Israel’s canny caretaker prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can thank the coronavirus and a weary, beaten-down opponent for having saved his political skin. Netanyahu’s dominance of Israel politics seemed to have ended in mid-March as Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz moved closer to forming a coalition government. But in a stunning 180 degree reversal on March […]
The coronavirus is relentlessly sweeping around the world, but in Israel and the Palestinian territories one can discern the sliver of a silver lining amid the gathering dark clouds. Israel’s intractable conflict with the Palestinians, which has caused so much grief and heartache over the decades, is temporarily on hold as both sides pause to […]
Iran is having a very bad year. Call it Iran’s annus horribilis. Three days into 2020, a U.S. drone strike killed General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and one of the most charismatic and revered figures in the country. Soleimani was in charge of forging alliances with regional countries such as […]
The last three general elections in Israel were marred by widespread accusations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party defamed the Arab community and resorted to inflammatory rhetoric to discredit the Arab Joint List, the third largest party in the 120-seat Knesset. But as Israel copes with the coronavirus crisis, Netanyahu may discover that […]
It’s questionable whether Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. presidency now that Joe Biden, the vice-president under President Barack Obama, has regained his footing and pulled ahead of him in the quest for delegates. Yet if Sanders, a democratic socialist, can overtake and defeat Biden, he would not […]
Maybe, just maybe Benjamin Netanyahu got carried away by the inconclusive results of Israel’s March 2 general election, the third in less than a year. Aiming for a record fifth term in office, the 70-year-prime minister sounded euphoric as he addressed jubilant supporters following the election. Calling the projected outcome “the biggest victory of my life,” […]
Turkey and Syria, once the best of neighbors, are effectively at war. On March 1, Turkey launched a major offensive into northwestern Syria, the last bastion of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels fighting the Russian-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The campaign is largely designed to stop the flow of some one million displaced Syrian civilians into Turkey […]
President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, Robert O’Brien, recently equated the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank with the growth of antisemitism around the world. It’s a bizarre and ridiculous conflation that needs to be refuted. Urging the Palestinians to abandon their rejection of Trump’s one-sided peace plan, O’Brien claimed it could be […]
President Donald Trump’s Arab-Israeli peace plan, released at the White House on January 28, aroused indignation in Palestinian and Arab circles. Among the ideas that provoked a storm of criticism was one that advocated land swaps between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in populated and unpopulated areas of Israel and the West Bank. Under […]
With Israel’s March 2 general election just more than one week away, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz appears to have painted himself into a corner. It could cost him dearly. Gantz, whose centrist party won more Knesset seats than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party in the last two inconclusive elections in […]