11/27/2020
Over the past week or so we have been witnessing the emergence of a new sort of anti-Semitism in the Democrat Party. The new form of Jew hatred is a combination of anti-Zionism and identity politics. It is convoluted and hard to follow. But contradictions and all, it has arrived. And Jewish Americans, sensing the partisan disposition, are adapting themselves…
11/20/2020
Three diplomatic events transpired this week. Together they describe the crossroads before which Israel now stands following the US presidential elections. First, on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority announced it is renewing its security coordination with the IDF after suspending it six months ago. The PA also expressed willingness to accept tax revenues that Israel collects on its behalf. The PA has…
11/13/2020
No matter who ultimately wins the presidential election, the Jews in America are the big losers. As Professor Ruth Wisse of Harvard has long explained, Jews are the bellwether for the health of democracies. Hatred of Jews rises in societies whose democratic institutions and values are in crisis. Jew-hatred is generally low in healthy, working democracies. If we learned nothing…
11/13/2020
The day before the U.S. presidential election, the progressive Israel Democracy Institute published the results of a poll of Israeli Jews asked whether they believed President Donald Trump or former vice president Joe Biden would be better for Israel. 70 percent answered Trump, 13 percent said Biden and 17 precent said they didn’t know. Since Election Day, and since the…
11/06/2020
On Wednesday, supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside ballot counting centers in Arizona and Michigan to demand a clean and honest vote count. An MSNBC reporter in Arizona filmed the protesters in Maricopa Country where 400,000 ballots were being counted. Standing behind the protesters, the reporter tried to paint the crowd as violent and dangerous even as they kneeled in silent…
11/06/2020
Without knowing the results of the US presidential elections, certain conclusions can already be drawn safely. For instance, we can say with certainty that between 70 and 80% of American Jews voted for the Democrat, former Vice President Joe Biden. On the face of things, American Jews could have been expected to vote in the same proportion, in the exact…
10/30/2020
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s decision to award the prize to the World Food Program this year assuaged the fears of elitists from New York to Paris and Berlin. The Abraham Accords, which include bilateral peace treaties between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and most recently Sudan, and Israel have fundamentally changed the Middle East. They have upended fifty years of…
10/28/2020
Israel has reason to be concerned about the US’s plan to sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates. Although the UAE is an enthusiastic ally and peace partner to Israel today, who knows what tomorrow will bring? NATO member Turkey was one of Israel’s closest strategic allies until President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began seizing dictatorial powers and…
10/23/2020
This week I moderated a panel on Trump’s vision for the Middle East with participants from Israel, Egypt and Bahrain to discuss the significance of the Abraham Accords for the nations of the region. It was a fascinating conversation that highlighted the relevance of nationalism and national identity to the achievement of peace in the Middle East. You can watch…
10/23/2020
The time for a reckoning with the social media giants has arrived, and not only in the United States. Earlier this week, Shibbolet Library, a new Israeli book publisher that specializes in conservative authors launched a sales campaign on Facebook. The company invested approximately a hundred thousand shekels ($34,000) on Facebook ads to promote its book sales. Then suddenly, its…