Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States as a disrupter of received convention. Judging by his first official meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C. on February 15, the newly-inaugurated president has no intention of changing his disruptive and confusing style. At a joint news conference with Netanyahu prior to […]
For the sake of peace, one can only hope that Israel’s ill-conceived Regulation Law, passed earlier this month by the Knesset by a margin of 60 to 52, will be declared null and void. Sponsored and promoted by Naftali Bennett’s far right Jewish Home Party, which calls for the annexation of much of the West […]
Islamic State, the jihadist organization bent on establishing a caliphate in the Middle East, is being pounded relentlessly by the United States and its partners in a concerted military campaign to dislodge it from its bases in Iraq (torn by sectarian strife), Syria (bloodied by a civil war) and Libya (mired in anarchy). The new […]
Emboldened by Donald Trump’s election as America’s 45th president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is flaunting his true colours as an arch nationalist bent on expanding Israel’s borders at the expense of peace with the Palestinians through a two-state solution. No longer constrained by Barack Obama’s critique of settlement construction, and heartened by the Trump […]
As newly-inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump settles into his job at the White House, a host of thorny foreign policy issues are competing for his attention. How will he manage bilateral relations with China and Russia? How strong a position will he stake out in confronting the Islamic State organization? What will be his attitude […]
Benjamin Netanyahu could hardly contain himself after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in last November’s U.S. presidential election. In a video congratulating him on his victory, the Israeli prime minister, a catch in his voice, exuded glee, calling Trump “a true friend” of Israel and expressing confidence that he and president-elect would “strengthen the special alliance […]
Contrary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion, the forthcoming Middle East peace conference, scheduled to be held in Paris on January 15 under the auspices of France, is neither “rigged” nor “a last gasp of the past.” The conference, expected to be attended by the representatives of 72 countries, including the major powers, will […]
The prime minister of Israel doth protest too much. Benjamin Netanyahu reacted ferociously to the passage late last year of a United Nations Security Council resolution which condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He was particularly angered by the decision of the United States –Israel’s chief ally — to abstain, thereby allowing the resolution […]
With eastern Aleppo back in his hands after four years of fierce fighting, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has won a significant victory in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. As the last civilians and rebel fighters were evacuated from there on December 22, Assad could truthfully boast that every major city in Syria — Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, […]
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, was demonstrably disappointed and upset by yesterday’s decision by the United States to abstain and thereby allow the UN Security Council to pass a unanimous resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. “It was to be expected that Israel’s greatest ally would act in accordance […]