Israel’s reconciliation agreement with Turkey, announced on June 27 by the Israeli and Turkish prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu and Binali Yildirim, was six years in the making and is a win-win outcome for both sides. At a time of great ferment, instability and uncertainty in the Middle East, Israel’s rapprochement with Turkey, once its closest […]
In a speech delivered at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas set back the cause of peace and tarnished his credentials as a leader by descending into the muck of antisemitism. Abbas claimed that “a number of rabbis in Israel … made a clear announcement demanding that their […]
After weeks of fierce fighting, Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. air power, stormed into Falluja on June 17, recapturing parts of the city from Islamic State, which had held it since the end of 2013. Sixty five kilometers west of Baghdad, Falluja was the first major city in Iraq to fall to the jihadists. Having […]
It’s fair to say that Israel has massive security problems, even though it’s the strongest country in the Middle East militarily speaking. Sixty eight years after its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed statehood, Israel faces threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the jihadist organization Islamic State. No longer is Israel threatened by conventional Arab […]
The mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, and the former Israeli defence minister, Amir Peretz, aroused the ire and indignation of the right-wing nationalist camp in Israel recently by suggesting that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is an ingredient in the toxic brew of Palestinian terrorism. A day after Khaled Muhamra and Muhammed Muhamra […]
Judging by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s two-day trip to Moscow last week, during which he conferred with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, Israel’s relations with Russia have never been closer and better. The cordial bond that Israel has forged with Russia is infinitely stronger than the testy and often bitter relationship it had […]
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has a point. The Arab peace initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, endorsed by the Arab League shortly afterwards and revised a few years later, is the best way forward to resolve the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict. On June 3, in Paris, Jubeir declared that the Arab League peace […]
In a precedent-setting decision which may yet have ramifications in parts of Europe with a significant Muslim population, Holland’s Ministry of Education recently rejected a request by a Muslim school in The Hague to open a branch in Amsterdam. The undersecretary of the ministry, Sander Dekker, cited Islamic radicalization within the Association of Islamic Studies […]
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog was right to mock Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent assertion that he’s ready to take “brave steps” to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu made this claim in a speech to the Knesset on the eve of appointing Avigdor Liberman, a hawk, as Israel’s new defence minister. Commenting on this […]
Shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cavalierly relieved him of his duties as minister of defence last week, Moshe Yaalon took to the podium to deliver a remarkable speech peppered with ominous references to the growth of extremism in Israel. Yaalon’s comments should be regarded by Israelis as a wakeup, reinforcing widespread fears that Israel is […]