On a sparkling late summer day 30 years ago today, the tremors of a seismic shift in the Middle East were felt as two sworn enemies chose reconciliation, coexistence and peace over hostility, tension and war. On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his arch nemesis, Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the […]
Is Israel an apartheid state? The question itself arouses deep emotions, acrimonious debate, and implies that Israel has strayed far from its liberal democratic values as the world’s only Jewish state. I’m raising this explosive and divisive issue in light of Tamir Pardo’s recent remarks. The former director of the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency, […]
Once again, very much to his own detriment and that of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas is playing into the hands of Israelis who categorically reject a two-state solution. Last month, in a speech that was broadcast on Palestinian television two weeks ago, the president of the Palestinian Authority made two outrageous comments that Germany’s ambassador […]
A potential breakthrough in Israel’s relations with the Arab world degenerated into a diplomatic fiasco after Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen rashly disclosed he had secretly conferred with his Libyan counterpart, Najila el-Mangoush, in Rome on August 26 in a meeting hosted by the Italian foreign minister. In the wake of his impromptu announcement, which […]
More than a month after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced a series of measures to strengthen the ineffectual Palestinian Authority, they have yet to be implemented. Israel’s inaction leads critics to conclude that the measures are mostly declarative or symbolic in nature and are mainly intended to mollify the United States and the […]
Nation-wide protests in Israel condemning the government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary have been going on ceaselessly for the past seven months. The protesters’ zeal and commitment has been unflagging. Two days ago, they demonstrated in front of Ramot, a moshav near the Sea of Galilee where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family were […]
Three years to the month after a massive explosion wrecked the densely-populated neighborhood around the port of Beirut, the weak and ineffectual government of Lebanon has yet to hold anyone accountable for one of the biggest non-nuclear blasts in history. On the evening of August 4, 2020, a fire broke out in hangar 12, a […]
The United States, Israel’s chief ally, has launched a campaign that could realign the political landscape of the Middle East. In what could be a diplomatic coup as significant as the United States’ successful drive to end Israel’s state of war with Egypt in 1979, Washington is making a concerted effort to normalize Israel’s relations […]
With yesterday’s passage of the first part of the Israeli government’s divisive proposal to overhaul the judiciary, Israel’s domestic crisis has ominously deepened, throwing Israel into its worst domestic crisis in decades. Not since the 1993 Oslo peace process and Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has Israel been so internally splintered and […]
With its recognition of Morocco’s territorial claim to the disputed Western Sahara region, Israel has taken a giant leap forward to consolidate its bilateral relations with that North African Arab nation. Israel officially recognized Morocco’s claim on July 17, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent King Mohammed VI a letter affirming Israel’s decision to “recognize […]