04/05/2018
Have we entered a new period of sweetness and light with our Arab neighbors? On Monday The Atlantic published an interview the magazine’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg conducted with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Hours after its publication, the responses began pouring in. The basic line, repeated by all major newspapers, is that the Saudi crown prince recognized Israel’s right…
04/05/2018
To the dismay of America’s allies and the delight of its enemies, President Trump declared last Thursday, in a speech in Ohio focused on infrastructure renewal, that he will soon recall U.S. forces now deployed to Syria to fight the Islamic State (or ISIS). In his words: “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other…
03/30/2018
On Friday, the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is inaugurating what it is calling “The March of Return.” According to Hamas’s leadership, the “March of Return” is scheduled to run from March 30 – the eve of Passover — through May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment. According to Israeli media reports, Hamas has budgeted…
03/30/2018
On Monday morning, the Deputy Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Brig.-Gen. Guy Goldstein and the deputy head of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, Col. Uri Mandes, shocked members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee when Mandes claimed that there are three million Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria today. Committee chairman Avi Dichter…
03/30/2018
This week, Egyptian voters are going to the polls, either to vote to reelect President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi or to vote for the other guy. Noting that most significant presidential contenders were either arrested, or were intimidated out of running, many media organizations have argued that Egypt’s elections this week are a farce. Although there accounts disputing those claims, it is true…
03/25/2018
President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint former UN Ambassador John Bolton to serve as his National Security Advisor is arguably the most significant single step he has taken to date toward implementing his America First foreign policy. The news hit America’s enemies and competitors — from Pyongyang to Teheran to Moscow to Beijing — like a wall of bricks Thursday…
03/25/2018
PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is no idiot. He didn’t survive as Yasser Arafat’s deputy for 40 years and as his successor for 14 by being stupid. So if he isn’t stupid, why is he attacking the United States? Why did he deliver an anti-American diatribe Monday night that would have made Ho Chi Minh proud?…
03/22/2018
On Monday, a major American Jewish leader published a call to arms against Israel in the New York Times. In an op-ed under the headline, “Israel’s self-inflicted wounds,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder warned that Israel is driving itself to the brink of disaster. The implicit message of Lauder’s article is that President Donald Trump is too good to Israel. He needs…
03/16/2018
As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was being fired on Tuesday, his central assumptions about the Palestinian conflict with Israel, which are shared by the entire Washington foreign policy establishment, literally blew up in Gaza. On Tuesday morning, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb during an official visit in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Hamdallah was in…
03/16/2018
By any objective standard, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington last week was a stunning success. US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump greeted the premier and his wife, Sara, as old friends. The substantive talks Netanyahu held with Trump on Iran and a host of other key issues were extraordinarily positive. Then of course, there was…