Monthly Archives : July 2020

Riots and Protests from Portland to Jerusalem


Over the past several years, public discourse in the United States has seen a lot of new lows. It saw another one this month when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to federal officers in Portland, Oregon as “stormtroopers,” that is, Nazi Brownshirts. In a tweet on July 18 and in subsequent remarks, Pelosi accused the federal forces deployed to Portland…

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Stability for our Enemies


Since the 1990s, the dominant view in Israel’s national security community has been that Israel’s top priority in relation to the Palestinians is to maintain the stability of their leadership. This is the case in relation to both the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and the Hamas regime in Gaza. The rationale behind this view is that despite…

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The predicament of Liberal American Jews


In under a week, two events happened at The New York Times—the arbiter of liberal news and opinion—which highlight the growing precariousness of the American Jewish community’s position in the Democratic Party. On July 8, the Times published an op-ed by Peter Beinart, a far-left American Jewish writer and self-anointed spokesperson for liberal Jewish opinion on Israel. Beinart’s article, entitled, “I no longer…

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Israel and the Sino-Iranian alliance


When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Teheran in 2016, most observers dismissed the significance of the move. The notion that Beijing would wreck its relations with America, the largest economy and most powerful global superpower, in favor of an alliance with Iran, the world’s greatest state sponsor of terror was, on its face, preposterous. But despite the ridiculousness of the…

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Video discussion of the BLM’s anti-Semitism


Last week I participated in an online discussion of Black Lives Matter’s structural anti-Semitism with my friend and colleague Charles Jacobs in an event sponsored by EMET – Endowment for Middle East Truth led by the intrepid Sarah Stern, who moderated the event. Here is the video of our discussion.

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How can Israel help Diaspora Jewry?


At Sunday’s government meeting, Israel’s elected leaders demonstrated their commitment to helping Jewish communities in the Diaspora. The government overwhelmingly approved a plan presented by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry to strengthen the connection between the State of Israel and Jewish communities around the world. Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich heralded the move saying, “The government decision represents an acceptance of…

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Edward Said, Prophet of Political Violence in America


Twenty years ago, on July 3, 2000, an incident occurred along the Lebanese border with Israel that, at the time, seemed both bizarre and, in the broad span of things, unimportant. But with the hindsight of 20 years, it was a seminal moment and a harbinger for the mob violence now taking place in many parts of America. That day,…

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