It was like a bolt out of the blue. Ten years ago this month, the Second Lebanon War erupted, catching Israelis and Israel’s political and military leadership by surprise. The Lebanese border region had been fairly quiet until then, but on July 12, 2006, it exploded in fury, enveloping Israel in a 34-day war with […]
Surveys suggest that Israel’s popularity in the United States remains strong despite victories by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement on university campuses. But Israel is losing ground in the Democratic Party, which will nominate Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate later this month in Philadelphia. The party’s liberal wing has begun to turn away […]
In recent days, one political leader in the Middle East has acknowledged an important truth, while another has mangled it beyond recognition. Shortly after Turkey and Israel signed a reconciliation agreement late last month, ending six years of official estrangement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the Istanbul-based organization which […]
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 […]