Middle East Briefs
Parallel to the Center’s scholarly work, Middle East Briefs provides a brief analysis of a single issue at the top of the region’s political, social, or economic agenda. Targeted primarily at decision-makers and opinion leaders, the publication was launched in 2005.
Latest Brief
April 2024 – Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Minorities and the War in Gaza
Daniel Amir
Middle East Brief 158 (Summary) — How is the Israel-Hamas War reshaping Israel's democratic foundations and attitudes toward national identity? In this Middle East Brief, Daniel Amir offers a novel approach to this question by examining the way the conflict has affected Israel's Arab minorities, who make up one-fifth of the country's population. Amir traces the legal status of minorities within Israel and compares the recent treatment and political mobilization of Druze, Bedouin, and other Arab Israeli groups. Such a minority perspective, Amir argues, complicates our image of the war and demonstrates how the internal debates around Israeli civic identity and belonging, temporarily paused after October 7, continue apace as the country battles its external enemies.