Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Israel

Reminiscing about Peace – Israel’s Founding Fathers

Reminiscing about Peace – Israel’s Founding Fathers

News broke recently from various outlets that Israel has been providing training and non-lethal supplies for Jewish settlers in Palestine to defend themselves from an expected onslaught of unrest during the days surrounding Palestine’s bid to seek official recognition from the UN in September. Palestine’s attempt at recognition, while doomed at the outset because of […]

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Beyond Israel and Palestine – Pushing for Peace

Beyond Israel and Palestine – Pushing for Peace

Finding an address to the conflict involving Israel and Palestine, to ensure lasting peace in the Near East, has been nearly impossible. A continual lack of support for Israel, though, has driven us to ask for some sort of  punitive measures to ensure that Palestine does not further endanger peace in the region. The Arabs’ lack […]

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Audacity and Lunacy in Iran

Audacity and Lunacy in Iran

It’s not a good sign when you can no longer differentiate between lunacy or rationality in Iranian foreign policy. The real question, though, is who is to blame. Thus is the case when we examine two foreign policy developments in Iran, both dealing with purported espionage. In the first, we saw that an Iranian court convicted Shane […]

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Hariri and Hizballah

Hariri and Hizballah

Last Sunday, Saad Hariri’s March 14 coalition held a rally in Beirut to commemorate the six-year anniversary of the group’s founding. In front of a crowd of thousands, Hariri questioned the usefulness of heavily armed non-state actors in Lebanon, and said that the Lebanese state should have a monopoly on the use of force. Hariri […]

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How Israel Views the Egyptian Revolution

 Over the past few weeks, if the World was glued to its TV screen following the events in Egypt unfold, none did it with more interest than the State of Israel. The entire nation’s media dedicated most of its air time and editorial space to Egypt’s uprising. But, rather than marveled at the Egyptian’s courage […]

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Terror threat in Baku, and new Wikileaks on the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship

Terror threat in Baku, and new Wikileaks on the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship

Speculation in Baku was rife last week over the temporary closing on Monday of the Israeli embassy.  Many news sources such as the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat theorized that the reason for the closing of the embassy was security-related.  In any case, the embassy was apparently closed for “technical reasons” and re-opened. The Israeli Foreign […]

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Egypt's Criminal Status Quo: Street Says "Show Me the Money"

Egypt's Criminal Status Quo: Street Says "Show Me the Money"

The chaos in Egypt does indeed signal opportunity, but the big question is whether the Egyptian people (or their fellow protestors in neighboring countries) will end up with genuine reform or merely a different gang of corrupt officials willing to cut more (or different) people in on ‘the take.’

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EU-Israeli Impasse Continues

Noting the “ongoing deterioration of the situation on the ground” as Israel resumes settlement expansion, a group of former EU leaders last Friday called on the EU to take concrete action, with “consequences,” to force Israel back to the negotiating table. Among their demands: laying out a final plan, with a clear time frame, to […]

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Bushehr Struggles Against Computer Viruses, Heat, Delays

Bushehr Struggles Against Computer Viruses, Heat, Delays

Iran’s first nuclear power plant in Bushehr will not be up and running until next year, according to reports from the Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi. Iran began loading Russian-made fuel rods into the plant in August with the expectation that the plant would be connected to the national power grid by October. […]

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Lebanese Arms

The topic of Lebanese arms is in the news once again. Externally, the United States has put on hold $100 million in military aid for fear that the weapons may fall into the hands of Hizballah. Internally, Prime Minister Hariri is talking up elevated arms control in the wake of a sectarian altercation in Beirut […]

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Middle East's Reaction to John Bolton's Commentary

Middle East's Reaction to John Bolton's Commentary

This week, Iran will officially have a fully functional nuclear power plant (with the help of Russia) in Bushehr (a city on the southwestern coast of Iran) that will connect to the country’s grid by November at the latest.  There have been mixed international reactions since nuclear engineers began to fuel the power station. Last […]

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Nasrallah makes his case

If it seems like the pace of events has been accelerating since Hassan Nasrallah announced that he expects Hizballah members to be indicted in the Hariri Tribunal, it has. Immediately, leaders from Saudi Arabia and Syria rushed to Beirut to calm the situation. Shortly after they left town, an Israeli commander was killed by the […]

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Lebanese Reporter Dead After Clashes on Border

Lebanese Reporter Dead After Clashes on Border

A Lebanese reporter was killed during fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday. The reporter, Assaf Abu Rahal, worked for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar. According to media reports and press freedom organizations, he was killed near the southern town of Al-Adaysseh. He was killed when a shell landed next to him. Abu Rahal was 55 […]

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A Culture of Inequality in Israel

A Culture of Inequality in Israel

What will Jerusalem be like in twenty years? Today, the city is divided into predominately Jewish west Jerusalem and predominately Palestinian east Jerusalem. East Jerusalem itself is striped with both Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. Quality of life in different neighborhoods varies dramatically, but it is safe to say that Jerusalem’s Jews enjoy a far greater […]

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76 Journalists Aboard Gaza Flotilla Released

JERUSALEM—Dozens of international journalists and media workers being held in an Israeli jail were expected to be released by Wednesday evening, local time. Thirty-eight of them were from Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Pakistan, and the U.K. The other 38 were Turkish. Some were identified by the companies they work for and others by their professional associations […]

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Foreign Policy Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program. Staffed by professional contributors from the worlds of journalism, academia, business, non-profits and think tanks, the FPB network tracks global developments on Great Decisions 2014 topics, daily. The FPB network is a production of the Foreign Policy Association.