Jonathan Spyer

How Assad fell

8 December 2024 11:44 pm

The astonishing and abrupt fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus is a moment of historic importance for the Middle…

Success for Syria’s rebels is far from guaranteed

3 December 2024 4:51 am

Syrian Sunni Islamist fighters are continuing to consolidate their gains in Syria’s Aleppo province. Almost the entirety of Aleppo city,…

A ceasefire deal won’t finish off Hezbollah

27 November 2024 12:51 am

Nothing is yet confirmed, but it appears that a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah is imminent. The fighting, which…

The long roots of Iran’s hatred for the Jewish state

28 October 2024 5:00 pm

As the dust settles on the latest confrontation between Israel and Iran in the Middle East, the nature of the…

Israel won’t be distracted by ceasefire talks

23 October 2024 11:42 pm

Two senior US officials are in the Middle East this week, with the joint mission of negotiating an end to…

How Yahya Sinwar rose and fell

18 October 2024 11:47 pm

The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is a key milestone for Israel in its ongoing, grinding effort to destroy…

Where does Lebanon go from here?

13 October 2024 10:17 pm

Israel’s overt ground intervention into Lebanon is now entering its third week.  So far, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have…

Was Hamas’s massacre the Middle East’s Franz Ferdinand moment?

8 October 2024 4:00 pm

Travelling through the Gaza border area on the morning of October 8, 2023, I was struck by a sense of…

Israel is likely to hit back hard against Iran

2 October 2024 9:29 pm

Iran’s decision to launch 181 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night followed a similar pattern to the attacks of…

Why Hezbollah miscalculated – and Israel attacked

1 October 2024 10:41 pm

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF spokesman’s office issued a laconic statement, according to which Israeli forces…

How will Iran response to Nasrallah’s assassination?

29 September 2024 12:16 am

The assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah transcends the immediate confrontation between Israel and its Islamist enemies. Nasrallah was both…

Can Israel avoid provoking all-out war with Hezbollah?

24 September 2024 9:05 pm

Israel has carried out its largest-scale operation against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the summer war of 2006. Wave after…

Pager bombs won’t stop Hezbollah

18 September 2024 11:45 pm

The killing of 12 people, including several Hezbollah members, and the wounding of thousands more when 5,000 pagers simultaneously exploded…

Israel is turning its sights on Hezbollah

12 September 2024 10:57 pm

As its Gaza campaign cools, Israel’s attention is returning northwards. Approximately 60,000 Israelis from northern communities are still refugees. A…

Netanyahu faces an unenviable dilemma on Gaza

4 September 2024 9:17 pm

The murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas in Gaza earlier this week led to an outpouring of grief and…

Iran and Hezbollah don’t want a war with Israel

26 August 2024 11:38 pm

Hezbollah’s response to the killing of senior official Fuad Shukr, when it finally came, was a more minor event than…

Netanyahu won’t hand Hamas an easy victory

20 August 2024 12:27 am

The latest information seeping out from the negotiations for an end to the war in Gaza suggest that agreement between…

What will Iran do next?

4 August 2024 12:30 am

Following the killings of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, Israel and the Middle East are poised and waiting…

Can Israel hold back from all-out war with Hezbollah?

30 July 2024 11:50 pm

On 27 July, 12 children from the Druze community of the Golan Heights were slaughtered when an Iranian Falaq 1…

Here’s how Israel can win

24 July 2024 5:35 pm

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was photographed on his flight to the US earlier this week next to a hat…

Will Hezbollah declare war on Israel?

30 June 2024 8:26 pm

In Israel currently, people are waiting for a possible escalation in the north. The United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Russia…

Benjamin Netanyahu must decide what to do about Hezbollah

24 June 2024 7:39 pm

Tensions on Israel’s northern border are currently at their highest point since the outbreak of hostilities in October last year.…

Will Netanyahu declare war on Hezbollah?

6 June 2024 3:56 am

The war in Gaza is perceived internationally as a limited affair, pitting Israel against the Islamist Hamas organisation within the…

Pressure is piling on Netanyahu over Rafah

30 May 2024 4:00 pm

On Sunday, 45 Palestinians were killed after an Israeli airstrike on two Hamas commanders in the Rafah area set off…

Bibi’s plan for a post-war Gaza

19 May 2024 2:57 am

Sharp differences within Israel’s governing coalition have emerged into the open in recent days. On the face of it, the…