Amotz Asa-El

Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Amotz Asa-El, The Jerusalem Post 's senior commentator and former executive editor, is a fellow at the Hartman Institute. Asa-El's column in The Jerusalem Post appears continuously since 1995, when Jpost.com was among the world’s first 10 news sites. Asa-El is is thus among the most veteran online columnists in the world. Slugged “Middle Israel,” the column is a unique attempt to present in English mainstream Israelis’ view on anything, from politics and foreign affairs to business and religion. Asa-El's book Mitzad Ha'Ivelet Ha'Yehudi (" The Jewish March Folly ," Yediot Sefarim, 2019), a revisionist history of the Jewish people's political leadership from antiquity to modernity, became a bestseller within a month of its publication. The book was praised by novelist A.B. Yehoshua as "convincing and accurate" and "reviving Jewish history with dramatic, literary scenes," and by historian Yuval Noah Harari as "a well-written and thought provoking book which artfully connects the Jewish past with the present's concerns.” Asa-El's previous book, The Diaspora and the Lost Tribes of Israel (Universe, 2004), a geographic history of the Jews, was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal as "an engaging history of the Jewish experience" that "vividly captures the creativity and nomadic quality of the Jewish people." Asa-El’s five-part series in The Jerusalem Report (Aug-Sept 2017) about the future of the Jewish people won the Bnai Brith Journalism Award. Having originally joined The Jerusalem Post as its business editor, Asa-El was later the Post 's news editor and editor-in-chief of its overseas edition, the International Jerusalem Post, before serving as The Jerusalem Post 's executive editor. Since joining The Jerusalem Post Asa-El has been a frequent commentator of Middle Eastern affairs on BBC, NPR, CNN and Israel TV, as well as a regular contributor to Dow Jones' MarketWatch. Asa-El has been quoted or published along the years by the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , the Economist , TIME magazine , the Daily Telegraph , the New Republic , Le Figaro , L'Express , Azure, Harvard Political Review , the Australian, the Australia Financial Review , Jornal do Brasil , the India Times , Politiken , and others. Asa-El holds graduate degrees in journalism from Columbia University, in Jewish history from the Hebrew University, and in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Nurit and the couple has three children. A native of Jerusalem who spent some of his childhood in New York and London, Asa-El is the only senior editor in the Post ’s 91 years to have never held a foreign passport.
ALMOST FOUR years into the Ukraine-Russia war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has proved the adage that Russia was not as weak as some thought, but not as strong as some assumed. Here, Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via video link at the Kremlin, in Moscow last month.

Middle Israel: What Putin’s war on Ukraine revealed about Russia, four years later - opinion

Four years into the war, Putin’s attempt to erase Ukraine solidifies its independence and exposes Russia’s decline.

FEBRUARY 6, 2026
THE BIG question, postwar, is how Israelis will respond at the ballot box to the trauma. Here, political opponents Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid shake hands during a special session in honor of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, at the Knesset on Monday.

Middle Israel: Entering the post-war political era - opinion

Israeli voters emerged from Israel’s most costly war imbued with the kind of wrath, humiliation, and resolve that makes decadent establishments fall, and their successors rise.

JANUARY 30, 2026
A woman holds a picture of Khamenei during a rally in solidarity with Iran’s government, near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad last week.

Middle Israel: The life and times of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – opinion

Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, portrayed himself as a moral alternative to the West, yet his rule has been marked by hypocrisy, corruption, and the ruin of his country’s future.

JANUARY 23, 2026

Middle Israel: Roadmap for an aspiring shah - opinion

To unseat the ayatollahs, Reza Pahlavi must present a post-Islamist vision and become the leader of the people’s war

JANUARY 16, 2026
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi addresses the media during a press conference on June 23, 2025 in Paris, France.

Middle Israel: From Venezuela to Iran, Trump’s doctrine is power without morality - opinion

In a swift raid, Maduro is removed from power, showcasing US might. But the moral implications of the operation leave key questions about America's foreign policy and its leadership.

JANUARY 9, 2026
‘THE PROBLEM with Maduro, as far as Donald Trump is concerned, is not his despotic record.... The problem was that Maduro disobeyed Trump’s commands on immigration, drugs, and oil.’ Here, an activist holds a poster that reads ‘Condemns Donald Trump’s military aggression in Venezuela,’

Middle Israel: Sleeping with Somaliland is good, waltzing with it is bad - opinion

Israel’s recognition this week of Somaliland – a self-declared country in northeast Africa – is part of a time-honored legacy with its fair share of foresight and risk.

JANUARY 2, 2026
THE KIND OF of strategic alliance that Israel is nurturing in Somaliland already emerged last year, when Somaliland signed a deal with Ethiopia, leasing to its landlocked neighbor a 20-km. coastal strip for a naval base.

Middle Israel: Qatar’s infiltration into the PMO is ultimate violation of Israeli trust - opinion

Political betrayal has been altogether legitimized when the betrayed was not an individual but an entire country.

DECEMBER 26, 2025
A PERSON holds a flag of Qatar and money, as protesters march to Jerusalem during an anti-government demonstration on March 19, 2025.

Middle Israel: An open letter to Australian PM Albanese, after Bondi Beach shooting - opinion

Now, as you stare at 15 bodies in your own living room, it’s not too late for you to change course, and tell your people six words – Australia is at war, with jihadism.

DECEMBER 19, 2025
‘IT’S NOT not too late for you to change course, and tell your people six words – Australia is at war, with jihadism.’ Here, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media at Parliament House Canberra on Sunday as news of the Bondi Beach attack unfolded.

Middle Israel: Can Ahmed al-Sharaa move Syria forward? - opinion

After Assad's fall, Sharaa faces the challenge of rebuilding Syria with his first year raising doubts on if he will repeat Assad's mistakes or bring real change.

DECEMBER 12, 2025
ONE YEAR after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syria, under Ahmed al-Sharaa, is perhaps a nicer place to live, but the suspicion that Sharaa’s formula is but a variation of Assad’s has raised questions about Syria’s long-term direction. Here, the president speaks, marking one year since Assad’s fall, o

Middle Israel: Herzog must reject Netanyahu's cynical plea for a pardon - opinion

What Netanyahu gave President Herzog is a celebration of deceit and hypocrisy, penned by a PM who is promoting a draft-dodging bill and blocking an impartial inquiry of October 7.

DECEMBER 5, 2025
Evidently inspired by history, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week sent President Isaac Herzog a pardon request reminiscent of the one Herzog’s father received in 1986, hoping the son might now do for him what his father once did for another Israeli leader.

Defense Minister Israel Katz is a strategic liability that Israel cannot afford - opinion

Israel's defense minister does not have the skills that his job demands. The kind of strategizing that Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, and Arens did in their jobs is beyond Katz’s abilities

NOVEMBER 28, 2025
Defence Minister Israel Katz inspects a missile at the Tel Nof Air Force base in March.

Denial as policy: Why Israel's government fears a real October 7 inquiry - opinion

Middle Israel: A century after Hindenburg turned failure into a “stab-in-the-back,” Israel’s government now takes a page from his book.

NOVEMBER 21, 2025
Yariv Levin (left), Benjamin Netanyahu, and Itamar Ben-Gvir in the Knesset last year. The question is whether this brazen effort to bury the truth will work, and the answer is it won’t.

Scandals in Israel’s military, politics, and judiciary raise the question: Are we sick? - opinion

Scandal has rocked the nation this week as corruption and nepotism reveal cracks in the system and further turmoil and division in Israeli society.

NOVEMBER 7, 2025
FAMILY AND friends of Col. Asaf Hamami during his funeral in Tel Aviv, on Tuesday, behind a flag bearing his likeness.