Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is preparing for a crucial conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, D.C. It will probably take place in August, after the newly-elected president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, assumes office. Late last month, Biden said he hopes to meet Bennett at the White House “very soon.” His press secretary, […]
There has been a “paradigm shift” in Palestinian public opinion since the fourth Gaza border war between Israel and Hamas this past May, says prominent Palestinian pollster and political analyst Khalil Shikaki. Judging by his most recent surveys, Hamas has supplanted the Palestinian Authority as the defender of the Palestinian cause, while Palestinians are now more […]
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former prime minister, is proving to be an irresponsible and reckless opposition leader who cares only for his own political interests. On July 6, Netanyahu’s Likud Party and its ultra-Orthodox allies voted against a Knesset motion to renew the citizenship law, which they have consistently supported for the past 17 years. Enacted during […]
The new Israeli government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has flunked its first major test. Just days after alternate prime minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that the illegal West Bank outpost of Evyatar would be torn down in compliance with a direct and unambiguous army order, the Samaria Regional Council, a pro-settler organization, […]
Seventy three Democrats in the House of Representatives recently sent U.S. President Joe Biden a letter asking him to reverse his predecessor’s policy on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Contending that Donald Trump’s Republican administration had abandoned the United States’ “longstanding, bipartisan” approach, the legislators affirmed their support for a two-state solution and urged Biden […]
President Joe Biden has been saying for months now that the United States’ return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement will be no simple matter. He is correct, of course. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, rashly withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and then proceeded to impose almost 2,000 sanctions on Iran and launch a campaign […]
After nearly six months in office, President Joe Biden is tweaking rather than altering U.S. policy in the Middle East vis-a-vis Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Apart from concerted efforts by the United States to normalize relations with the Palestinians and return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Biden is more or less […]
Less than a month has elapsed since Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, ending their fourth cross-border war in 13 years. But in recent days, fighting has resumed on a far smaller scale, prompting speculation that even a short-term truce may be elusive. With Egyptian mediators having convinced both sides to lay down […]
Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu towered over Israeli politics like a colossus, ruling Israel for a total of 15 years and eclipsing the legendary David Ben-Gurion as its longest-serving prime minister. In a career spanning more than three decades, he was also Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, its foreign minister and its finance minister. And though […]
Israel turned a new leaf on June 13 as Naftali Bennett supplanted Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. This will be the first government in 12 years not led by Netanyahu, who was Israel’s longest serving prime minister. The Knesset approved the new government by a margin of 60 to 59, with one abstention, thereby ending […]