institute. A renowned expert on Syria, he once headed Israeli peace talks with Damascus. He has also served as president of Tel Aviv University, where he is now a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern history.

Our image of the week is protesters burning tyres at the entrance to the illegal outpost of Amona, 1 February 2017. Residents have been given 48 hours to leave the hilltop community ahead of its court-ordered demolition.

‘Cooperation between rivals’: a new paradigm for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian system (2006-2016)

by Doron Matza | December 8, 2016