Marc Stanley, the Chairman of the Jewish National Democratic Council, wrote an article in August 2008 lauding President Obama’s (then the Democratic candidate) trip to Israel as a “reaffirm[ation] [of] his commitment to Israel’s peace and security.” However, since he has taken office, President Obama has yet to visit Israel. Far right-wingers point to his […]
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would seek a second term in the top post at the international agency, with another five year tenure spelling possible disaster for Israel. The Middle East has been in the throes of a so-called Arab Spring, with some governments — such as the Syrian regime — conducting countless […]
Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad might soon face a firing squad of U.S. missiles, fighter jets and aircraft carriers in the wake of hundreds, if not thousands, of murders on the streets of Damascus and throughout the country. While Assad’s actions might lead to sanctions or another non-military response, the situation could escalate — like […]
The last few days have been very dramatic, as far as American/Israeli relations are concerned. I am not going to spell out everything that has been happening in the wake of the AIPAC conference that took place this past weekend in Washington, DC. One need not look further than earlier posts on this blog to […]
All Americans, nay, all English speakers should read this blog. It appears that the English language has changed nearly overnight because the same comments by President Barack Obama on Sunday garnered a substantially different reaction than those nearly identical remarks on Thursday. Either the English language morphed over the weekend, or Obama critics simply weren’t […]
There was a huge outcry over President Obama’s comments that future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on the 1967 lines. While his comments were inappropriate and ill-timed, what he said was in no way an ultimatum or even definitive for that matter. Quite the opposite, he merely stated that the ’67 […]
The bulk of headlines this morning on President Barack Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday emphasized that the Israelis, Palestinians, Hamas, or the Arab world are incensed by some policy outlined yesterday. These complaints are only about spinning the speech for future negotiations and not based in reality, with Obama using the opportunity to […]
President Barack Obama’s historic speech today on the future of the so-called Arab Spring and Israel-Palestinian negotiations included several harsh words for both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and in some instances backed the same policy employed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who, instead of embracing the gesture, is now responding defiantly. While Obama’s […]
Below is a link to an insightful response by American Jewish Commitee’s David Harris to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recent New York Times op-ed on the future of Palestinian statehood. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2721459/posts Unlike Harris, I was actually ambivalent about the path to Palestinian statehood via the UN. However, the hostile tone and distorted narrative of the recent NYT op-ed […]
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas officially started his North American publicity campaign for statehood by publishing an editorial in yesterday’s New York Times. It was only a matter of time until something like this ran in a major American newspaper or magazine. While some of his arguments such as the pains of being stateless can be empathized […]
Conservative media pundit, Fox host and radio personality Glenn Beck will host a pro-Israel rally in Jerusalem this August to oppose an bifurcation of the city. Beck, a Mormon who just returned from a trip to Israel, said that the “center of our faith” is threatened by a division of the city, as proposed in […]
It’s going to be a big few days for Israel here in Washington D.C. On Sunday, President Barack Obama will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, likely putting himself front-and-center on the peace process, the so-called Arab Spring and the occasionally tense relationship between the United States and Israel. The speech will come days […]
This year’s Palestinian Nakba Day, the holiday in which Palestinians mourn the creation of Israel, has been particularly active. Aside from the violence that has erupted in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, pro-Palestinian protestors from both Lebanon and Syria have confronted the Israeli northern border. A group of Palestinian refugee’s stormed and crossed the […]
George Mitchell, the former Senate Majority Leader and Obama administration’s lead Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiator, resigned, effective next week, but his true impact on the peace process will only emerge when the memoirs are written years from now. On the face of it, though, Mitchell, who managed to secure a northern Ireland peace deal, was not […]
The smoke has hardly cleared from the revolution in Egypt, and the Egyptian people already have a new adversary: Turkey. Recent reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas may have taken place in Egypt, but few have cheered more loudly for the results than Turkey. And while Egypt has the power, but not quite the will […]