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.
TURKISH PRESIDENT Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to purchase the world’s most advanced fighter jets should be resisted, not because of his Ottomanism, imperialism, or antisemitism, but because he is an engine of Islamist zeal, the writer argues. Here, Erdogan holds a joint press conference.

Middle Israel: No one needs a tyrannical Turkey with F-35 fighter jets - opinion

No one needs a tyrannical Turkey: not the Arabs, not the Jews, not the Europeans, not the Americans, and not the rest of the world.

JULY 31, 2026
JEWISH IMMIGRANTS from Europe arrive in Haifa in 1929. Drawing on Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of ‘The Odyssey,’ the writer explores why the Jewish return to Zion remains one of history’s enduring homecoming narratives.

Middle Israel: How 'The Odyssey' echoes the Jewish story of homecoming - opinion

Written roughly in the time of Isaiah, The Odyssey had nothing to do with the Jews. Its narrative, however, sure is relevant to the Jews, as their own narrative comes under assault. 

JULY 24, 2026
Palestinian women walk past a mural of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Hebron on the 21st anniversary of Arafat’s death. Ruth Wasserman Lande argues that the Palestinian narrative was created by the Soviet Union.

Middle Israel: How Jews and Palestinians became masters of historical denial

Had the Jews studied their history impartially, they would've understood centuries before Herzl that regaining their land and restoring their power is their task, not God's.

JULY 17, 2026

Middle Israel: Why Netanyahu's political formula no longer works - opinion

Edelstein and Eisenkot are representatives of two populations that were wheels of the social wagon Netanyahu rode to Israel’s helm: the so-called Moroccans and Russians. 

JULY 10, 2026
LT.-GEN. (RET.) GADI EISENKOT lost a son and two nephews to Israel’s wars, making him a potent symbol of what the IDF-serving population has endured while ultra-Orthodox leaders attempt to ‘etch non-service in constitutional stone,’ the author contends.

Middle Israel: The Fourth of July and the fading American dream - opinion

There is a massive attack on the American democracy’s pillars, on the judiciary, the media, and the principle of separation of powers coming from its own leadership.

JULY 3, 2026
AS THE USA prepares to bask in its 250th birthday’s fireworks, the American dream faces an unprecedented pincer attack from both the Right and the Left, the writer argues. Here, a soccer fan holds a flag celebrating the 250th anniversary before a FIFA World Cup game last week in California.

Middle Israel: Starmer’s exit highlights instability in British politics - opinion

Britain faces renewed political instability as PM exits amid criticism over leadership and direction. The turmoil is linked to Brexit, elite disconnect and support for Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

JUNE 26, 2026
BRITISH PM Keir Starmer announces his resignation on Monday. With a seventh prime minister set to enter 10 Downing Street in less than a decade, something is obviously wrong in His Majesty’s realm.

Middle Israel: 'Epic Fury' is now Trump's 'Epic Fiasco' - opinion

Diehard Trumpists will disagree, but, in this country, it is clear to everyone, from Yair Golan to Itamar Ben-Gvir, that the deal stinks.

JUNE 19, 2026
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has likely thrown the Iranian people, the Jewish state, and his friend, Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, under the bus with the deal he is prepared to make with Iran, the writer upholds.

Middle Israel: Roman Gofman's Mossad successes will be measured by Barnea's failures - opinion

After targeting Iranian nukes and missiles, the spy agency should now focus on dethroning the mullahs and confronting the "Anti-Zionist International."

JUNE 12, 2026
ONE OF the Mossad’s notable failures is the botched assassination attempt of then-Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in 1997. The organization’s incoming chief, Roman Gofman, will need to both examine and reform the Mossad’s inner workings.

Middle Israel: Netanyahu's real legacy is Israel's era of political decay - opinion

The Netanyahu years, an epoch of political decay that began 30 years ago last week, will hopefully reach its long-overdue end next fall.

JUNE 5, 2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to then-defense minister Ehud Barak during a session at the Knesset in 2009.

Middle Israel: How Benjamin Netanyahu transformed Israeli politics in 30 years - opinion

Netanyahu’s rise marked the beginning of a new political age in Israel, one defined by sound bites, self-promotion, and lasting consequences.

MAY 29, 2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Christian Conference in Jerusalem, on April 27, 2025

Middle Israel: How Likud’s primaries poisoned Israeli politics - opinion

The 18-year fencing match between Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin came to a sudden end, thanks to an invention Israel had never seen: primary elections. 

MAY 15, 2026
A LIKUD supporter waves the party’s flag at a gathering, a show of grassroots loyalty which has long defined the movement, even as critics say its primaries have reshaped, and at times distorted, who rises within its ranks.

Middle Israel: What's the plan? Israel needs a 'reconciliation government' - opinion

MIDDLE ISRAEL: Led by four prime ministerial contenders, the task ahead of today’s opposition is much more daunting than what Rabin faced last century.

MAY 8, 2026
TO BEAT the incumbent prime minister, opposition leaders and former prime ministers Naftali Bennett (left) and Yair Lapid must come up with a plan and agree on a set of actions they will take collectively should they unseat Netanyahu.

Middle Israel: Will Bennett and Lapid's fourth Israeli alliance last? - opinion

The alliance that Bennett and Lapid unveiled this week is young and might well fail the way so many others have before it. But two things can already be said in its favor.

MAY 1, 2026
FORMER PRIME MINISTERS Naftali Bennett (left) and Yair Lapid pose during a press conference announcing a joint list named ‘Together’ to be led by Bennett, ahead of upcoming elections.