US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech at the American Task Force for Palestine's inaugural dinner in Washington on Wednesday evening was but the latest sign that America's alliance with Israel is weakening. Rice's statement that "there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state," just about says it all.…
It would seem that Karl Marx got things backwards. History does not repeat itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Rather, it repeats itself first as farce and second as tragedy. This, perhaps more than anything else is the conclusion one should reach from North Korea's nuclear test on Columbus Day. It was the Clinton administration, which back…
The clouds of the coming war are converging upon Israel. But our political and military leaders refuse to look up at the darkening sky. The Russian bear has awakened after 15 years of hibernation. Under the leadership of former KGB commander President Vladimir Putin, Russia is reasserting its traditional hostility towards Israel. On Tuesday, Russian military engineers landed…
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is an interesting case study in how a public image can trump professional competence in Israeli politics. Livni was brought into politics by then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 1999. The back-bencher became prominent in 2003 after undergoing two major transformations. First, she exchanged her frizzy light brown curls and dowdy dresses for straight blond…
Since the guns in the north fell into a momentary silence, there has been a marked tendency to think of smaller things than war. From life and death, the subject changed to the good life – specifically Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's pursuit of the good life. In governmental matters, Israel's public discourse has moved from the security of the…
During the past week we learned a great deal about the nature of our enemies. We also learned a great deal about ourselves. If we draw the proper lessons from what we have seen we will go far toward winning the war. With their ghoulish presentations at the UN General Assembly, both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President…
Pope Benedict XVI has become political Islam's newest excuse for rioting. Mobs from Rawalpindi to Ramallah are burning him in effigy. Muslim leaders from Gaza to Indonesia to Qatar, from Turkey to Washington and London are attacking the pope and demanding that he apologize to Islam for what they consider to be a heinous attack against their religion. …
Again last week our hopes were raised, only to be dashed once more. OC Northern Command Major General Udi Adam raised our hopes when he resigned his command. Adam, the first of our incompetent leaders to leave his job after mishandling the war against Hizbullah this summer, made us think that perhaps other incompetents in the IDF and the government…
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe. And he's not a very good friend. Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global jihad. His success in convincing…
Last Friday, Harvard University's student newspaper The Crimson had a noteworthy front page. The top headline read, "Students plan to protest Khatami's visit." The second headline read, "Cheney visits Harvard Club through backdoor." The first story referred to plans by student groups to protest Harvard's Kennedy School of Government's decision to invite former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami…