I suspect that I’m like many of you. I want to believe Israeli-Palestinian peace is coming, that the two sides will soon agree to borders, Palestinian terrorists will stop launching rockets from Gaza, and ultra-right Israelis will abandon dreams of absorbing the West Bank into a “Greater Israel.” In that spirit, I want to share …
Continue reading “John Kerry’s Palestinian Investment Plan Sidesteps Central Truisms”
President Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy, which he unveiled last week in a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, is less off-base than incomplete, reflecting his effort to limit the scope of the problem and the requirements of the response in ways that will prove inadequate to the challenge. In nearly 7,000 words, Obama expressed ambivalence …
The decision by Iran’s Guardian Council to bar the long-time Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from participating in its June 14th presidential election prompts two thoughts about the Islamic Republic. First, despite fanciful notions by some top U.S. officials, Iran is no democracy. Second, despite equally fanciful notions by some U.S. “experts,” Rafsanjani is no …
In his 2010 book, The Strong Horse, Lee Smith counseled that, in the Middle East, what matters in shaping the loyalty of the masses is which “strong horse” – whether a person or a country – can impose its will on others. The title refers to the celebratory remark by Osama bin Laden after the …
Israel’s military strikes in Syria leave the interested observer with admiration over Jerusalem’s steadfastness, disgust over Washington’s continued dithering, and worry over the long-term global implications. To be sure, Syria is both a humanitarian horror and a geopolitical mess and, at this point, no one’s got a clean, easy, fool-proof way to stop the slaughter …
The “blame America first” crowd that Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called out in her speech to the 1984 Republican National Convention, lifts its collective head at opportune moments. When death and destruction rain down on America, this odd mix of hard-left, hard-right and hard-middle critics and cranks don’t blame …
Continue reading “After Boston, A Predictable Wave Of America-Bashing”
If you monitor United Nations proceedings, listen to political debates on college campuses, and take in much mainstream and new media, you might think that Israel is the world’s greatest human rights abuser. The reality is quite different, as this week’s release of the U.S. State Department’s latest annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices …
Continue reading “No, Israel’s not the world’s big human rights problem”