What does Jordan’s King Abdullah want from Israel? This week Abdullah gave a long and much cited interview to the Wall Street Journal. There he appeared to be begging US President Barack Obama to turn up the heat still further on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. As he has on a number of occasions, Abdullah argued that the Palestinian conflict…
There is an element of irony in the current crisis of relations between the Obama administration and Israel. On the one hand, although US President Barack Obama and his advisors deny there is anything wrong with US-Israel relations today, it is easy to understand why no one believes them. On the other hand on most issues, there is substantive…
Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama opened a diplomatic war on Israel. The proximate cause of his offensive was the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Board’s decision to approve the future construction of 1,600 housing units in northern Jerusalem. The goal of the assault is twofold. First, it seeks to undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s control over Jerusalem in order…
As the local and international press corps converged on Jerusalem’s Old City to cover the Arab riots at the Temple Mount two weeks ago, little mention was made of the fact that Jerusalem was not the only flashpoint. In Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israeli Arab rioters supported by far-left protesters stoned buses. Israeli Arabs firebombed motorists on Highway 443 and on the…
Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel? Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel’s fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem – after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction — drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which…
The Red-Green alliance is on the march. On Wednesday, the leftist-controlled European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report. That report, it will be recalled, denies Israel’s right to self-defense by alleging that Israel’s actions to defend itself from illegal Palestinian aggression during the course of Operation Cast Lead were war crimes. The resolution did more than…
US Vice President Joseph Biden’s job is about to stop being easy. Indeed, it is about to become impossible. On Monday Biden will arrive in Israel for a three-day visit. Biden, who will meet with Israel’s leaders, will be the most senior official in the cavalcade of senior US officials that have descended on Israel in recent weeks. Biden will…
There is something pathetic about what passes as European foreign policy these days. Quite simply, more often than not, the concerted positions of the EU member nations have nothing to do with any of their national interests. Take the EU’s initial response to the killing of Hamas terror-master Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19. A senior…
Fahmi Shabaneh is an odd candidate for dissident status. Shabaneh is a Jerusalemite who joined the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service in 1994. Working for PA head Mahmoud Abbas and GIS commander Tawfik Tirawi, Shabaneh was tasked with investigating Arab Jerusalemites suspected of selling land to Jews. Such sales are a capital offense in the PA. Since 1994 scores…
US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even…