Justice has finally caught up with Anwar Raslan, a former colonel in Syria’s intelligence service. On January 13, a court in Koblenz, Germany, convicted him of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Now 58, he supervised the murder, the torture and the sexual abuse of dozens of prisoners. Though only a cog […]
Last May, as Israel fought its fourth cross-border Gaza war with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, deadly ethnic violence between Jews and Arabs erupted in a string of cities, shocking and disheartening Israelis. Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, compared it to a “civil war,” while an Arab member of the Knesset, Aida Touma-Sliman, likened it to the […]
The foreign ministers of Israel and Iran, Yair Lapid and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, clashed online a few days ago in what can only be described as a futile Twitter exchange. Israel and Iran are the bitterest of enemies due to Iran’s constant calls for Israel’s destruction and its financial and military support of proxies like Hezbollah […]
The first day of 2022 in Israel had an awfully familiar ring to it. During the early hours of January 1, two rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. One exploded in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Jaffa. The second landed in the water near Palmachim, south of Rishon Lezion. Israeli […]
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are driving in opposite directions, judging by their second direct meeting since the formation of Israel’s new government in June. On December 28, Gantz invited Abbas to his home in Rosh Ha’ayin. It was Abbas’ first meeting with a senior Israeli official in Israel […]
Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Islamist Ra’am Party and a supporter of Israel’s governing coalition government, is a realist. Judging by two of his most recent comments, he has a sound appreciation of the political environment in Israel. Several days ago, at a conference in Tel Aviv sponsored by the Hebrew-language Globes newsmagazine, Abbas […]
It was a milestone in the annals of Israel’s bilateral relations with the Arab world. On December 13, Naftali Bennett became the first Israeli prime minister to visit the United Arab Emirates. It is one of four Arab countries that agreed to normalize relations with Israel under the diplomatic umbrella of the 2020 Abraham accords, […]
Israel and its chief ally, the United States, are squabbling over a variety of contentious issues. Their strategic relationship is being buffeted by disagreements concerning the Iran nuclear agreement, the expansion of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, the planned construction of Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and Israel’s decision to brand several Palestinian civic […]
Much to Israel’s consternation, international talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement resumed in Vienna on November 29 after a five-month hiatus. The accord, hailed by U.S. President Barack Obama as a landmark achievement but greeted by Israel with apprehension, disappointment and scorn, granted Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions. In exchange for this […]
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 20, 1981, U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig said the Reagan administration was trying to build a “strategic consensus” to counter the influence of the Soviet Union, its chief global adversary, in a region encompassing countries from Pakistan to Egypt. Claiming that the Soviet Union was […]