Frederic C Hof

Dec 11, 2024 | dawnmena.org | Frederic C Hof

As events unfolded in Syria over the past two weeks, what struck me most sharply was how little I really knew about a country that had captured my affection and imagination long ago, when as a 16-year-old, I traveled to Damascus to live with a Syrian family for the summer. Like nearly everyone, except those Syrians totally indisposed to surrendering, I thought the regime of Bashar al-Assad would hold on indefinitely. How wrong I was.

Oct 8, 2024 | newlinesmag.com | Frederic C Hof

Mistakenly attributed to Winston Churchill, the expression “Never let a good crisis go to waste” still ranks as one of the greatest things that he (or, for that matter, baseball great Yogi Berra, to whom the saying is also sometimes attributed) never said.

Jan 11, 2024 | dawnmena.org | Frederic C Hof

In early December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warned that Israel risked "strategic defeat" in Gaza given how it was waging its war. "The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians," he told an audience at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. "In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population.

Nov 30, 2023 | dawnmena.org | Frederic C Hof

Dissent is growing within the Biden administration over Israel's war in Gaza, with more officials across the government, from the Pentagon to the U.S. Agency for International Development, calling for a cease-fire.

Nov 10, 2023 | newlinesmag.com | Frederic C Hof

In 2001 I served as chief of staff and report drafter for the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, an international body charged with explaining the outbreak of Palestinian-Israeli violence in September 2000 and recommending steps to stop it. We focused on violence: why it happened, how to stop it and what would be required to return the parties to security cooperation and negotiations. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell directed the effort.