As the old saying goes, “where you stand has a great deal to do with where you sit.” While the Biden administration has reassured us that they want to negotiate a “longer and stronger deal with Iran," to those who live in the Middle East, this might sound incurably naïve.

To many observers, it appears that the United States is anxious to “just make a deal” with Iran and that they do not understand Tehran’s history of negotiations. However, residents of the Middle East have looked at the results of the 2015 negotiations with the Islamic Republic and may well believe that we in North America have little appreciation of the existential threat that Israel and our Gulf allies are under. That threat will only be enhanced if the talks go awry.

Here to discuss this, and what the Israelis might feel that they have to do to survive is Professor Efraim Inbar.

About Prof. Efraim Inbar:

Prof. Efraim Inbar is President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.  He was a Professor in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the founding Director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies.

Inbar’s area of specialization is Middle Eastern strategic issues with a special interest in the politics and strategy of Israeli national security. He has written over 100 scholarly articles and authored five books: Outcast Countries in the World Community (1985), War and Peace in Israeli Politics (1991), Labor Party Positions on National Security (1991), Rabin and Israel’s National Security (1999), The Israeli-Turkish Entente (2001), and Israel's National Security: Issues and Challenges since the Yom Kippur War (2008). He has also edited 14 collections of articles.

Inbar earned his B.A. in Political Science and English Literature at Hebrew University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Chicago. He served as visiting professor at Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Boston University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He was also appointed as a Manfred Warner NATO Fellow and was the recipient of an Onassis Fellowship.

Prof. Inbar was a member of the Political Strategic Comittee of the National Planning Council and the Chair of the Committee for the National Security Curriculum at the Ministry of Education. He served on the Academic Committee of the History Department of the IDF and as the President of the Israel Association of International Studies. He is widely quoted in the international press.

He served in the IDF as a paratrooper.