Monthly Archives : November 2019

Pompeo, AIPAC and American Jewish Priorities


U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made two brief, basic points in his declaration Monday on Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. He said that those communities are not illegal. And he said that far from facilitating peace, delegitimization of those communities has harmed prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israelis were all but unanimous in their praise…

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The reign of the prosecutors


In Israel Thursday morning, the politicians were the big story. Israel Beitenu chairman Avigdor Liberman was the villain who had held the country hostage for nearly a year as he fed his narcissistic personality disorder. The left’s latest flagship, the Blue and White party is all the once vibrant political camp can put together now that it has lost its…

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Pompeo’s statement on settlements is a diplomatic turning point


Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of U.S. law since 1996. There was little…

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Our European “friends”


  Tuesday morning, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) released an anti-Semitic bombshell. It decreed that all EU member states must affix special labels to Jewish-made Israeli “foodstuffs” produced beyond Israel’s 1949 armistice and exported to EU member states. The ruling was made in response to a lawsuit brought before a French court by Psagot winery, located north of Jerusalem.…

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Is Iran winning or losing?


There’s an old Jewish joke where a young man walks up to his grandfather and asks him how he’s doing. The grandfather answers, “In a word, good.” “And in two words?” the grandson presses. “Not good,” his grandfather replies. The events of the week call the joke to mind in relation to Iran and its war against Israel and the…

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Al-Baghdadi and Trump’s Syrian Chessboard


US President Donald Trump’s many critics insist he has no idea what he is doing in Syria. The assassination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend by US Special Forces showed this criticism is misplaced. Trump has a very good idea of what he is doing in Syria, not only regarding ISIS, but regarding the diverse competing actors…

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