Experts in the News

Seemingly taking a page from the Trump playbook, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has assailed the incoming administration and called the election that defeated him “the scam of the century.” Middle East fellow Gilead Sher said the fact that “no transition [of power] has begun by the prime minister, his staff or most of his ministers, is extremely unusual and counterproductive. What Netanyahu and his [Likud] party members have been saying is shameful." Sher, the former chief of staff to prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, said Netanyahu should “not try to cling to power.”

Once the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided, the new Israeli government will face serious flaws in, among other things, the territorial dimensions of President Trump's “Deal of the Century,” writes Middle East fellow Gilead Sher.