04/28/2017
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted a new strategy for managing Israel’s diplomatic relations with the West. Long in the making and increasingly urgent, Israel’s new strategy is very simple. Foreign governments can either treat Israel in accordance with international diplomatic norms of behavior, or they can continue to discriminate against Israel. If they act in accordance with international…
04/25/2017
The day after Israel celebrates its 69th Independence Day, US President Donald Trump will greet PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas at the White House. The date of their meeting, May 3, is notable not least for its timing. The timing of the meeting presumes a linkage between the establishment of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is not…
04/21/2017
According to Michael Anton, one of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aides, the chief characteristic of Trump’s foreign policy is unpredictability. On the surface, unpredictability is a great advantage. Keeping US enemies guessing, at least to some degree, about how the US will respond to hostile acts expands Washington’s maneuver room. But one of the consequences of Trump’s desire…
04/19/2017
On Friday, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Israel as part of a tour of the region that will bring him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Djibouti. The declared purpose of Mattis’s trip is to “reaffirm key US military alliances, engage with strategic partners in the Middle East and Africa, and discuss cooperative efforts to counter destabilizing…
04/07/2017
Eli Lake from Bloomberg set off a firestorm in the US this week with his revelation on Monday that in the last six months of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, former president Barack Obama’s national security adviser, requested that the US intelligence community enable her to use foreign intelligence collection as a means of gathering information about Donald Trump’s advisers.…
04/04/2017
The divide between Israelis and American Jews seems to be growing. Indications of the widening gap came last week with reports of a confrontation between an American Jewish activist and four members of Knesset, from across the political spectrum, at a synagogue near Boston. As reported at The Algemeiner, at the end of a forum at Brookline’s Congregation Kehillath Israel,…
04/04/2017
Talking with Avi Abelow about AIPAC, the state of the Trump White House, Egyptian President Sisi’s visit with Trump, Turkey’s approaching vote and more.